1908 – First passenger flight in an airplane.
1913 – Washington Senators pitcher Walter Johnson ends Major League Baseball record scoreless streak at 56 innings.
1927 – “Ain’t She Sweet?” hits #1 on the singles chart by Ben Bernie.
1938 – “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, and starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, premieres.
1945 – Kamikaze Zero strikes United States aircraft carrier Enterprise.
1948 – United States grants Israel de facto recognition.
1949 – President Harry Truman signs bill establishing a rocket test at Cape Canaveral.
1951 – Ernie Kovacs Show, TV Variety debut on NBC.
1961 – Bus with first group of Freedom Riders bombed and burned in Alabama.
1967 – New York Yankees’ Mickey Mantle hits career home run 500 off Baltimore Orioles’ Stu Miller.
1969 – Last Chevrolet Corvair built.
1970 – Harry Blackmun, 61, nominated by Richard Nixon, earns seat on Supreme Court after confirmation by Senate 94-l and serves until 1994.
1973 – Supreme Court approves equal rights to females in the military.
1980 – Department of Health & Human Services begins operation.
1988 – Carrollton bus collision: A drunk driver going the wrong way on Interstate 71 near Carrollton, Kentucky hit a converted school bus carrying a church youth group. The crash and ensuing fire killed 27.
1990 – Dow Jones average hits a record 2,821.53.
2005 – Former USS America (CV-66), a decommissioned super carrier of the US Navy, deliberately sunk in the Atlantic Ocean after four weeks of live-fire exercises. Largest ship ever to be disposed of as a target in a military exercise.
2016 – Gabriel Medina becomes the first surfer ever to land the move “Backflip” in competition.
2018 – Supreme Court strikes down federal law banning sports gambling in most states.
2020 – Global death toll from COVID-19 passes 300,000 with a 4.4 million confirmed infections.
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