1575 – Henry Hudson, England, navigator/explorer (Hudson River)Born
1609 – Henry Hudson begins his exploration of the Hudson River while aboard the Halve Maen.
1642 – Cinq Mars, French plotter, executed
1758 – Charles Messier observes Crab Nebula & begins catalog
1787 – Black Masons form 1st lodge
1818 – Richard Jordan Gatling, American inventor, invented the Gatling gun (d. 1903) was born.
1847 – Mexican–American War: the Battle of Chapultepec begins.
1857 – The SS Central America sinks about 160 miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, drowning a total of 426 passengers and crew, including Captain William Lewis Herndon. The ship was carrying 13–15 tons of gold from the California Gold Rush.
1878 – Cleopatra Needle installed in London
1880 – Henry Louis (HL) Mencken, Baltimore, Md, American newspaperman/critic (Prejudices) Born
1913 – Jesse Owens, American sprinter (d. 1980) was born.
1919 – Adolf Hitler joins the German Workers’ Party (later the Nazi Party).
1931 – George Jones, Saratoga Tx, singer (Golden Rings, Oh Lonesome Me), (d. 2013)Born
1933 – Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, conceives the idea of the nuclear chain reaction.
1938 – Adolf Hitler demands autonomy and self-determination for the Germans of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.
1940 – 4 teens, following their dog down a hole near Lascaux France discover 17,000-year-old drawings now known as Lascaux Cave Paintings
1942 – World War II: RMS Laconia, carrying civilians, Allied soldiers and Italian POWs is torpedoed off the coast of West Africa and sinks with a heavy loss of life.
1943 – World War II: Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy, is rescued from house arrest on the Gran Sasso in Abruzzi, by German commando forces led by Otto Skorzeny.
1944 – Barry White, Galveston Tx, singer (Love’s Theme), (d. 2003)Born
1944 – Leonard Peltier, American Indian activist, and US Political prisoner – Born
1944 – World War II: The liberation of Serbia from Nazi Germany continues. Bajina Bašta in western Serbia is among those liberated cities. Near Trier, American troops enter Germany for the first time.
1952 – Neil Peart, Canadian drummer, songwriter, and producer (Rush) was born.
1952 – Gerry Beckley, rock vocalist/guitarist (America-Daisy Jane)Born
1953 – U.S. Senator and future President John Fitzgerald Kennedy marries Jacqueline Lee Bouvier at St. Mary’s Church in Newport, Rhode Island.
1956 – Brian Robertson, Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist (Thin Lizzy, Motörhead, and Wild Horses) was born.
1958 – US Supreme Court orders Little Rock Ark high school to integrate
1959 – Premiere of Bonanza, the first regularly scheduled TV program presented in color.
1959 – The Soviet Union launches a large rocket, Lunik II, at the moon.
1960 – John F. Kennedy avers he does not speak for the Roman Catholic Church, and neither does the Church speak for him.
1961 – NASA civilian pilot Joseph A Walker takes X-15 to 34,840 m
1966 – “Monkees” premieres on NBC-TV
1966 – Darren E Burrows, Kansas, actor (Ed Chigliak-Northern Exposure)Born
1966 – Ben Folds, American musician Born
1967 – Louis C.K., American comedian, actor, producer, and screenwriter was born.
1968 – Larry LaLonde, American guitarist and songwriter (Primus, Possessed, and Blind Illusion) was born.
1969 – James Frey, American author was born.
1970 – US LSD professor Timothy Leary escapes from California jail
1970 – Dawson’s Field hijackings: Palestinian terrorist]s blow up three hijacked airliners in Jordan, continuing to hold the passengers hostage in various undisclosed locations in Amman.
1974 – Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, ‘Messiah’ of the Rastafari movement, is deposed following a military coup by the Derg, ending a reign of 58 years.
1977 – Robert Lowell, US poet/pacifist (Near the Ocean), dies at 60
1977 – South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko dies in police custody.
1978 – Michael Paget, Welsh guitarist (Bullet for My Valentine) Born
1983 – A Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States, is robbed of approximately US$7 million by Los Macheteros.
1983 – The USSR vetoes a United Nations Security Council Resolution deploring the Soviet shooting down of a Korean civilian jetliner on September 1.
1990 – The two German states and the Four Powers sign the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany in Moscow, paving the way for German reunification.
1992 – Anthony Perkins, actor (Psycho), dies from “AIDs” at 60
1993 – Raymond Burr, actor (Perry Mason), dies of liver cancer at 76
1994 – Frank Eugene Corder crashes a single-engine Cessna 150 into the White House’s south lawn, striking the West wing and killing himself.
2003 – The United Nations lifts sanctions against Libya after that country agreed to accept responsibility and recompense the families of victims in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
2003 – Iraq War: In Fallujah, U.S. forces mistakenly shoot and kill eight Iraqi police officers.
2003 – Johnny Cash, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (The Tennessee Three and The Highwaymen) (b. 1932) died.
2005 – The bodies of more than 40 patients discovered in a flooded hospital in New Orleans.
2009 – The 9-12 Project organized multiple marches and demonstrations across the USA to protest government spending.
2011 – The 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City opens to the public.
2013 – Ray Dolby, American audio engineer and inventor, dies from leukaemia at 80