585 BC: Solar eclipse, as predicted by Greek philosopher Thales, occurs while Lydians are at war with the Medes and leads to a truce. It is one of the cardinal dates from which other dates are calculated.
1431: Joan of Arc is accused of relapsing into heresy by donning male clothing again, providing justification for her execution.
1521: Pope Leo X signs treaty with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
1588: King Philip II dispatches the Spanish Armada under the Duke of Medina-Sidonia from Lisbon, Portugal to invade England.
1818: Walk-in-the-Water, the first steam vessel to sail on Lake Erie, is launched.
1892: Sierra Club formed by John Muir and others in San Francisco, for conservation of nature.
1923: US Attorney General says it is legal for women to wear trousers anywhere. (Alas, Joan of Arc was just born too soon.)
1936: Alan Turing submits "On Computable Numbers" for publication, in which he sets out the theoretical basis for modern computers.
1937: Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco opens to vehicular traffic.
1937: Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1952: The women of Greece are given the right to vote.
1959: Monkeys Able and Baker zoom 300 miles (500 km) into space on a Jupiter missile and return safely to Earth, the first animals retrieved from a space mission.
1967: Sailor Francis Chichester arrives home at Plymouth, England, after circumnavigating the globe solo in his yacht Gipsy Moth IV, the first to do so.
1968: Fantasy Records releases the self-titled debut album by American rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival (John Fogerty), featuring their first hit single, a cover of Dale Hawkin's "Susie Q".
1972: White House "plumbers" first break in at the Democratic National Headquarters and install listening devices at Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C.
1987: 60th US National Spelling Bee: Stephanie Petit wins spelling staphylococci.
1996: US President Bill Clinton's former business partners in the Whitewater land deal, James McDougal, Susan McDougal, and Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker, are convicted of fraud.
1997: American aviator Linda Finch completes Amelia Earhart's ill-fated attempted around-the-world flight.
2006: Barry Bonds hits his 715th career home run, passing Babe Ruth on the MLB all-time list.
2019: Johnson & Johnson go on trial in Oklahoma accused of deceptively marketing painkillers and downplaying risks of addiction helping create "opioid epidemic", first of 2,000 cases against US pharmaceutical firms.
2020: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz declares State of Emergency in Minneapolis and activates the Minnesota National Guard after protests over the death of George Floyd in police custody.
2025: Mondo posts historical trivia on this board.
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