EVENTS:
- 1600 – The Peruvian stratovolcano Huaynaputina explodes in the most violent eruption in the recorded history of South America.
- 1884 – More than sixty tornadoes strike the Southern United States, one of the largest tornado outbreaks in U.S. history.
- 1913 – Pedro Lascuráin becomes President of Mexico for 45 minutes; this is the shortest term to date of any person as president of any country.
- 1948 – The Conference of Youth and Students of Southeast Asia Fighting for Freedom and Independence convenes in Calcutta.
- 1949 – Ezra Pound is awarded the first Bollingen Prize in poetry by the Bollingen Foundation and Yale University.
- 1960 – China successfully launches the T-7, its first sounding rocket.
- 1985 – William J. Schroeder becomes the first recipient of an artificial heart to leave hospital.
- 1985 – Iberia Airlines Boeing 727 crashes into Mount Oiz in Spain, killing 148.
- 2001 – The Oklahoma City bombing museum is dedicated at the Oklahoma City National Memorial.
- 2003 – An Ilyushin Il-76 military aircraft crashes near Kerman, Iran, killing 275.
- 2006 – A methane explosion in a coal mine near Nueva Rosita, Mexico, kills 65 miners.
- 2012 – Forty-four people are killed in a prison brawl in Apodaca, Nuevo León, Mexico.
- 2021 – Mya Thwe Thwe Khine, a 19-year-old protester, becomes the first known casualty of anti-coup protests that formed in response to the 2021 Myanmar coup d’état
BIRTHS:
- 1833 – Élie Ducommun, Swiss journalist and activist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1906)
- 1859 – Svante Arrhenius, Swedish physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1927)
- 1937 – Norm O’Neill, Australian cricketer and sportscaster (d. 2008)
- 1942 – Paul Krause, American football player and politician
- 1943 – Tim Hunt, English biochemist and academic, Nobel laureate
- 1951 – Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, Pakistani scholar and politician, founded Minhaj-ul-Quran
- 1956 – Roderick MacKinnon, American biologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1961 – Justin Fashanu, English footballer (d. 1998)
- 1964 – Sonu Walia, Indian model and actress, Miss India 1985
- 1980 – Dwight Freeney, American football player
- 1981 – Nicky Shorey, English footballer
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
