In 1566, the French astrologer, physician and prophet Nostradamus died.
In 1776, the Continental Congress passed a resolution saying that "these United Colonies are, and of right, ought to be, free and independent states."
In 1881, President James A. Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau, a disappointed office seeker, at the Washington railroad station. Garfield died the following September.
In 1890, the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed.
In 1926, the U.S. Army Air Corps was created.
In 1937, aviator Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan, disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight at the equator.
In 1955, the "Lawrence Welk Show" premiered on ABC.
In 1961, author Ernest Hemingway shot himself to death at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy met Pope Paul VI at the Vatican.
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law a Civil Rights Act,the most sweeping legislation of its kind since Reconstruction.
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed a proclamation requiring young American men born in 1960 and 1961 to register with the Selective Service.
In 1987, 18 illegal aliens were found dead inside a locked boxcar near Sierra Blanca, Texas, in what authorities called a botched smuggling attempt. A 19th man in the boxcar survived.
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Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (1908)
The daughter of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Luci Baines Johnson Turpin, (1947)
Actress Cheryl Ladd (1951)
Actor Jimmy McNichol (1961)
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"The more liberty you give away the more you will have."
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Robert G. Ingersoll, American lawyer and politician
