1586 – Sir Walter Raleigh brings first tobacco to England from Virginia.
1789 – US Congress establishes Department of Foreign Affairs (State Department).
1844 – Fire destroys US mint at Charlotte, NC.
1866 – Atlantic telegraph cable successfully laid (1,686 miles long).
1888 – Philip Pratt unveils 1st American electric tricycle.
1920 – Radio compass used for 1st time for aircraft navigation.
1924 – 8th Olympic games closes in Paris.
1931 – Grasshoppers in Iowa, Nebraska & South Dakota destroyed thousands of acres of crops.
1940 – Billboard magazine starts publishing bestseller charts.
1944 – US troops occupy le Mesnil-Herman/Hill 183 Normandy.
1947 – Yogi Berra starts record 148 game errorless streak.
1953 – Dizzy Dean, Al Simmons, Chief Bender, Bobby Wallace, Harry Wright, Ed Barrow, Bill Klem & Tom Connolly are inducted into Baseball Hall of Fame.
1959 – William Shea announces plans to have a baseball team in NYC in 1961.
1960 – US Vice-President Richard Nixon nominated for presidential candidate at Republican convention in Chicago.
1965 – President Lyndon B. Johnson signs a bill requiring cigarette makers to print health warnings on all cigarette packages about the effects of smoking.
1983 – Gaylord Perry joins Nolan Ryan & Steve Carlton to reach 3,500 career strikeouts this season, he also wins his 1st game as a Royal.
1987 – First expedited salvaging of Titanic wreck begins by RMS Titanic, Inc.
1988 – Radio Shack announces Tandy 1000 SL computer.
1991 – TV Guide publishes its 2000th edition.
2007 – News helicopters from Phoenix, Arizona television KNSV and KTVK collide over Steele Indian School Park in central Phoenix while covering a police chase; there were no survivors. This was the first known incidence of two news helicopters colliding in mid-air, and the worst civil aviation incident in Phoenix history.
2014 – Obama reaffirms Israel’s “right to defend itself”, but condemns civilian casualties in Gaza.