EVENTS:
- 1782 – King Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke (Rama I) of Siam (modern day Thailand) founds the Chakri dynasty.
- 1808 – John Jacob Astor incorporates the American Fur Company, that would eventually make him America’s first millionaire.
- 1869 – Celluloid is patented.
- 1896 – In Athens, the opening of the first modern Olympic Games is celebrated, 1,500 years after the original games are banned by Roman emperor Theodosius I.
- 1909 – Robert Peary and Matthew Henson reach the North Pole.
- 1919 – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi orders a general strike.
- 1924 – First round-the-world flight commences.
- 1930 – Gandhi raises a lump of mud and salt and declares, “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire,” beginning the Salt Satyagraha.
- 1947 – The first Tony Awards are presented for theatrical achievement.
- 1965 – Launch of Early Bird, the first commercial communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit.
- 1973 – Launch of Pioneer 11 spacecraft.
- 1998 – Pakistan tests medium-range missiles capable of reaching India.
- 2005 – Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani becomes Iraqi president; Shiite Arab Ibrahim al-Jaafari is named premier the next day.
- 2009 – A 6.3 magnitude earthquake strikes near L’Aquila, Italy, killing 307.
- 2010 – Maoist rebels kill 76 CRPF officers in Dantewada district, India.
- 2011 – In San Fernando, Tamaulipas, Mexico, over 193 bodies were exhumed from several mass graves made by Los Zetas.
- 2012 – Azawad declares itself independent from the Republic of Mali.
- 2018 – A bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior ice hockey team collides with a semi-truck in Saskatchewan, Canada, killing 16 people and in
BIRTHS:
- 1886 – Osman Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VII, Indian ruler (d. 1967)
- 1911 – Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen, German biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1979)
- 1920 – Edmond H. Fischer, Chinese-American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1928 – James Watson, American biologist, geneticist, and zoologist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1931 – Suchitra Sen, Bangladeshi-Indian actress (d. 2014)
- 1949 – Horst Ludwig Störmer, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1956 – Mudassar Nazar, Pakistani cricketer
- 1956 – Dilip Vengsarkar, Indian cricketer and coach
- 1971 – Sanjay Suri, Indian actor and producer
- 1995 – Darya Lebesheva, Belarusian tennis player
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
