1837 ~ Birthday of Adam Opel, German engineer and industrialist.

1860 ~ Birthday of J.M. Barrie, Author, creator of Peter Pan.

1874 ~ Birthday of Howard Carter, British archaeologist.

1901 ~ Australia opened its first parliament in Melbourne. (PDF)

1903 ~ Death of Paul Gauguin, French Post-Impressionist painter.

1972 ~ Israeli commandos liberated a hijacked Sabena airliner at Lod airport in Tel Aviv.

1974 ~ The U.S. Congress’s House Judiciary Committee opened hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.

1986 ~ Death of Tenzing Norgay, Mountaineer.

1994 ~ Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.

2002 ~ Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening suspended executions in his state while a study was done on whether the death penalty was being meted out in a racially discriminatory way.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1818 ~ Death of Paul Revere, engraver, American Patriot.

1838 ~ Birthday of John Wilkes Booth, Actor, assassin of Abraham Lincoln.

1857 ~ The Indian Mutiny began when the Sepoys revolted against the British Army.

1869 ~ The first transcontinental railroad in the U.S. was completed at Promontory, Utah.

1872 ~ Victoria Woodhull became the first woman nominated for U.S. President.

1899 ~ Birthday of Fred Astaire, Singer, Dancer & Actor.

1924 ~ J. Edgar Hoover became director of the FBI.

1933 ~ The Nazis staged massive public book burnings.

1940 ~ British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned, and Winston Churchill formed a new government.

2002 ~ FBI agent Robert Hanssen was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole for selling American secrets to Russia.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1904 ~ Birthday of Salvador Dalí, Spanish painter.

1918 ~ Birthday of Richard Feynman, American Physicist.

1930 ~ Birthday of Edsger Dijkstra, Dutch computer scientist.

1973 ~ Charges against Daniel Ellsberg for his role in the Pentagon Papers case were dismissed.

1981 ~ Death of Bob Marley, Reggae musician.

1987 ~ The first heart-lung transplant took place in Baltimore, Maryland.

1988 ~ Death of Kim Philby, Spy.

1997 ~ IBM's Deep Blue chess-playing supercomputer defeated Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player.

1998 ~ India announced that it has tested a group of nuclear weapons.

2001 ~ Death of Douglas Adams, Science Fiction author.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1820 ~ Birthday of Florence Nightingale, Nurse.

1845 ~ Birthday of Gabriel Fauré, Composer.

1884 ~ Death of Bedřich Smetana, Composer.

1889 ~ Death of John Cadbury, Chocolate Entrepreneur.

1918 ~ Birthday of Julius Rosenberg, Spy.

1943 ~ Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.

1962 ~ Douglas MacArthur delivered his famous "Duty, Honor, Country" valedictory speech at West Point.

1971 ~ Mick Jagger married Bianca Perez Morena de Macias in St Tropez.

1972 ~ The Rolling Stones released their ''Exile on Main St.'' album.

2000 ~ The Tate Modern art gallery opened in London.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1787 ~ Captain Arthur Phillip left Portsmouth, England with eleven ships of convicts to establish a penal colony in Australia.

1842 ~ Birthday of Sir Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert & Sullivan, Composer.

1861 ~ Queen Victoria issued a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognized the breakaway Confederate states as having belligerent rights.

1888 ~ Brazil abolished slavery.

1912 ~ The Royal Flying Corps (now the Royal Air Force) was established in the U.K.

1937 ~ Birthday of Roger Zelazny, Science Fiction author.

1940 ~ Winston Churchill made his "blood, tears, toil and sweat" speech to the House of Commons.

1981 ~ Mehmet Ali Ağca attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II at St. Peter's Square in Rome.

1985 ~ The confrontation between the MOVE organization and Philadelphia's city government left 11 MOVE members and one police officer dead and 61 homes destroyed by fire.

1995 ~ Alison Hargreaves became the first woman to climb Everest without oxygen or the help of sherpas.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1265 ~ Birthday of Dante Alighieri, Italian Poet.

1787 ~ Delegates began gathering in Philadelphia for a convention to draw up the U.S. Constitution.

1925 ~ Death of H. Rider Haggard, Author.

1944 ~ Birthday of George Lucas, film Director & Producer.

1948 ~ The independent state of Israel was proclaimed.

1955 ~ The USSR and seven other communist bloc countries signed a mutual defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact.

1973 ~ Skylab 1, the first American space station, was launched.

1978 ~ Death of Robert Menzies, twelfth Prime Minister of Australia.

1998 ~ Death of Frank Sinatra, Singer & Actor.

2004 ~ Piers Morgan was fired as editor of the Daily Mirror for publishing photographs of alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British soldiers that were shown to be fake.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1567 ~ Birthday of Claudio Monteverdi, Italian Composer.

1869 ~ Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association in New York city.

1886 ~ Death of Emily Dickinson, Poet.

1911 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Standard Oil Company, requiring its break up under the Sherman Anti-Trust act.

1919 ~ The Winnipeg General Strike began.

1930 ~ Ellen Church became the first airline stewardess, on a flight from Oakland, California to Chicago, Illinois.

1940 ~ Nylon stockings went on general sale for the first time in the U.S.

1957 ~ Britain tested its first hydrogen bomb in Operation Grapple.

1972 ~ George C. Wallace was shot and left paralyzed while campaigning for the U.S. Democratic presidential nomination.

1988 ~ The Soviet Union began withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1866 ~ Charles Hires invented root beer.

1868 ~ The U.S. Senate failed to convict President Andrew Johnson of the articles of impeachment against him.

1905 ~ Birthday of Henry Fonda, Actor.

