2008 - Scott Kalitta, American drag racer (b. 1962)
Events
524 - Godomar, King of the Burgundians defeats the Franks at the Battle of Vézeronce.
1582 - The Incident at Honnō-ji takes place in Kyoto, Japan.
1621 - Execution of 27 Czech noblemen on the Old Town Square in Prague as a consequence of the Battle of White Mountain.
1734 - In Montreal in New France (today primarily Quebec), a black slave known by the French name of Marie-Joseph Angélique, having been convicted of the arson that destroyed much of the city, is tortured and hanged by the French authorities in a public ceremony that involved her disgrace and the amputation of a hand.
1915 - The U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision in Guinn v. United States 238 US 347 1915, striking down an Oklahoma law denying the right to vote to some citizens.
1919 - The Royal Canadian Mounted Police fire a volley into a crowd of unemployed war veterans, killing two, during the Winnipeg General Strike.
1919 - Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttles the German fleet in Scapa Flow, Orkney. The nine sailors killed were the last casualties of World War I.
1940 - The first successful west-to-east navigation of Northwest Passage begins at Vancouver, British Columbia.
1942 - World War II: Tobruk falls to Italian and German forces.
1942 - World War II: A Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at nearby Fort Stevens in one of only a handful of attacks by the Japanese against the United States mainland.
1948 - The "Manchester Baby" (SSEM) runs the first ever computer program stored in electronic memory.
1948 - Columbia Records introduces the long-playing record album in a public demonstration at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.
1952 - Philippine School of Commerce, through a republic act, is converted to Philippine College of Commerce; later to be the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
1957 - Ellen Louks Fairclough is sworn in as Canada's first woman Cabinet Minister.
1964 - Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Mickey Schwerner, are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States, by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
1973 - In handing down the decision in Miller v. California 413 US 15, the Supreme Court of the United States establishes the Miller Test, which now governs obscenity in U.S. law.
1982 - John Hinckley is found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
2000 - Section 28 (outlawing the 'promotion' of homosexuality in the United Kingdom) is repealed in Scotland with a 99 to 17 vote.
2001 - A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, indicts 13 Saudis and a Lebanese in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American servicemen.
2004 - SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight.
2006 - Pluto's newly discovered moons are officially named Nix & Hydra.
2009 - As a step toward total independence from The Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland assumes control over its law enforcement, judicial affairs, and natural resources. Greenlandic becomes the official language.
