Historical Events
1538 – King Francois I orders renewed pursuit of Protestants
1631 – Mount Vesuvius in Italy erupts, burying many villages under lava flows and killing around 3,000 people
1968 – Official revocation of the Edict of Expulsion of Jews from Spain at Second Vatican Council
1970 – US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1997 – US President Bill Clinton names his Labrador retriever “Buddy”
2019 – Drew Brees breaks Peyton Manning’s NFL record (539) for career touchdown passes as New Orleans Saints rout Indianapolis Colts, 34-7; Brees 29 of 30 for 307 yards and 4 TDs for record 96.7% pass completion
Famous Birthdays
1742 – Gebhard Fürst Blücher von Wahlstatt, German Field Marshal (d. 1819)
1775 – Jane Austen, English novelist (Pride and Prejudice), born in Steventon, England (d. 1817)
1904 – Edward Morris Bernstein, economist
1918 – Pierre Delanoë [Leroyer], French songwriter and lyricist, born in Paris (d. 2006)
1938 – Jimmie Lee Jackson, American civil rights protester and church deacon, shot and killed by an Alabama State Trooper in 1965, born in Marion, Alabama (d. 1965)
1988 – Anna Popplewell, English actress
Famous Deaths
1774 – Francois Quesnay, French personal physician of Louis XIV, dies at 80
1920 – Ma Yuanzhang, Chinese Muslim rebel and Sufi master, crushed to death during the 1920 Haiyuan earthquake at an unknown age
1928 – Elinor Wylie, American poet and writer (b. 1885)
1993 – Ratu Penaia Ganilau, president of Fiji (1987-93), dies at 75
2007 – Dan Fogelberg, American rocker (Same Old Lang Syne), dies at 56
2012 – Laurier LaPierre, Canadian journalist, broadcaster and senator, dies at 83