Holidays

Feast day of St. Mellitus, St. Egbert, St. Wilfrid, St. Ives, St. Fidelis, St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier, and St. William Firmatus.

Armenia: Armenian Martyrs Day.

Events

1558 - Mary, Queen of Scotland, married the French dauphin, Francis II.

1704 - The first regularly issued American newspaper, “the Boston News Letter,” started publication.

1792 - The national anthem of France, “La Marseillaise,” was composed by Captain Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle.

1800 - The Library of Congress was established. President John Adams approved the appropriation of $5,000 for the purchase of “such books as may be necessary for the use of congress.”

1833 - A patent was granted for first soda fountain to Jacob Ebert of Cadiz, Ohio and George Dulty of Wheeling, West Virginia .

1898 - Spain declared war on the United States, rejecting the U.S. ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.

1915 - The Ottoman Turkish Empire began a mass deportation of Armenians during World War I.

1916 - The Irish Republican Brotherhood or Sinn Fein, Irish nationalists led by Patrick Pearse, launched the so-called Easter Rebellion, an armed uprising against British rule.

1953 - Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

1961 - President John F. Kennedy accepted “sole responsibility” for the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.

1962 - MIT executed the first satellite relay of a TV signal.

1970 - China launched its first satellite.

1980 - An ill-fated military operation to rescue the 52 American hostages held in Tehran ended with eight U.S. servicemen dead and no hostages rescued.

1981 - The IBM Personal Computer was introduced.

1990 - The space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope.

2004 - The United States lifts economic sanctions imposed on Libya for its cooperation in eliminating weapons of mass destruction.

2005 - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.

Births

1766 - Robert Bailey Thomas, American founder and editor of “The Farmer’s Almanac.”

1904 - Willem de Kooning, Dutch-born American abstract impressionist painter.

1905 - Robert Penn Warren, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, poet laureate of U.S.

1911 - Jack E. Leonard (Leonard Lebitsky), American comedian, actor.

1940 - Sue Grafton, American author.

1942 - Barbra Streisand, American award-winning vocalist, actress, director.

Deaths

1967 - Vladimir Komarov, Soviet cosmonaut, and the first confirmed human to die during a space mission.

1974 - Bud Abbott, American actor and comedian.

1997 - Pat Paulsen, American comic and presidential candidate.

2004 - Estee Lauder, American cosmetics entrepreneur.

SOURCE: Reference.com