1787 ~ Captain Arthur Phillip left Portsmouth, England with eleven ships of convicts to establish a penal colony in Australia.

1842 ~ Birthday of Sir Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert & Sullivan, Composer.

1861 ~ Queen Victoria issued a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognized the breakaway Confederate states as having belligerent rights.

1888 ~ Brazil abolished slavery.

1912 ~ The Royal Flying Corps (now the Royal Air Force) was established in the U.K.

1937 ~ Birthday of Roger Zelazny, Science Fiction author.

1940 ~ Winston Churchill made his "blood, tears, toil and sweat" speech to the House of Commons.

1981 ~ Mehmet Ali Ağca attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II at St. Peter's Square in Rome.

1985 ~ The confrontation between the MOVE organization and Philadelphia's city government left 11 MOVE members and one police officer dead and 61 homes destroyed by fire.

2003 ~ The US government unveiled a new version of the $20 bill - the first to be colorized in an effort to thwart counterfeiters.

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Eudaimonia

1265 ~ Birthday of Dante Alighieri, Italian Poet.

1796 ~ Edward Jenner administered the first smallpox vaccination.

1925 ~ Death of H. Rider Haggard, Author.

1944 ~ Birthday of George Lucas, film Director & Producer.

1948 ~ The independent state of Israel was proclaimed.

1955 ~ The USSR and seven other communist bloc countries signed a mutual defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact.

1973 ~ Skylab 1, the first American space station, was launched.

1978 ~ Death of Robert Menzies, twelfth Prime Minister of Australia.

1998 ~ Death of Frank Sinatra, Singer & Actor.

2004 ~ Piers Morgan was fired as editor of the Daily Mirror for publishing photographs of alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British soldiers that were shown to be fake.

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Eudaimonia

1567 ~ Birthday of Claudio Monteverdi, Italian Composer.

1911 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Standard Oil Company, requiring its break up under the Sherman Anti-Trust act.

1869 ~ Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association in New York city.

1886 ~ Death of Emily Dickinson, Poet.

1914 ~ Birthday of Tenzing Norgay, Nepalese sherpa & Mountaineer.

1919 ~ The Winnipeg General Strike began.

1930 ~ Ellen Church became the first airline stewardess, on a flight from Oakland, California to Chicago, Illinois.

1957 ~ Britain tested its first hydrogen bomb in Operation Grapple.

1972 ~ George C. Wallace was shot and left paralyzed while campaigning for the U.S. Democratic presidential nomination.

1988 ~ The Soviet Union began withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan.

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Eudaimonia

1866 ~ Charles Hires invented root beer.

1868 ~ The U.S. Senate failed to convict President Andrew Johnson of the articles of impeachment against him.

1905 ~ Birthday of Henry Fonda, Actor.

1919 ~ Birthday of Liberace, American pianist.

1943 ~ The Jewish Warsaw ghetto uprising ended.

1955 ~ Birthday of Olga Korbut, gymnast.

1966 ~ Birthday of Janet Jackson, Super Bowl Half Time Flasher.

1969 ~ The Soviet space probe Venera 5 landed on Venus.

2002 ~ Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones opened in theaters.

2005 ~ Newsweek magazine retracted its Koran abuse story that started protests in Afghanistan.

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Eudaimonia

1749 ~ Birthday of Edward Jenner, inventor of vaccination.

1829 ~ Death of John Jay, the first U.S. Chief Justice.

1838 ~ Death of Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, French diplomat.

1936 ~ Birthday of Dennis Hopper, Actor & Director.

1935 ~ Death of Paul Dukas, French composer.

1943 ~ The RAF carried out the Dam Busters raid.

1954 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court issued their decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

1974 ~ Thirty-three people were killed by terrorist bombings in Ireland.

1996 ~ President Bill Clinton signed a measure requiring neighborhood notification when sex offenders move in - Megan's Law.

2004 ~ Same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts.

