It's my birthday...

And in year's past, a bunch of stuff happened on this date.

* 1328 - Philip VI is crowned King of France.
* 1703 - Tsar Peter the Great founds the city of Saint Petersburg.
* 1813 - War of 1812: In Canada, American forces capture Fort George.
* 1849 - The Great Hall of Euston station, London opened.
* 1860 - Giuseppe Garibaldi begins his attack on Palermo, Sicily, as part of the Italian Unification.
* 1883 - Alexander III is crowned Tsar of Russia.
* 1895 - Oscar Wilde is sent to prison for sodomy.
* 1896 - The F4-strength St. Louis-East St. Louis Tornado hits in St. Louis, Missouri and East Saint Louis, Illinois, killing at least 255 people and incurring $2.9 billion in damages (1997USD).
* 1901 - In New Jersey, the Edison Storage Battery Company is founded.
* 1905 - Russo-Japanese War: The Battle of Tsushima begins.
* 1907 - A Bubonic plague outbreak begins in San Francisco, California.
* 1919 - The NC-4 aircraft arrives in Lisbon after completing the first transatlantic flight.
* 1923 - The first 24 hours of Le Mans race ends.
* 1924 - The Music Corporation of America (MCA) is founded.
* 1927 - The Ford Motor Company ceases manufacturing the Ford Model T and begins to retool plants to make Ford Model As.
* 1930 - The 1,046 feet (319 meters) tall Chrysler Building in New York (tallest man-made structure at the time) opens to the public.
* 1932 - The Sydney Harbour Bridge opens.
* 1933 - New Deal: The U.S. Federal Securities Act is signed into law requiring the registration of securities with the Federal Trade Commission.
* 1933 - The Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon The Three Little Pigs, with its hit song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"
* 1933 - The Century of Progress World's Fair opens in Chicago, Illinois.
* 1935 - New Deal: The Supreme Court of the United States declares the National Industrial Recovery Act to be unconstitutional in the case A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, (295 U.S. 495).
* 1936 - The RMS Queen Mary begins her maiden voyage.
* 1937 - In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County.
* 1939 - DC Comics publishes its second superhero in Detective Comics #27; he is Batman, one of the most topical comic book superheroes of all time.
* 1940 - World War II: 97 out of 99 members of a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are massacred while trying to surrender at Dunkirk. The German commander, Captain Fritz Knoechlein, is eventually hanged for war crimes.
* 1941 - World War II: U.S. President Roosevelt proclaims an "unlimited national emergency".
* 1941 - World War II: The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic killing 2,300 men.
* 1942 - World War II: Operation Anthropoid - assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague.
* 1960 - In Turkey, General Cemal Gürsel leads a military coup d'état removing President Celal Bayar and the rest of the democratic government.
* 1963 - Folk music singer Bob Dylan releases The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album, which features "Blowin' in the Wind" and several other of his best-known songs.
* 1964 - Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru dies in office.
* 1965 - Vietnam War: United States warships begin bombardments of National Liberation Front targets within South Vietnam for the first time.
* 1968 - Future U.S. president George W. Bush enlists in the Texas Air National Guard.
* 1974 - Jacques Chirac becomes Prime Minister of France.
* 1980 - The Gwangju Massacre: airborne and army troops of South Korea retake the city of Gwangju from civil militias, killing at least 207 and possibly many more.
* 1995 - In Charlottesville, Virginia, actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition.
* 1996 - First Chechnya War: Russian President Boris Yeltsin meets with Chechnyan rebels for the first time and negotiates a cease-fire in the war.
* 1997 - The F5-strength Jarrell Tornado slams into the small town of Jarrell, Texas, killing 27 people.
* 1998 - Oklahoma City bombing: Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot.
* 1999 - The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.


