Long-dormant Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic ash. An estimated 20-thousand people died.
Rome was overrun by the Visigoths, an event that symbolized the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, He conquered Normandy. born
Saladin besieges the castle of Chastelet
Alexander II, King of Scotland born
Count of Holland Floris IV born
Pope Gregory relieves the Stedingers of excommunication
Coronation of Rudolph of Hapsburg as King of Germany
Death of Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor
6,000 Jews killed at Mainz
Printing of the Gutenberg Bible completed
Beginning of the Peasant's War
Composer Ercole Bottrigari born
In South America, Gonzalo Pizarro returns to the mouth of the Amazon River after having sailed the length of the great river as far as the Andes Mountains.
Failure of the Rebellion of the Earl of Murray against Mary, Queen of Scots
The slaughter of French Protestants at the hands of Catholics began in Paris. Known as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. The massacre continued throughout France and some 50,000 French Protestants (Huguenots) were slaughtered.
Margaret Rohrfelder, Barbara Ulmer and Ursula Sailler, burned as witches.(burned at Waldsee, Germany)
English poet Robert Herrick (Gather ye rosebuds) born
Composer Alessandro Marcello born
Dutch mathematician and astronomer Cornelis Douwes born
Pioneer British abolitionist William Wilberforce born
Grand duke of Luxembourg and king of Netherlands Willem I Frederik (1814-40) born
King Louis XVI abolishes torture as a means to get suspects to confess.
A letter was on its way from Leopold Mozart, desribing his son Wolfgang as lazy. Leopold and Wolfgang always had difficult relations. Leopold was sharply critical of his son to his face as well as to third parties.
Antarctic explorer James Weddell, Ostend England born
British troops under General Robert Ross capture Washington, D.C., which they set on fire in retaliation for the American burning of the parliament building in York (Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada. With Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's flagship unable to fight, an outmatched British flotilla faced the prospect of a remarkable victory. But Perry transferred his pennant to another ship and fought on.
Sir Daniel Gooch, laid 1st successful trans-Atlantic cables born
Composer Jacopo Tomadini born
Composer Emmanuele Muzio born
Brigadere General George Hume "Maryland" Steuart (Confederate Army) born
Composer Theodore Dubois born
Composer Eduard Napravnik born
Flemish painter Edouard J A Agneessens (Slave Market) born
Cornelius Swarthout received a patent for the waffle iron.
English author and parodist Sir Max Beerbohm born
Joshua Lionel Cowen, inventor of the electric toy train born
William Francis Gibbs, naval architect, designed the Liberty ships born
Thomas Edison files a patent for the motion picture camera. Unfortunately, the film was not patented for another 6 years.
Congress passes the first graduated income tax law, which is declared unconstitutional the next year.
Roman Catholic Cardinal Richard Cushing, archbishop of Boston born
Country music publisher Fred Rose born
Malcolm Cowley, poet and translator who wrote The Dream of the Golden Mountains born
Author Jorge Luis Borges was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Borges, referred to as the "Blind Visionary", was a leader of the Ultraismo movement of literature in Latin America, which combined abstract images with surrealist thought. born
Workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.
TV personality Durward Kirby born
TV host Dennis James born
Former education secretary Shirley Hufstedler born
Yasir Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Movement born
Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly non-stop across the United States, traveling from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey, in just over 19 hours.
Composer-musician-author Mason Williams born
In the battle of the Eastern Solomons, the third carrier-versus-carrier battle of the war, U.S. naval forces defeat a Japanese force attempting to screen reinforcements for the Guadalcanal fighting.
Rock musician Jim Capaldi (Traffic) born
Rock musician Ken Hensley (Uriah Heep) born
Edith Mae Irby becomes the University of Arkansas' first African-American student.
The North Atlantic Treaty went into effect.
Actor Joe Regalbuto ("Murphy Brown") born
US, sci-fi author Orson Scott Card Winner of Hugo and Nebula Awards for Ender's War born
The Communist Control Act went into effect, virtually outlawing the Communist Party in the United States.