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Eudaimonia

1872 ~ Birthday of Bertrand Russell, Logician & Philosopher, awarded The Nobel Prize in Literature 1950.

1910 ~ The Earth passed through the tail of Halley’s Comet.

1911 ~ Death of Gustav Mahler, Austrian Composer.

1919 ~ Birthday of Dame Margot Fonteyn, Ballet dancer.

1937 ~ Birthday of Brooks Robinson, Baseball Hall of Famer.

1944 ~ Monte Cassino fell to the Allies.

1974 ~ India became the sixth nuclear nation by successfully detonated its first nuclear weapon.

1975 ~ Death of Leroy Anderson, American Composer.

1980 ~ Mount St. Helens in Washington state exploded, leaving 57 people dead or missing.

1998 ~ The U.S. government filed an antitrust case against Microsoft Corp.

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Eudaimonia

1536 ~ Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England was beheaded for adultery.

1795 ~ Birthday of Johns Hopkins, Philanthropist.

1864 ~ Death of Nathaniel Hawthorne, American Author.

1890 ~ Birthday of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese leader.

1897 ~ Oscar Wilde was released from Reading Gaol.

1921 ~ The U.S. Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants.

1925 ~ Birthday of Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge leader.

1935 ~ Death of T. E. Lawrence, English soldier ("Lawrence of Arabia").

1965 ~ Tui Malila, the longest living animal known, died in Tonga at the age of either 188 or 192.

2001 ~ One child policy: Zhonghua Sun was killed by People's Republic of China government officials because she refused to be sterilized.

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Eudaimonia

1772 ~ Birthday of Sir William Congreve, English inventor (By the rockets' red glare).

1806 ~ Birthday of John Stuart Mill, English philosopher.

1873 ~ Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.

1883 ~ The eruption of Krakatoa began, leading ultimately to the volcano's destruction three months later.

1896 ~ Death of Clara Schumann, German Pianist and Composer.

1901 ~ Birthday of Max Euwe, Dutch world chess champion.

1927 ~ Charles Lindbergh took off from Long Island, New York, on the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, arriving in Paris the next day.

1961 ~ U.S. marshals were sent to restore order in race-torn Montgomery, Alabama.

1980 ~ In a referendum in Quebec, the population rejected by a 60% vote the proposal from its government to move towards independence from Canada.

2000 ~ Death of Jean Pierre Rampal, French flutist.

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Eudaimonia

1471 ~ Birthday of Albrecht Dürer, German painter and graphic artist.

1881 ~ Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross.

1895 ~ Death of Franz von Suppé, Austrian composer.

1921 ~ Birthday of Andrei Sakharov, physicist and human rights activist, awarded the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize.

1924 ~ Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a "thrill killing".

1933 ~ Birthday of Maurice André, trumpeter.

1956 ~ The U.S. detonated the first airborne hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

1991 ~ Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a female suicide bomber.

2000 ~ Death of Sir John Gielgud, British actor.

2004 ~ Stanislav Petrov was awarded the World Citizen Award for averting a potential World War III in 1983.

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Eudaimonia

1813 ~ Birthday of Richard Wagner, Composer.

1840 ~ Transporting British convicts to the New South Wales colony was abolished.

1856 ~ In one of the more ornate expressions of American democracy, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the hall of the U.S. Senate because of a speech Sumner had made which attacked Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas.

1859 ~ Birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Physician & Writer.

1885 ~ Death of Victor Hugo, French author.

1907 ~ Birthday of Sir Laurence Olivier, Actor & Director.

1907 ~ Birthday of Hergé, comic book creator.

1947 ~ The Truman Doctrine was enacted.

1969 ~ The lunar module of Apollo 10 separated from the command module and flew to within nine miles of the moon's surface in a dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing..

1972 ~ Ceylon became the republic of Sri Lanka, adopted a new constitution, and joined the British Commonwealth.

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Eudaimonia

1430 ~ Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians, who sold her to the English.

1701 ~ Captain William Kidd was hanged in London after being convicted of piracy and murder.

