Interesting Facts

9th August 1173 – Construction of the campanile of the Cathedral of Pisa (now known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa) began. It took two centuries to complete. 1483 – The Sistine Chapel opened in Rome with the celebration of a mass. 1842 – The Webster–Ashburton Treaty was signed, establishing the United States–Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains. 1892 – Thomas Edison received a patent for a two-way telegraph. 1902 – Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1922 – Philip Larkin, English poet and author was born. 1936 – The Summer Olympic Games aka Games of the XI Olympiad were held in Berlin. Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal at the games becoming the first American to win four medals in one Olympiad. 1942 – Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi was arrested in Bombay by British forces, launching the Quit India Movement. 1945 – World War II: Nagasaki, Japan was devastated when an atomic bomb, Fat...

30th July 762 – Baghdad was founded. 1866 – New Orleans's Democratic government ordered police to raid an integrated Republican Party meeting, killing 40 people and injuring 150. 1965 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid. 1975 – Jimmy Hoffa disappeared from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He was never seen or heard from again. 2003 – In Mexico, the last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolled off the assembly line. 2006 – The world's longest running music show, Top of the Pops, was broadcast for the last time on BBC Two. The show had aired for 42 years. 2006 – At least 28 civilians, including 16 children were killed by the Israeli Air Force in Lebanon. 2005 - Anthony Walker, a British student was murdered in a racially motivated crime. 2007 - The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to ...

8th July 1949 – Celebrities Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Danny Kaye, Fredric March, John Garfield, Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson were named in an FBI report as Communist Party members. 1953 – The United States Supreme Court ruled that Washington, D.C. restaurants could not refuse to serve black patrons. 1965 - Ronald Biggs who was serving a 30-year prison sentence for his part in the Great Train Robbery escaped from Wandsworth prison. 1968 – James Earl Ray was arrested for the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. 1984 – Homosexuality was declared legal in the Australia state of New South Wales. 1996 - Three young children and four adults were attacked by a man with a machete at an infant school in Wolverhampton, England. 2001 – Mamoru Takuma stabbed 8 school pupils to death at Ikeda Elementary School. 2003 - Conjoined Iranian twins, Ladan Bijani and Laleh Bijani (in Persian: لادن و لاله بیژنی ), who had volunteered to go ahead with a major operation to separate the...

18th June 1429 – French forces under the leadership of Joan of Arc defeated the main English army under Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of Patay. This turned the tide of the Hundred Years' War. 1767 – Samuel Wallis, an English sea captain, sighted Tahiti and is considered the first European to reach the island. 1812 - The United States declared war on on the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1815 – The Battle of Waterloo led to Napoleon Bonaparte abdicating the throne of France for the second and final time. 1858 – Charles Darwin received a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that included nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin's own. This prompted Darwin to publish his theory. 1873 – Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 US presidential election. (The 19th Amendment (Amendment XIX) to the United States Constitution, which prohibits each of the states and the federal government from denying any citizen the right t...

7th June 1546 - England signed the Peace of Andres with Scotland and Ireland. 1557 - England declared war on France. 1862 - The United States and Britain agreed to suppress the slave trade. 1965 - Sony Corp introduced its home video tape recorder, priced at $995. 1975 - Sony introduced the Betamax videocassette recorder for sale to the public 2012 - Remains of the Curtain Theatre, where some of Shakespeare's plays were first performed, were found under a pub in London.