Today in History

1099 – Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders.

1410 – Poles and Lithuanians defeated the Teutonic knights at Tannenburg, Prussia.

1789 – The electors of Paris set up a “Commune” to live without the authority of the government.

1806 – Lieutenant Zebulon Pike began his western expedition from Fort Belle Fountaine, near St. Louis, MO.

1813 – Napoleon Bonaparte’s representatives met with the Allies in Prague to discuss peace terms.

1834 – Lord Napier of England arrived in Macao, China as the first chief superintendent of trade.

1870 – Georgia became the last of the Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.

1876 – George Washington Bradley of St. Louis pitched the first no-hitter in baseball in a 2-0 win over Hartford.

1885 – In New York, the Niagara Reservation State Park opened.

1888 – “Printers’ Ink” was first sold.

1895 – Ex-prime minister of Bulgaria, Stephen Stambulov, was murdered by Macedonian rebels.

1901 – Over 74,000 Pittsburgh steel workers went on strike.

1904 – The first Buddhist temple in the U.S. was established in Los Angeles, CA.

1916 – In Seattle, WA, Pacific Aero Products was incorporated by William Boeing. The company was later renamed Boeing Co.

1918 – The Second Battle of the Marne began during World War I.

1922 – The duck-billed platypus arrived in America, direct from Australia. It was exhibited at the Bronx Zoo in New York City.

1942 – The first supply flight from India to China over the ‘Hump’ was carried to help China’s war effort.

1958 – Five thousand U.S. Marines landed in Beirut, Lebanon, to protect the pro-Western government. The troops withdrew October 25, 1958.

1965 – The spacecraft Mariner IV sent back the first close-up pictures of the planet Mars.

1968 – ABC-TV premiered “One Life to Live”.

1968 – Commercial air travel began between the U.S.

and the U.S.S.R., when the first plane, a Soviet Aeroflot jet, landed at Kennedy International Airport in New York.

1971 – U.S. President Nixon announced he would visit the People’s Republic of China to seek a “normalization of relations.”

1972 – NASA’s Pioneer 10 spacecraft became the first to enter the asteroid belt.

1973 – Nolan Ryan (California Angels) became the first pitcher in two decades to win two no-hitters in a season.

(California)

1981 – Steven Ford, son of former President Gerald R.

Ford, appeared in a seduction scene of “The Young and the Restless” on CBS-TV. Ford played the part of Andy.

1985 – Baseball players voted to strike on August 6th if no contract was reached with baseball owners. The strike turned out to be just a one-day interruption.

1987 – Taiwan ended thirty-seven years of martial law.

2006 – The social networking service Twitter was launched.

2009 – “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” was released in theaters in the U.S. It was the sixth movie in the series.

2011 – “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” was released in theaters in the U.S. and U.K. It was the final film in the Harry Potter series.