306

Constantine I is proclaimed Roman Emperor by his troops.

1814

Near Niagara Falls on this day in 1814, British troops commanded by General Phineas Riall thwarted an invasion of Canada by a U.S. force under General Jacob Brown in the Battle of Lundy’s Lane during the War of 1812.

1814

English engineer George Stephenson introduces his first steam locomotive, a travelling engine designed for hauling coal on the Killingworth wagonway named Blücher.

1834

English Romantic poet and literary critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge died.

1853

In a macabre instance of rough frontier justice, California Rangers claim a $6,000 award by bringing in the severed head—preserved in whiskey—of outlaw Joaquin Murrieta.

1868

The U.S. Congress formed the Wyoming Territory.

1898

U.S. forces under General Nelson A. Miles invaded Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War.

1906

Johnny Hodges—a jazz alto saxophonist who was a featured soloist in Duke Ellington’s orchestra, known for his brilliant improvisational sense of composition—was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1917

Dancer and spy Mata Hari sentenced to die.

1919

A member of the foreign ministry of the newly formed Soviet government, Lev Karakhan, issued the Karakhan Manifesto, in which he offered to relinquish all Soviet claims to the special rights and privileges in China won by the Russian tsarist government.

1943

Benito Mussolini falls from power.

1944

World War II: Operation Spring – one of Canada’s bloodiest days, 18,444 casualties and 5,021 killed.

1946

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis stage their first show as a comedy team at 500 Club in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

1952

Puerto Rico attained its own government as a commonwealth of the United States.

1965

At the Newport (Rhode Island) Folk Festival, American singer and songwriter Bob Dylan initially eschewed his acoustic guitar to go electric; the controversial performance is considered one of the most pivotal moments in the history of rock and roll.

1978

Louise Brown, the first human conceived using in vitro fertilization, was born in England.

1984

Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Yevgenyevna Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space.

1997

Scientists announce the first human stem cells to be cultured in a laboratory using tissue taken from aborted human embryos.

1999

86th Tour de France: Lance Armstrong wins 1st of 7 consecutive Tour de France titles but is later disqualified for drug cheating.

2000

A Concorde supersonic airplane—Air France flight 4590—crashed outside Paris, killing all 109 people on board and four others on the ground; the event was believed to have hastened the end of all Concorde operations three years later.

2007

Indian lawyer and politician Pratibha Patil was sworn in as president of India, becoming the first woman to hold the office.