EVENTS:
- 837 – Halley’s Comet makes its closest approach to Earth at a distance equal to 0.0342 AU (5.1 million kilometres/3.2 million miles).
- 1710 – The Statute of Anne, the first law regulating copyright, comes into force in Great Britain.
- 1815 – The Mount Tambora volcano begins a three-month-long eruption, lasting until July 15. The eruption ultimately kills 71,000 people and affects Earth’s climate for the next two years.
- 1912 – RMS Titanic sets sail from Southampton, England on her maiden and only voyage.
- 1953 – Warner Bros. premieres the first 3-D film from a major American studio, entitled House of Wax.
- 1972 – Tombs containing bamboo slips, among them Sun Tzu’s Art of War and Sun Bin’s lost military treatise, are accidentally discovered by construction workers in Shandong.
- 1991 – A rare tropical storm develops in the South Atlantic Ocean near Angola; the first to be documented by satellites.
- 2010 – Polish Air Force Tu-154M crashes near Smolensk, Russia, killing 96 people, including Polish President Lech Kaczyński and dozens of other senior officials.
- 2016 – 2016 Afghanistan earthquake, of 6.6 magnitude, 39 km west-southwest of Ashkasham, shakes up India, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Srinagar and Pakistan.
- 2019 – Scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope project announce the first ever image of a black hole, located in the centre of the M87 galaxy.
- 2023 – A mass shooting occurs at the Old National Bank in Louisville, Kentucky that leaves five victims dead and eight wounded.
BIRTHS:
- 1887 – Bernardo Houssay, Argentinian physiologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)
- 1894 – Ghanshyam Das Birla, Indian businessman (d. 1983)
- 1897 – Prafulla Chandra Sen, Indian accountant and politician, 3rd Chief Minister of West Bengal (d. 1990)
- 1917 – Robert Burns Woodward, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1979)
- 1917 – Jagjit Singh Lyallpuri, Indian politician (d. 2013)
- 1927 – Marshall Warren Nirenberg, American biochemist and geneticist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2010)
- 1952 – Narayan Rane, Indian politician, 16th Chief Minister of Maharashtra
- 1964 – Gopinath Muthukad, Indian magician and stuntman
- 1975 – Terrence Lewis, Indian dancer and choreographer
- 1986 – Ayesha Takia, Indian actress
- 1994 – Nerlens Noel, American basketball player
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
- Siblings Day (United States)
