• 1333 Flood of the Arno River, causing massive damage in Florence as recorded by the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani.
• 1519 Flood ravages Dutch/Friese coast.
• 1783 W.A. Mozart’s Symphony No. 36 is premiered in Linz, Austria.
• 1846 Benjamin Palmer patents artificial leg.
• 1854 Lighthouse built on Alcatraz Island.
• 1862 Dr Richard Gatling patents Gatling machine gun in Indianapolis.
• 1873 Dentist John Beers of San Franciso patents the gold crown.
• 1879 Inventor Thomas Elkins patents refrigerating apparatus.
• 1879 James Ritty patents first cash register, to combat stealing by bartenders in his saloon in Dayton, Ohio.
• 1893 British South Africa Company troops under Dr Jameson occupy Bulawayo, Matabeleland.
• 1922 Howard Carter discovers tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt.
• 1924 California legalizes professional boxing (illegal since 1914).
• 1924 Nellie Tayloe Ross elected first US female governor (Wyoming).
• 1928 US gangster Arnold Rothstein is shot at a business meeting for repudedly refusing to pay gambling debts (dies 6th November).
• 1929 Richard E. Byrd, Laurence McKinley Gould and their polar expedition team begin a two and a half month, 1500-mile(4 414km) dog-sledge journey into the Queen Maud Mountains. The first exploration of the interior of Antarctica.
• 1939 1940 Olympics awarded to Helsinki, Finland
• 1939 First air conditioned automobile (Packard) exhibited, Chicago, Illinois.
• 1948 American-born British poet T. S. Eliot wins Nobel Prize for literature
• 1952 Earthquake & flood strike Kamshatka-South America.
• 1958 Angelo G Roncalli crowned as pope John XXIII.
• 1960 “Misfits” premieres, final movie for Clark Gable & Marilyn Monroe
• 1960 Mary Leakey and Louis Leakey discover first Homo habilis jaw fragments (OH 7) at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania.
• 1963 John Lennon utters his infamous line at a Royal Variety Performance “Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And for the rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewelry…” in London.
• 1966 Flooding of Arno River (Italy) destroys countless art works, kills 113.
• 1972 Bangladesh adopts constitution.
• 1977 UN Security council proclaims weapon embargo against South Africa.
• 1981 Dr George Nichopoulas is acquitted of over-prescribing addictive drugs for Elvis Presley
• 1993 Elton John awarded $518 700 from Sunday Mirror for a false report on his diet.
• 1994 San Francisco: First conference that focusses exclusively on the subject of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web.
• 1996 British girls group the Spice Girls release their debut album “Spice”, goes on to sell 23 million copies
• 1997 “Come On Over” 3rd studio album by Shania Twain is released (Billboard Album of the Year 1999).
• 2008 Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be elected President of the United States
• 2014 The body of the last missing victim is found on board the wrecked Costa Concordia, during its dismantling in Genoa.
• 2015 Plane crashes after take-off from Juba international airport, South Sudan, killing 37, one-year-old survives in father’s arms.
• 2016 Paris Agreement on climate change becomes effective.
Source: www.onthisday.com
