EVENTS:
- 1928 – The Bremen, a German Junkers W 33 type aircraft, takes off for the first successful transatlantic aeroplane flight from east to west.
- 1935 – First flight of the Bristol Blenheim.
- 1937 – Sir Frank Whittle ground-tests the first jet engine designed to power an aircraft, at Rugby, England.
- 1955 – The polio vaccine, developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, is declared safe and effective.
- 1980 – Terry Fox begins his “Marathon of Hope” at St. John’s, Newfoundland.
- 1981 – The first launch of a Space Shuttle (Columbia) takes place – the STS-1 mission.
- 1990 – Jim Gary‘s “Twentieth Century Dinosaurs” exhibition opens at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. He is the only sculptor ever invited to present a solo exhibition there.
- 1992 – The Euro Disney Resort officially opens with its theme park Euro Disneyland. The resort and its park’s name are subsequently changed to Disneyland Paris.
- 1994 – Canter & Siegel post the first commercial mass Usenet spam.
- 2009 – Zimbabwe officially abandons the Zimbabwean dollar as its official currency.
- 2010 – A train derails near Merano, Italy, after running into a landslide, causing nine deaths and injuring 28 people.
- 2014 – The Great Fire of Valparaíso ravages the Chilean city of Valparaíso, killing 16, displacing nearly 10,000, and destroying over 2,000 homes.
BIRTHS:
- 1884 – Otto Meyerhof, German physician and biochemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1951)
- 1903 – Jan Tinbergen, Dutch economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1994)
- 1940 – Bashir Ahmad, Indian-Bangladeshi singer (d. 2014)
- 1941 – Bobby Moore, English footballer and manager (d. 1993)
- 1943 – Sumitra Mahajan, Indian politician, 16th Speaker of the Lok Sabha
- 1976 – Brad Miller, American basketball player
- 1981 – Nicolás Burdisso, Argentinian footballer
- 1981 – Grant Holt, English footballer
- 1996 – Elizaveta Kulichkova, Russian tennis player
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