1919 ~ Birthday of Liberace, American pianist.

1943 ~ The Jewish Warsaw ghetto uprising ended.

1955 ~ Birthday of Olga Korbut, gymnast.

1966 ~ Birthday of Janet Jackson, Super Bowl Half Time Flasher.

1969 ~ The Soviet space probe Venera 5 landed on Venus.

2002 ~ Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones opened in theaters.

2005 ~ Newsweek magazine retracted its Koran abuse story that started protests in Afghanistan.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1749 ~ Birthday of Edward Jenner, inventor of vaccination.

1838 ~ Death of Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, French diplomat.

1935 ~ Death of Paul Dukas, French composer.

1936 ~ Birthday of Dennis Hopper, Actor & Director.

1943 ~ The RAF carried out the Dambusters raid.

1954 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court issued their decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

1974 ~ Thirty-three people were killed by terrorist bombings in Ireland.

1992 ~ Death of Lawrence Welk, American musician.

1996 ~ President Bill Clinton signed a measure requiring neighborhood notification when sex offenders move in - Megan's Law.

2004 ~ Same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1872 ~ Birthday of Bertrand Russell, Logician & Philosopher, awarded The Nobel Prize in Literature 1950.

1910 ~ The Earth passed through the tail of Halley’s Comet.

1911 ~ Death of Gustav Mahler, Austrian Composer.

1919 ~ Birthday of Dame Margot Fonteyn, Ballet dancer.

1937 ~ Birthday of Brooks Robinson, Baseball Hall of Famer.

1944 ~ Monte Cassino fell to the Allies.

1974 ~ India became the sixth nuclear nation by successfully detonated its first nuclear weapon.

1975 ~ Death of Leroy Anderson, American Composer.

1980 ~ Mount St. Helens in Washington state exploded, leaving 57 people dead or missing.

1998 ~ The U.S. government filed an antitrust case against Microsoft Corp.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1536 ~ Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England was beheaded for adultery.

1795 ~ Birthday of Johns Hopkins, Philanthropist.

1864 ~ Death of Nathaniel Hawthorne, American Author.

1890 ~ Birthday of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese leader.

1921 ~ The U.S. Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants.

1925 ~ Birthday of Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge leader.

1935 ~ Death of T. E. Lawrence, English soldier ("Lawrence of Arabia").

1965 ~ Tui Malila, the longest living animal known, died in Tonga at the age of either 188 or 192.

2001 ~ Zhonghua Sun was killed by People's Republic of China government officials because she refused to be sterilized under the "One child" policy.

2004 ~ PM Blair hit with a purple flour filled condom.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1772 ~ Birthday of Sir William Congreve, English inventor (“By the rockets’ red glare”).

1806 ~ Birthday of John Stuart Mill, English philosopher.

1873 ~ Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.

1883 ~ The eruption of Krakatoa began, leading ultimately to the volcano's destruction three months later.

1896 ~ Death of Clara Schumann, German Pianist and Composer.

1901 ~ Birthday of Max Euwe, Dutch world chess champion.

1927 ~ Charles Lindbergh took off from Long Island, New York, on the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, arriving in Paris the next day.

1961 ~ U.S. marshals were sent to restore order in race-torn Montgomery, Alabama.

1980 ~ In a referendum in Quebec, the population rejected by a 60% vote the proposal from its government to move towards independence from Canada.

2000 ~ Death of Jean Pierre Rampal, French flutist.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1471 ~ Birthday of Albrecht Dürer, German painter and graphic artist.

1881 ~ Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross.

1895 ~ Death of Franz von Suppé, Austrian composer.

1921 ~ Birthday of Andrei Sakharov, physicist and human rights activist, awarded the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize.

1924 ~ Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a "thrill killing".

1933 ~ Birthday of Maurice André, trumpeter.

1956 ~ The U.S. detonated the first airborne hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

1991 ~ Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a female suicide bomber.

2000 ~ Death of Sir John Gielgud, British actor.

2004 ~ Stanislav Petrov was awarded the World Citizen Award for averting a potential World War III in 1983.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1813 ~ Birthday of Richard Wagner, Composer.

1840 ~ Transporting British convicts to the New South Wales colony was abolished.

1856 ~ In one of the more impressive expressions of American democracy, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the hall of the U.S. Senate because of a speech Sumner had made which attacked Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas.

1859 ~ Birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Physician & Writer.

1885 ~ Death of Victor Hugo, French author.

1907 ~ Birthday of Sir Laurence Olivier, Actor & Director.

1907 ~ Birthday of Hergé, comic book creator.

1947 ~ The Truman Doctrine was enacted.

1969 ~ The lunar module of Apollo 10 separated from the command module and flew to within nine miles of the moon's surface in a dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing.

1972 ~ Ceylon became the republic of Sri Lanka, adopted a new constitution, and joined the British Commonwealth.

__________________
Eudaimonia

1430 ~ Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians, who sold her to the English.

1701 ~ Captain William Kidd was hanged in London after being convicted of piracy and murder.

1848 ~ Birthday of Otto Lilienthal, aviation pioneer.

1873 ~ Canada's North West Mounted Police force was established.

1906 ~ Death of Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian writer.

1908 ~ Birthday of John Bardeen, the only man to have been awarded the Nobel prize in Physics twice; 1956 & 1972.

1934 ~ Death of Bonnie and Clyde, Outlaws.

1951 ~ Birthday of Anatoly Karpov, Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion.

1977 ~ More than 100 children and six teachers were taken hostage in a primary school in northern Holland.

1969 ~ The UK release of Tommy, by rock band The Who; the first rock opera.

__________________
Eudaimonia