1848 ~ Birthday of Otto Lilienthal, aviation pioneer.

1873 ~ Canada's North West Mounted Police force was established.

1906 ~ Death of Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian writer.

1908 ~ Birthday of John Bardeen, the only person to have been awarded the Nobel prize in Physics twice; 1956 & 1972.

1934 ~ Death of Bonnie and Clyde, Outlaws.

1951 ~ Birthday of Anatoly Karpov, Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion.

1967 ~ Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran and blockaded the port of Eilat at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping, laying the foundations for the Six Day War.

1969 ~ The UK release of Tommy, by rock band The Who; the first rock opera.

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Eudaimonia

1819 ~ Birthday of Queen Victoria.

1844 ~ The first telegram was sent by Samuel Morse, from Baltimore, Maryland to Washington, D.C., saying "What hath God wrought?".

1883 ~ The Brooklyn Bridge was opened.

1935 ~ The first MLB game played at night took place at Cincinnati's Crosley Field as the Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies.

1941 ~ The German battleship Bismarck sank the battlecruiser HMS Hood in the North Atlantic, killing all but three crewmen.

1941 ~ Birthday of Bob Dylan, Singer and Songwriter.

1969 ~ Death of Willy Ley, rocket scientist.

1995 ~ Death of Harold Wilson, British statesman and P.M.

2001 ~ 23 people were killed and hundreds injured at a wedding party in Jerusalem when the floor collapsed.

2001 ~ Democrats gained control of the U.S. Senate for the first time since 1994 when Sen. Jeffords of Vermont declared himself an independent.

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Eudaimonia

1803 ~ Birthday of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Poet & Philosopher.

1889 ~ Birthday of Igor Sikorsky, developer of the helicopter.

1895 ~ Playwright Oscar Wilde was convicted of a morals charge in London and sentenced to prison.

1926 ~ Birthday of Miles Davis, Jazz Musician

1929 ~ Birthday of Beverly Sills, Soprano.

1934 ~ Death of Gustav Holst, English composer.

1953 ~ The U.S. conducted its only nuclear artillery test.

1961 ~ President Kennedy set the US goal to put the first man on the moon by the end of that decade.

1963 ~ The Organisation of African Unity was set up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

1973 ~ Mike Oldfield released Tubular Bells.

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Eudaimonia

1703 ~ Death of Samuel Pepys, English civil servant, famous for his diary.

1799 ~ Birthday of Aleksandr Pushkin, Russian author.

1896 ~ The first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average published

1897 ~ Bram Stoker's novel Dracula went on sale in London.

1907 ~ Birthday of Rachel Carson, Environmental writer.

1908 ~ The first commercial oil strike in the Middle East was made at Masjid-al-Salaman in southwest Iran (Persia).

1928 ~ Birthday of Jack Kevorkian, Physician.

1940 ~ The evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk, France, began during World War II.

1951 ~ Birthday of Sally Ride, Astronaut.

2002 ~ The Mars Odyssey found signs of huge water ice deposits on Mars.

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Eudaimonia

1837 ~ Birthday of Wild Bill Hickok, Gunfighter.

1877 ~ Birthday of Isadora Duncan, Dancer.

1923 ~ Birthday of Henry Kissinger, American diplomat, recipient of The Nobel Peace Prize 1973.

1933 ~ The Walt Disney Co. released the cartoon The Three Little Pigs, with its hit song Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

1934 ~ Birthday of Harlan Ellison, Science Fiction author.

1937 ~ The Golden Gate Bridge opened to pedestrian traffic.

1964 ~ Death of Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first PM.

1968 ~ Future U.S. president George W. Bush enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard.

1995 ~ Actor Christopher Reeve (Superman) was paralyzed when he was thrown from his horse during a jumping event.

1999 ~ A U.N. tribunal indicted Slobodan Milosevic for crimes against humanity, holding the Yugoslav president personally responsible for the horrors in Kosovo.

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Eudaimonia