1639 The first observation of transit of Venus occurred (only 2, record event)

1642 Abel Janzoon Tasman discovers Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania)

1703 First Lutheran pastor ordained in America, Justus Falckner at Philadelphia

1759 Destructive eruption of Vesuvius

1849 The Father of the Tractor John Froelich, the inventor of the first gasoline-powered farm tractor, was born in Froelich, Iowa. Froelich's tractor, completed in 1892, featured a Van Duzen one-cylinder gasoline engine mounted on wooden beams to operate a threshing machine

1853 Bat Masterson gambler, saloon keeper, lawman, journalist; subject of TV series in the 1960s; was born

1859 Charles Darwin publishes "On the Origin of Species"

1863 Civil War battle for Lookout Mountain began in Tennessee

1871 National Rifle Association organized (NYC)

1874 Joseph F Glidden patents barbed wire

1880 Southern University established

1888 Dale Carnegie was born on this day in Maryville, Missouri

1900 On this day, the first gasoline-powered Pierce automobile was taken on a test drive through the streets of Buffalo, New York

1903 Clyde Coleman of NYC patents automobile electric starter

1905 The first Canadian Northern Railway passenger train reaches Edmonton after a 27 hour trip from Winnipeg Manitoba.

1930 The first woman pilot on a transcontinental air flight Miss Ruth Nichols (Mineola, NY to CA), in a Lockheed-Vega, took 7 days

1942 The State Department confirms the existence of Nazi extermination camps and the murder of two million Jews to date.

1944 First B-29 raids from Marianas base.

1944 HMCS Shawinigan (Corvette) lost in the CAbot Strait

1944 US bombers based on Saipan, first attack Tokyo

1947 John Steinbeck's novel "The Pearl" published

1947 Un-American Activities Committee finds "Hollywood 10" in contempt because of their refusal to reveal whether they were communists

1949 Britain nationalizes its steel &iron industry

1952 Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap" opens in London

1954 The first US Presidential airplane christened

1958 Mali becomes an autonomous state within French Community

1963 A first, a live murder on TV-Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald

1964 Rebellion ends in Zaire

1966 400 die of respiratory failure &heart attack in killer NYC smog

1969 Apollo 12 returns to Earth

1969 U.S. Army officials announce 1st Lt. William Calley will be court-martialed for the premeditated murder of 109 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai.

1971 Dan "DB" Cooper parachutes from a Northwest AL 727 with $200,000

1971 Prison rebellion at Rahway State Prison NJ

1983 PLO exchanges 6 Israeli prisoners for 4,500 Palestinians &Lebanese

1989 Communist Party resigns in Czechoslovakia

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