Historical Events
1866 – (Leonard W) Jerome Park opens in Bronx for horse racing
1868 – The Imperial Russian steam frigate Alexander Nevski shipwrecks off Jutland while carrying Grand Duke Alexei of Russia
1957 – 300 US Army troops guard 9 black kids return to Central High School in Arkansas
1980 – USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
2002 – The Vitim event, a possible bolide impact in Siberia, Russia.
2012 – Anouchka van Miltenburg is elected President of the House of Representatives in the Netherlands
Famous Birthdays
1612 – Mark Zuesius Boxhorn, Dutch historian, born in Bergen-op-Zoom, The Netherlands (d. 1653)
1816 – Anton de Kontski [Antoni Kątski], Polish-American pianist and composer (Awakening Of The Lion), born in Kraków, Poland (d. 1899) [some sources cite birth as 1817-10-27]
1846 – Wladimir Köppen [Vladimir Köppen], German meteorologist and climatologist who developed the Köppen climate classification system for the regions of the world, born in St. Petersburg, Russia (d. 1940)
1896 – Roberto Gerhard, Spanish Catalan composer (the Plague), born in Valls, Catalonia, Spain (d. 1970)
1952 – Christopher Reeve, American actor (Superman, Somewhere in Time), born in New York City (d. 2004)
1981 – Jason Bergmann, American baseball player, born in Neptune City, New Jersey
Famous Deaths
1066 – Harald III Hardrada, King of Norway (1047-66), dies at the Battle of Stamford Bridge at 51 – his death often considered the end of the Viking Age
1716 – Johann Christoph Pez, German Baroque composer, dies at 52
1914 – Alfred Lichtenstein, German writer, dies at 25
1970 – Efim Golishev, Ukrainian painter and composer, dies at 73
1986 – Donald MacDonald, Canadian politician and former president of the Canadian Labour Congress (1967-74), dies at 77
1995 – Bessie [Annie Elizabeth] Delany, American dentist and civil rights pioneer, dies at 104