• 644 Umar ibn al-Khattab, second Muslim caliph, is killed by a Persian slave in Medina.
• 1493 Christopher Columbus discovers island of Dominica.
• 1752 Composer George Frideric Handel undergoes (failed) eye operation.
• 1783 John Austin, a footpad turned murderer, is the last to be publicly hanged at London’s Tyburn gallows.
• 1793 French playwright, journalist and feminist Olympe de Gouges is guillotined.
• 1868 First black US Congressman elected (John W Menard, Louisiana).
• 1900 First US automobile show opens at Madison Square Garden, New York City.
• 1906 International Radiotelegraph Conference in Berlin selects “SOS” (· · · – – – · · ·) distress signal as the worldwide standard for help.
• 1911 Chevrolet officially enters the automobile market in competition with the Ford Model T. (*NOTE: Chevrolet will be leaving SA at the end of the year.)
• 1927 Tropical storm flooding kills 84 in Winooski River Valley, Vermont.
• 1931 First commercially produced synthetic rubber manufactured.
• 1954 Nobel for physics awarded to Max Born & Walter Bothe.
• 1955 First virus crystallized (announced).
• 1955 Alabama woman bruised by a meteor.
• 1956 “The Wizard of Oz” first televised (CBS-TV).
• 1960 Ivory Coast adopts constitution.
• 1978 First broadcast of “Different Strokes” on NBC TV.
• 1979 Five people mortally wounded by klansmen during anti-Ku Klux Klan demonstration in North Carolina, USA.
• 1986 John Lennon “Menlove Avenue” album released posthumously
• 1989 100s of Bulgarian demonstrate in Sofia for democratic rights
• 1992 Carol Moseley Brown elected first African American woman in US Senate.
• 1992 “I Will Always Love You” (Dolly Parton cover) single released by Whitney Houston (Billboard Song of the Year 1993).
• 1994 Susan Smith who claimed her two children were carjacked arrested for murder.
• 1994 Total solar eclipse in South America (4m23s).
• 1997 California law ends affirmative action.
• 2013 Eight people are killed and 10 are injured after a turboprop plane crashes in northern Bolivia.
• 2013 6 people are killed after an overcrowded ferry sinks in Pattaya, Thailand.
• 2014 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls for global action on climate change after warning from scientists.
• 2014 New York’s 104-storey One World Trade Center officially opens 13 years after the September 11 attacks.
• 2015 Game Maker Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty) buys King.com (Candy Crush) for $5.9 billion.
Source: www.onthisday.com
