EVENTS:
- 1792 – Kentucky is admitted as the 15th state of the United States.
- 1796 – Tennessee is admitted as the 16th state of the United States.
- 1831 – James Clark Ross discovers the Magnetic North Pole.
- 1939 – First flight of the German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter-bomber airplane.
- 1974 – Flixborough disaster: an explosion at a chemical plant kills 28 people.
- 1999 – American Airlines Flight 1420 slides and crashes while landing at Little Rock National Airport, killing 11 people on a flight from Dallas to Little Rock.
- 2009 – Air France Flight 447 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 passengers and crew are killed.
- 2011 – A rare tornado outbreak occurs in New England; a strong EF3 tornado strikes Springfield, Massachusetts, during the event, killing four people.
- 2014 – A bombing at a football field in Mubi, Nigeria, kills at least 40 people.
- 2015 – A ship carrying 458 people capsizes on Yangtze river in China’s Hubei province, killing 400 people.
BIRTHS:
- 1843 – Henry Faulds, Scottish physician and missionary, developed fingerprinting (d. 1930)
- 1878 – John Masefield, English author and poet (d. 1967)
- 1907 – Frank Whittle, English engineer and inventor, developed the jet engine (d. 1996)
- 1917 – William Standish Knowles, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2012)
- 1943 – Lorrie Wilmot, South African cricketer (d. 2004)
- 1947 – Ron Dennis, English businessman, founded the McLaren Group
- 1970 – R. Madhavan, Indian actor
- 1974 – Ashok Jadeja, Indian con-artist
- 1979 – Santana Moss, American football player
- 1990 – Martin Pembleton, English footballer
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
- International Children’s Day (International)
- National Tree Planting Day (Cambodia)
- Victory Day (Tunisia)
- The Mothers and Children’s Day (Mongolia)
- Global Day of Parents (international)
- Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Samoa from New Zealand in 1962.
- Neighbours’ Day (international)