Actor Steve Guttenberg born
Three days after Hawaiian statehood, Hiram L. Fong was sworn in as the first Chinese-American US Senator while Daniel K. Inouye was sworn in as the first Japanese-American US Representative.
Baseball player Cal Ripken Junior born
Talk show host Craig Kilborn ("The Late Late Show") born
Rock singer John Bush (Anthrax) born
Actress Marlee Matlin born
France became the world's fifth thermonuclear power as it exploded a hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific.
Country singer Kristyn Osborn (SheDaisy) born
A bomb planted by anti-war extremists exploded at the University of Wisconsin's Army Math Research Center in Madison, killing 33-year-old researcher Robert Fassnacht.
Model Claudia Schiffer born
Cornelius Cardew founded a consort that he called the "Scratch Orchestra." On this day "Scratch Orchestra" was performed at the Promos in London, playing a work by Cardew.
Actor-comedian Dave Chappelle born
Actor Barret Oliver (Never Ending Story, Secret Garden) born
Actor Carmine Giovinazzo ("Shasta McNasty") born
Mark David Chapman was sentenced in New York to 20 years to life in prison for shooting to death rock star John Lennon.
Corazon Aquino, widow of Philippine opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., returned to her homeland for her husband's funeral, rejecting President Ferdinand E. Marcos' denial that his government had any part in Aquino's assassination.
On the heels of the Republican convention, Democrat Walter F. Mondale said the proceedings had demonstrated that President Reagan represented the party of the rich, while Reagan questioned Mondale's commitment to a strong defense.
Security police in South Africa reported arresting 27 anti-apartheid leaders as racial violence continued to rock the country.
Financially troubled Frontier Airlines shut down, stranding thousands of passengers throughout the West.
A federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled that public schools could require students to study textbooks not accepted by religious fundamentalists.
A military jury in Quantico, Virginia, sentenced Marine Sergeant Clayton Lonetree to 30 years in prison for disclosing US secrets to the Soviet Union. (The sentence was later reduced; with additional time off for good behavior, Lonetree ended up serving eight years in a military prison.)
Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis picked up the endorsement of the AFL-CIO while Republican nominee George Bush campaigned in California with President Reagan.
Colombian drug lords declared "total war" on the government.
Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti banned Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose from baseball for life after having been caught gambling.
Voyager II flies past Neptune.
Irish-British hostage Brian Kennan was released by his captors in Lebanon after being held more than four years.
A Reno, Nevada, judge ruled that the British heavy metal rock band "Judas Priest" was not responsible for the deaths of two youths who shot themselves after listening to the band's music.
Iraqi troops surrounded foreign missions in Kuwait. Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev sent a message to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein warning the Persian Gulf situation was "extremely dangerous.""
Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev resigned as head of the Communist Party, culminating a stunning Kremlin shakeup that followed the failed coup by hard-liners. In Moscow, thousands of people held a martyrs' funeral for three men killed fighting the coup.
China and South Korea established diplomatic ties.
Hurricane "Andrew" smashed into Florida with sustained winds of up to 145 mph, causing record damage; 55 deaths in Florida, Louisiana and the Bahamas were blamed on the storm.
The Clinton administration unveiled its proposed revisions to wetlands policy, which would expand protection, but also give landowners some of the flexibility they had long sought.
Israeli and PLO negotiators reached agreement on an accord to give the Palestinians control of health care, taxation, education and other services in West Bank areas still controlled by Israel.
A Washington, D.C., superior court denied Benjamin Chavis's request to block his ouster as executive director of the NAACP.
China expelled Chinese-American human rights activist Harry Wu, hours after convicting him of spying.
Microsoft Corp. began selling its highly publicized Windows 95 personal computer software.
Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt died. His photograph of a sailor kissing a nurse in New York's Times Square became one of the best known images of America's joy at Japan's surrender in World War II.
