Nicaraguan boxer, politician
Filipino actor, producer, politician, 13th President of the Philippines
Russian tennis player
American model, actress, singer
American actor, director, producer, screenwriter
English scientist, theorist
English biologist
English poet
German politician, Chancellor of West Germany
American philosopher, mathematician, scientist
In 1770, British explorer Captain James Cook first sights Australia. In his log book, he wrote, "what we have as yet seen of this land appears rather low, and not very hilly, the face of the Country green and Woody, but the Sea shore is all a white Sand."
The Battles of Lexington and Concord marked the beginning of the armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and 13 colonies of British North America. The war resulted in U.S. independence.
In 1909, Joan of Arc, a national heroine of France, was beatified by the Roman Catholic Church. She was canonized as a saint in 1920.
In 1919, Leslie Irvin executed the world's first free-fall parachute jump to test a new kind of parachute, which was also the first featuring a ripcord. Unfortunately, the Hollywood stuntman broke a leg on landing.
In 1971, the Soviet Union launched Salyut 1, the world's first manned space station. It was 23 meters long and offered 100 cubic meters of pressurized space.
In 1987, the hugely popular animated sitcom, The Simpsons, debuted on the Tracey Ullman Show in the form of one-minute shorts.
In 1995, Timothy McVeigh, the mastermind behind the Oklahoma City bombing, set a truck bomb at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people and injuring 500. The motives for the attack, which also killed 19 babies and children, remain somewhat unclear.
In 2011, Fidel Castro resigned from his position as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba after 45 years of holding the title.