69 – Otho committed suicide ….

69 – Otho committed suicide after being defeated by Vitellius' troops at Bedriacum.

556 – Pelagius I began his reign as Catholic Pope.

1065 – The Norman Robert Guiscard took Bari. Five centuries of Byzantine rule in southern Italy ended.

1175 – Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, signed the Treaty of Montebello with the Lombard League.

1705 – Queen Anne of England knighted Isaac Newton.

1746 – The Duke of Cumberland defeated Bonnie Prince Charlie (and his Jacobites) at the battle of Culloden.

1818 – The U.S. Senate ratified Rush-Bagot amendment to form an unarmed U.S.-Canada border.

1851 – A lighthouse was swept away in a gale at Minot’s Ledge, Massachusetts.

1854 – San Salvador was destroyed by an earthquake.

1862 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis approved conscription act for white males between 18 and 35.

1862 – In the U.S., slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia.

1883 – Paul Kruger became president of the South African Republic.

1900 – The first book of postage stamps was issued. The two-cent stamps were available in books of 12, 24 and 48 stamps.

1905 – Andrew Carnegie donated $10,000,000 of personal money to set up the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

1912 – Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly across the English Channel.

1917 – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin returned to Russia to start Bolshevik Revolution after years of exile.

1922 – Annie Oakley shot 100 clay targets in a row, to set a record.

1922 – The Soviet Union and Germany signed the Treaty of Rapallo under which Germany recognized the Soviet Union and diplomatic and trade relations were restored.

1935 – 'Fibber McGee and Molly' premiered.

1940 – The first no-hit, no-run game to be thrown on an opening day of the major league baseball season was earned by Bob Feller. The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox 1-0.

1942 – The Island of Malta was awarded the George Cross in recognition for heroism under constant German air attack.

1943 – In Basel, Switzerland, chemist Albert Hoffman accidently discovered the the hallucinogenic effects of LSD-25 while working on the medicinal value of lysergic acid.

1944 – The destroyer USS Laffey survived immense damage from attacks by 22 Japanese aircraft off Okinawa.

1945 – American troops entered Nuremberg, Germany.

1947 – The Zoomar lens, invented by Dr. Frank Back, was demonstrated in New York City. It was the first lens to exhibit zooming effects.

1947 – In Texas City, Texas, the French ship Grandcamp, carrying ammonium nitrate fertilizer, caught fire and blew up. The explosions and resulting fires killed 576 people.

1948 – In Paris, the Organization for European Economic Co-operation was set up.

1951 – 75 people were killed when the British submarine Affray sank in the English Channel.

1953 – The British royal yacht Britannia was launched.

1962 – Walter Cronkite began anchoring 'The CBS Evening News'.

1967 – At the Western Open in El Monte, CA, Ken Barnes Jr. became the first skeet shooter to break a perfect 400 x 400 in all four guns (.410,

28, 20, and 12 gauges). He is also the only shooter to do this with pump action guns.