1462 – Vlad III the Impaler attempts to assassinate Mehmed II (The Night Attack) forcing him to retreat from Wallachia.
1631 – Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, will spend the next 17 years building her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: Colonists inflict heavy casualties on British forces while losing the Battle of Bunker Hill.
1789 – In France, the Third Estate declares itself the National Assembly.
1839 – In the Kingdom of Hawaii, Kamehameha III issues the edict of toleration which gives Roman Catholics the freedom to worship in the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaii Catholic Church and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace are established as a result.
1876 – American Indian Wars: Battle of the Rosebud – 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook’s forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory.
1877 – American Indian Wars: Battle of White Bird Canyon – the Nez Perce defeat the U.S. Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory.
1882 – Igor Stravinsky, Oranienbaum, Russia, composer (Rite of Spring) [OS 05/06] Born
1885 – The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.
1930 – U.S. President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law.
1932 – Bonus Army: around a thousand World War I veterans amass at the United States Capitol as the U.S. Senate considers a bill that would give them certain benefits.
1933 – Union Station Massacre: in Kansas City, Missouri, four FBI agents and captured fugitive Frank Nash are gunned down by gangsters attempting to free Nash.
1933 – Harry Browne Born, American free-market libertarian writer, politician (LP Presidential Nominee), and investment analyst (d. 2006)
1940 – World War II: sinking of the RMS Lancastria by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France. At least 3,000 are killed; Britain’s worst maritime disaster.
1940 – The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fall under the occupation of the Soviet Union.
1943 – Newt Gingrich, American politician, 58th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives was born
1943 – Barry Manilow, American singer-songwriter and producer was born
1945 – Art Bell, American radio host and author was born.
1947 – George S. Clinton, American composer and musician (Inventor on P-Funk Parliment Funkadelic)Born
1947 – Paul Young, English singer and percussionist (d. 2000) Born
1947 – Maxwell Perkins, American editor and publisher for Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe, dies at 62
1951 – Joe Piscopo, Passaic NJ, comedian (SNL, Miller Lite commercials)born
1952 – Jack Parsons, American rocket-fuel pioneer and renegade occultist (b. 1914)Dies
1953 – East Germany Workers Uprising: in East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.
1958 – Jello Biafra, American musician (Dead Kennedys) and activist BORN
1958 – The Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing, in the process of being built to connect Vancouver and North Vancouver (Canada), collapses into the Burrard Inlet killing many of the ironworkers and injuring others.
1960 – The Nez Perce tribe is awarded $4 million for 7 million acres (28,000 km2) of land undervalued at 4 cents/acre in the 1863 treaty.
1962 – Michael Monroe, Finnish singer (Hanoi Rocks)
1963 – The United States Supreme Court rules 8 to 1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against requiring the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord’s Prayer in public schools.
1963 – Greg Kinnear, actor/talk show host (Talk Soup, Sabrina, Later)
1964 – Erin Murphy, actress (Tabitha Stevens-Bewitched) Born
1967 – The People’s Republic of China announces a successful test of its first thermonuclear weapon.
1970 – Will Forte, American writer, actor and comedian Born
1971 – President Richard Nixon declares the U.S. War on Drugs.
1972 – Watergate scandal: five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by some members of the Republican party to illegally wiretap the opposition.
1991 – Apartheid: the South African Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act which required racial classification of all South Africans at birth.
1992 – A “joint understanding” agreement on arms reduction is signed by U.S. President George Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (this would be later codified in START II).
1994 – Following a televised low-speed highway chase, O.J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.
2012 – Rodney King, American victim of police brutality (b. 1965) died.