On this day...

701 St Sergius I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1513 Battle of Flodden Fields; English defeat James IV of Scotland
1739 Slave revolt in Stono SC led by Jemmy (25 whites killed)
1776 Continental Congress renames "United Colonies," "United States"
1817 Alexander Lucius Twilight, probably 1st black to graduate from US college, receives BA degree at Middlebury College
1830 Charles Durant, 1st US aeronaut, flies a balloon from Castle Garden, NYC to Perth Amboy, NJ
1839 John Herschel takes the 1st glass plate photograph
1841 Great Lakes steamer "Erie" sinks off Silver Creek NY, kills 300
1850 California becomes 31st state
1850 Territories of New Mexico & Utah created
1862 Lee splits his army & sends Jackson to capture Harpers Ferry
1867 Luxembourg gains independence
1875 Lotta's Fountain (Kearny & Market) dedicated
1880 President Hayes visits SF
1892 Almalthea, 5th moon of Jupiter, discovered by EE Barnard at Lick
1895 The American Bowling Congress formed (NYC)
1904 Boston Herald again refers to NY baseball club as Yankees, when it reports "Yankees take 2," Yankee name not official till 1913
1908 Orville Wright makes 1st 1-hr airplane flight, Fort Myer, Va
1911 1st airmail service (British Post Office)
1912 J Verdrines becomes 1st to fly over 100 mph (107 mph/172 kph)
1913 Assn for Study of Negro Life & History organizes in Chicago
1914 Boston Brave George Davis no-hits Phila Phillies, 7-0
1919 Boston's police force goes on strike
1922 St Louis Brown Baby Doll Jacobson hits 3 triples beating Tigers 16-0
1926 National Broadcasting Co created by the Radio Corporation of America
1927 Tony Lazzeri Day at Yankee Stadium
1928 Silvio Cator of Haiti, sets then long jump record at 26' ¬"
1932 Frank Crosetti ties record, strikes out twice in 1 inning
1936 Yanks clinch 8th pennant
1942 1st bombing on continental US soil, Mount Emily Or (WW2)
1943 Italy surrenders to the Allies
1944 Allied forces liberate Luxembourg
1944 Bulgaria liberated from Nazi control (often referred to as the invasion of Bulgaria by Russia) (National Day)
1945 Japanese in S Korea, Taiwan, China, Indochina surrender to Allies
1945 Jimmie Foxx hits his 534th & final HR
1945 Phila A's Dick Fowler no-hits St Louis Browns, 1-0
1948 Bkln Dodger Rex Barney no-hits NY Giants, 2-0
1948 People's Democratic Republic of Korea proclaimed
1950 1st use of TV laugh track-Hank McCune
1956 Elvis Presley appears on national TV for 1st time (Ed Sullivan)
1957 Nashville's new Hattie Cotton Elementary School dynamited
1958 Pirate Roberto Clemente ties record of 3 triples in a game
1960 4th American Football League plays 1st game (Denver 13, Boston 10)
1963 Landslide into Vaiont Dam emptys lake, kills 3-4,000 (Italy)
1965 Sandy Koufax pitches his 4th no-hitter, a perfect game vs Cubs (1-0)
1965 Tibet is made an autonomous region of China
1966 John Lennon meets Yoko Ono at an avante-garde art exposition
1967 1st successful test flight of a Saturn V
1968 1st US Open, held as an "open" (Arthur Ashe-wins)
1968 Minn Tommy Krammer passes for 6 touchdowns vs Green Bay (42-7)
1969 Allegheny 853 collides with Piper Cherokee above Indiana, kills 82
1971 1,000 convicts seize Attica, NY prison
1971 John Lennon & Yoko Ono appear on the Dick Cavett Show (ABC-TV)
1971 John Lennon releases the "Imagine" album
1971 NHL great Gordie Howe retires
1975 Viking 2 launched toward orbit around Mars, soft landing
1977 1st TRS-80 computer sold
1978 3rd game of the Boston Massacre; Yanks beat Red Sox 7-0
1978 Balt Orioles pull their 7th triple play (5-4-3 vs Toronto)
1979 John McEnroe beats Vitas Gerulaitis, for the US Open Tennis title
1979 Sid Bernstein offers $« billion for a Beatle reunion
1979 Yusef Islam (Cat Stevens) weds Fouzia Ali at Kensington Mosque
1981 Vernon E Jordan resigns as president of National Urban League
1982 Columbia mated with SRBs & external tank in preparation for STS-5
1982 Conestoga 1, 1st private commercial rocket, makes suborbital flight
1983 Challenger returns to Kennedy Space Center via Sheppard AFB, Texas
1983 Radio Shack announces their color computer 2 (the Coco2)
1983 Vitas Gerulatis bets his house that Martina Navratilova can't beat the 100th ranked male tennis player
1984 Calif Angel Michael Witt is 11th to pitch a perfect baseball game
1984 John McEnroe beats Ivan Lendl, for the US Open Tennis title
1986 NYC jury indicts Gennadly Zakharov (Soviet UN employee) of spying
1987 Gary Hart admits to cheating on his wife on "Nightline"
1987 Larry Bird (Celtics), begins NBA free throw streak of 59
1987 Nolan Ryan strikes out his 4,500th batter
1988 US swamps New Zealand at 27th America`s Cup: NZ set to appeal
1989 Steffi Graf beats Martina Navratalova for the US Open championship
1990 Bush & Gorbachev meet in Helsinki & urge Iraq to leave Kuwait
1991 Only 1,695 fans watch Boston Red Sox play Clevland