Four women began two days of academic orientation at The Citadel; they were the first female cadets admitted to the South Carolina military school since Shannon Faulkner.
Pope John Paul the Second offered tough challenges and affectionate encouragement to more than one million faithful attending Mass during closing World Youth Day ceremonies in Paris.
The United States and Britain agreed to allow two Libyan suspects wanted in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 to be tried in a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands.
A federal court rejected the Census Bureau's plans to use statistical sampling for the 2000 census, a decision later upheld by the Supreme Court.
Actor E.G. Marshall died in Mount Kisco, New York, at age 84.
The Federal Reserve raised borrowing costs for millions of Americans, increasing its target for the federal funds rate by a quarter point to 5.25 percent, and hiking the discount rate a quarter point to 4.75 percent.
English FA rescinds red cards, FIFA backlash probable
Update: U.S. Army intelligence had detected 9/11 terrorists year before, says officer
Australian governments to partially fund Forbes conference
Jetliner crash-lands in Peru
Turkmen president bans recorded music in public
Mixed success for Brampton Day at Ontario Place
Canadian woman faces 234 counts of double-doctoring
Google provides Gmail access to American cell phone customers
Google Talk released in beta form
Butter sculpture returns to Canadian National Exhibition
Clothes from China piling up on European borders
Allegations that New Zealand school administers corporal punishment
India may pull peacekeeping troops out of Lebanon
Local communities in the UK must "root out" extremism, says Ruth Kelly
Ukraine celebrates Independence Day
UK population exceeds 60 million for the first time
8 Afghans killed in early morning raid
Man arrested for broadcasting Hezbollah television in New York
Netherlands flight alert suspects to be freed
Confrontation between Greenpeace and fishermen off Marseille
Ireland's Roscrea town centre evacuated
France offers promised 2000 soldiers to the UN in Lebanon
Pluto loses planet status
Telephone network access on iPhone unlocked by teen
Former Timberwolf Eddie Griffin dies at 25
Squirrel banned from Finnish supermarket
Quebec police admit they went undercover at Montebello protest
Report: quarterback Michael Vick won't plead guilty to killing dogs
Four-year-old boy attacked by Pit bull mix
Friendly fire kills three UK soldiers in Afghanistan
Research focuses on orchids mimicking female wasps
Edinburgh Airport runway damage causes delays
British driver admits driving at 172 mph
Cricket: India beat England in second one-day international
Further arrest made in connection with shooting of Rhys Jones
Aunt hires prostitutes for 12-year-old nephew
M5 motorway closed after shots fired at police car
2-year-old dies in car in 100ºF heat with windows rolled up
Police station attacked by car bomb in Basque Country, two officers injured
Two-year-old punished in dryer
Cuban athlete banned for life after attack on referee during Olympics
Eight mountaineers missing on Mont Blanc in French Alps after avalanche
Passenger plane traveling to Iran crashes in Kyrgyzstan, killing 68
Afghan government: More than 90 civilians killed by US airstrike
Beijing Olympics comes to a close
Felipe Massa wins European Grand Prix
Cricket: England regain Ashes in the Oval sunshine
Rubens Barrichello wins European Grand Prix
Coroner says Michael Jackson's death was due to sedative overdose
Suspect in model Jasmine Fiore's murder found dead
Christmas arrives early in Rochdale, Greater Manchester
Calvin Harris knocks Michael Jackson off top spot in UK Album Chart
Two firefighters killed in deadly blaze in Buffalo, New York
School on Australia's Sunshine Coast makes staff redundant, requests they apply for 'new' jobs
Hong Kong tourists held hostage in the Philippines, nine killed
Atlantic storm Danielle strengthens to hurricane force
Strauss-Kahn case dismissed
Australian TV network sprung fabricating live crosses by rival
Papua New Guinea represented by two Paralympians in London
Transgender woman dies after beating in Harlem, New York
Maroochydore to play Noosa in Sunshine Coast Rugby Union Grand Final
Lebanon car bombings kill dozens outside mosques