HISTORICAL TIMELINE
1499: Switzerland becomes an independent state
1692: The last eight people - Martha Corey, Margaret Scott, Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Wilmott Redd, Samuel Wardwell, and Mary Parker - are hanged for allegedly practicing witchcraft as a result of the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts Bay Colony; 19 are hanged overall, with 6 other deaths caused by the hysteria
1735: Robert Walpole becomes the first British "Prime Minister" (actually the first Lord of the Treasury) to live at 10 Downing Street
1789: U.S. Congress passes act requiring the first Postmaster General to report to the President through the Secretary of the Treasury
1817: John Quincy Adams becomes U.S. Secretary of State
1851: City of Des Moines, Iowa (USA), incorporated as Fort Des Moines
1862: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issues the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, threatening to free all enslaved people in the rebel Southern states if those states fail to rejoin the Union by January 1, 1863
1890: First known ascent of Mount Olympus, Washington (USA), by an expedition led by Joseph P. O'Neil
1906: New Zealand domestic workers call for a 68 hour workweek; they are unsuccessful
1908: Bulgaria declares independence from the Ottoman Empire (Turkey)
1920: Chicago grand jury convenes to investigate charges that 8 White Sox players conspired to fix the 1919 World Series
1950: Omar Bradley is promoted to the rank of 5-star general in the U.S. Army
1960: Mali (formerly French Sudan) declares independence from France
1968: Iraq adopts a constitution
1969: San Francisco Giant Willie Mays becomes the second player to hit 600 homeruns
1970: U.S. President Richard Nixon requests 1,000 new FBI agents for college campuses
1975: Second assassination attempt on U.S. President Gerald Ford by Sara Jane Moore fails in San Francisco, California (USA)
1976: TV drama "Charlie's Angels," starring Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith, and John Forsythe, premieres
1980: John Lennon and Yoko Ono sign a recording contract with Geffen Records
1983: The Everly Brothers reunite after ten years apart in concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London
1986: LA Dodger Fernando Valenzuela is the first Mexican to win 20 games
1987: U.S. TV series "Full House," starring Bob Saget and John Stamos, premieres
1988: Canada begins production of its $5 Silver Maple Leaf bullion coin
1989: MLB St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Leon Durham is suspended for 60 days due to drugs
1989: TV drama "Baywatch," starring David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson, premieres on NBC
1991: University of California makes Dead Sea Scrolls public
1994: "Friends," a TV sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman and starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer, premieres on NBC
2003: TV sitcom, "Two and a Half Men," created by Chuck Lorre and Lee Aronsohn and starring Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer, premieres
2015: Palangkaraya in Indonesian Borneo records the highest air pollutant index (API) value ever recorded at 1,986 due to haze covered by forest fires deliberately lit to clear land for palm oil production
2015: Volkswagen admits that 11 million cars were wrongly programmed to appear to emit fewer emissions than they do
2024: China sets a new world record for the most resistive magnet at 42.02 tesla at Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, creating a magnetic field more than 800,000 times stronger than Earth's
FAMOUS BIRTHDAYS
1290: Bilbo Baggins, fictional main character of J.R.R. Tolkien's 1937 novel The Hobbit, born in Shire Reckoning
1791: Michael Faraday, English scientist, discovered electromagnetic induction, invented first electric motor, born in Newington Butts, England
1833: Stephen Dill Lee, American first president of Mississippi State University (USA), born in Charleston, South Carolina (USA)
1955: John Brennan, American director of the CIA (2013-18), born in North Bergen, New Jersey (USA)
1958: Andrea Bocelli, Italian tenor (The Prayer), born in Lajatico, Italy
1958: Joan Jett [Larkin], American singer (Blackhearts - "I Love Rock 'n Roll"), born in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania (USA)
NOTABLE DEATHS
1554: Francisco Vazquez de Coronado, Spanish explorer and conquistador who led the first European expedition to discover the Grand Canyon, dies of disease at about 44
2007: Marcel Marceau, French actor and mime artist most famous for his stage persona, "Bip the Clown" dies in Cahor, France at age 84; Alexander Neander, personal assistant announced that he died in a retirement home
2011: Mary Vesta Williams, an American singer songwriter, who performed across genres such as soul, funk, R&B, quiet storm, jazz soul, and urban contemporary dies at 53 in her hotel room in El Segundo, California (USA). Her cause of death was determined to be natural death from hypertensive heart disease following an extensive autopsy
2015: Yogi Berra, renowned American professional baseball player, coach, and manager (19 seasons in MLB, notably with the New York Yankees, where he secured 10 World Series Championships) dies from natural causes
NATIONAL DAYS/HOLIDAYS/
INTERNATIONALLY OBSERVED HOLIDAYS
Chainmail Day
Deaf Dog Awareness Week
Recycle Now Week
Migraine Awareness Week
Child Passenger Safety Awareness Week
Rosh Hashanah
Sea Otter Awareness Week
National Eye Health Week
National Brown Butter Day - founded in 2024 by the Palatable Life
National States and Capitals Day - founded in 2022 by Dick & Jane Educational Snacks
National Online Recovery Day - founded in 2020 by Lionrock
National Family Day - fourth Monday in September
National Girls' Night In - founded in 2018 by Ketel One Botanical
National White Chocolate Day
National Ice Cream Cone Day
Hobbit Day
National Elephant Appreciation Day
World Rhino Day
World Reflexology Week
Dear Diary Day
World Car Free Day
Autumnal Equinox
American Business Women's Day
Baltic Unity Day - Lithuania, Latvia
First Day of Mikeli, Latvia
Independence Day - Bulgaria
Resistance Fighting Day - Estonia
International Day of Radiant Peace
National Flaunt Your Favorite Beach Towel Day
National Leg Wear Day
Falls Prevention Awareness Day
National Centenarian's Day
International Week of Deaf People