Births

* 1332 - Ibn Khaldun, Tunisian historian (d. 1406)
* 1519 - Girolamo Mei, Italian humanist historian (d. 1594)
* 1576 - Caspar Schoppe, German scholar (d. 1649)
* 1623 - William Petty, English scientist and philosopher (d. 1687)
* 1626 - William II, Prince of Orange (d. 1650)
* 1651 - Louis-Antoine, Cardinal de Noailles, French cardinal (d. 1729)
* 1652 - Liselotte von der Pfalz, Duchess of Orléans (d. 1722)
* 1738 - Nathaniel Gorham, American politician (d. 1796)
* 1756 - King Maximilian I of Bavaria (d. 1825)
* 1794 - Cornelius Vanderbilt, American entrepreneur (d. 1877)
* 1819 - Julia Ward Howe, American composer (d. 1910)
* 1836 - Jay Gould, American financier (d. 1892)
* 1837 - Wild Bill Hickok, American gunfighter (d. 1876)
* 1864 - Ante Trumbić, Croatian politician (d. 1938)
* 1867 - Arnold Bennett, British novelist (d. 1931)
* 1871 - Georges Rouault, French painter and graphic artist (d. 1958)
* 1876 - Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski, Polish writer (d. 1945)
* 1877 - Isadora Duncan, American dancer (d. 1927)
* 1884 - Max Brod, Austrian author (d. 1968)
* 1888 - Louis Durey, French composer (d. 1979)
* 1894 - Louis-Ferdinand Céline, French writer (d. 1961)
* 1894 - Dashiell Hammett, American author (d. 1961)
* 1897 - John Cockcroft, British physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1967)
* 1904 - Chuhei Nambu, Japanese athlete (b. 1997)
* 1907 - Rachel Carson, American ecologist (d. 1964)
* 1911 - Hubert H. Humphrey, Vice President of the United States (d. 1978)
* 1911 - Teddy Kollek, Mayor of Jerusalem
* 1911 - Vincent Price, American actor (d. 1993)
* 1912 - John Cheever, American author (d. 1982)
* 1912 - Sam Snead, American golfer (d. 2002)
* 1913 - Wols, German painter
* 1915 - Herman Wouk, American writer
* 1917 - Yasuhiro Nakasone, Prime Minister of Japan
* 1922 - Christopher Lee, English actor
* 1923 - Henry Kissinger, United States Secretary of State, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
* 1923 - Sumner Redstone, American entrepreneur
* 1925 - Tony Hillerman, American writer
* 1930 - John Barth, American novelist
* 1933 - Ted Rogers, Canadian entrepreneur
* 1934 - Harlan Ellison, American author
* 1935 - Lee Meriwether, American beauty queen and actress
* 1936 - Louis Gossett Jr., American actor
* 1937 - Allan Carr, American film producer and writer (d. 1999)
* 1943 - Cilla Black, English singer
* 1943 - Bruce Weitz, American actor
* 1945 - Bruce Cockburn, Canadian musician
* 1946 - Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, Danish musician (d. 2005)
* 1947 - Branko Oblak, Slovenian football player
* 1955 - Eric Bischoff, American professional wrestling personality
* 1957 - Siouxsie Sioux, English musician (Siouxsie and the Banshees )
* 1958 - Neil Finn, New Zealand singer and songwriter
* 1958 - Linnea Quigley, American actress
* 1961 - Peri Gilpin, American actress
* 1964 - Adam Carolla, American comedian and radio/television personality
* 1967 - Paul Gascoigne, former British footballer
* 1968 - Jeff Bagwell, baseball player
* 1968 - Frank Thomas, baseball player
* 1970 - Tim Farron, British politician
* 1970 - Joseph Fiennes, English actor
* 1971 - Paul Bettany, English actor
* 1971 - Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes, American singer (d. 2002)
* 1974 - Derek Webb, American singer and songwriter (Caedmon's Call)
* 1974 - Danny Wuerffel, American football player
* 1975 - Andre 3000, American musician (OutKast)
* 1975 - Jamie Oliver, British chef and television personality


Deaths

* 366 - Procopius, Roman usurper (executed)
* 866 - Ordoño I, King of Asturias
* 927 - Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria
* 1444 - John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, English military leader (b. 1404)
* 1508 - Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan (b. 1452)
* 1525 - Thomas Muentzer, German rebel leader
* 1541 - Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury (executed) (b. 1473)
* 1564 - John Calvin, French religious reformer (b. 1509)
* 1610 - François Ravaillac, French assassin of Henry IV of France (b. 1578)
* 1661 - Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, Scottish religious dissident (executed) (b. 1607)
* 1675 - Gaspard Dughet, French painter (b. 1613)
* 1690 - Giovanni Legrenzi, Italian composer (b. 1626)
* 1702 - Dominique Bouhours, French critic (b. 1628)
* 1707 - Marquise de Montespan, French mistress of Louis XIV of France (b. 1641)
* 1781 - Giovanni Battista Beccaria, Italian physicist (b. 1716)
* 1797 - François-Noël Babeuf, French revolutionary and early socialist (b. 1760)
* 1831 - Jedediah Smith, American explorer (b. 1799)
* 1840 - Nicolò Paganini, Italian violinist and composer (b. 1782)
* 1896 - Aleksandr Grigorievich Stoletov, Russian physicist (b. 1839)
* 1910 - Robert Koch, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1843)
* 1926 - Srečko Kosovel, Slovenian poet (b. 1904)
* 1960 - James Montgomery Flagg, American illustrator (b. 1877)
* 1964 - Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian politician (b. 1889)
* 1986 - Isma'il Raji' al-Faruqi, Palestinian-born philosopher and comparative religion scholar (b. 1921)
* 1987 - John Howard Northrop, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1891)
* 1989 - Arseny Tarkovsky, Russian poet (b. 1907)
* 1991 - Leopold Nowak, Austrian musicologist (b. 1904)
* 1991 - Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India, assassinated by Tamil terrorists (b. 1944)
* 1992 - Uncle Charlie Osborne, fiddler (b. 1890)
* 1993 - Mary Philbin, American actress (b. 1903
* 1993 - Werner Stocker, German actor (b. 1955)
* 2000 - Crawford Murray MacLehose of Beoch, British Governor of Hong Kong (b. 1917)
* 2000 - Maurice Richard, Canadian hockey player (b. 1921)
* 2001 - Ramon Bieri, American actor (b. 1929)
* 2003 - Luciano Berio, Italian composer (b. 1925)


Holidays and observances

* Lag Ba'omer in Judaism (2005)
* Feast day of the following saints in the Roman Catholic Church:
o Venerable Bede
o Julius
o Pope John I
o Hildebert
o Bruno, Bishop of Würzburg
o Eutropius