In 1589, Catherine de Medici of France died at the age of 69.
In 1781, a British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Va.
In 1895, French Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, convicted of treason, was publicly stripped of his rank. He was later declared innocent.
In 1896, the Austrian newspaper Wiener Presse published the first public account of a discovery by German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen of a form of radiation that became known as X-rays.
In 1925, Nellie Tayloe Ross became the first female governor of a state as she assumed her duties as chief executive of Wyoming to finish out her late husband's term.
In 1933, the 30th President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, died at his home in Northampton, Mass., at the age of 60.
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"The guy down the street says that his idea of gardening is to plant himself in a lawn chair."
