On this day...

1642 Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass, 1st commencement
1779 John Paul Jones' "Bon Homme Richard" defeats 'HMS Serepis'
1780 British MAJ John Andre was apprehended as a Spy, near Tarrytown, NY
1803 Battle of Assaye-British-Indian forces beat Maratha Army
1806 Lewis & Clark return to St Louis from the Pacific Northwest
1845 1st baseball team, NY Knickerbockers organize, adopt rule code
1846 Johann Gottfried Galle & Heinrich d'Arrest find Neptune
1862 Lincoln's Emancipation is published in Northern Newspapers
1863 Confederate siege of Chattanooga begins
1868 Grito de Lares proclaims Puerto Rico's independence (crushed by Spain)
1873 Tom Allen beats Mike McCale for Heavyweight Boxing title
1879 Baldwin steam motors tram 1st tried in Sydney Australia
1890 Ed Cartwright bats in 7 RBIs in 1 inning
1897 1st frontier days rodeo celebration (Cheyene Wyoming)
1908 Giant Fred (Bonehead) Merkle fails to touch 2nd, causes 3rd out in 9th disallows winning run (game ends tied, Cubs win replay & pennant)
1908 University of Alberta opens
1912 1st Mack Sennett "Keystone Comedy" movie released
1926 Gene Tunney defeats Jack Dempsey for world heavyweight boxing title
1932 Kingdom of Hejaz & Nejd renamed Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
1933 Yanks commit 7 errors in 1 game but beat Boston 16-12
1938 Time capsule, to be opened in 6939, buried at World's Fair in NYC (capsule contained a woman's hat, man's pipe & 1,100' of microfilm)
1939 Cookie Lavagetto goes 6 for 6-Dodgers get 27 hits & beat Phillies 22-4
1949 Truman announces evidence of USSR's 1st nuclear device detonation
1950 Phila A's Joe Astroth is 4th to get 6 RBIs in an inning (6th)
1952 1st closed circuit pay-TV telecast of a sports event
1952 Richard Nixon makes his "Checker's" speech
1952 Rocky Marciano KOs heavyweight champ Jersey Joe Walcott in 13 for heavyweight boxing title
1961 1st movie to become a TV series-How to Marry a Millionaire
1962 ABC's 1st color TV series-The Jetsons
1962 LA Dodger Maury Wills steals record setting #97 on his way to 104
1962 NY's Philharmonic Hall (since renamed Avery Fisher Hall) opens as 1st unit of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
1967 Radio Malta stops testing
1969 Northern Star starts rumor that Paul McCartney is dead
1973 Former Argentine President Juan Peron returns to power
1973 Largest known prime, 2 ^ 132,049-1, is discovered
1976 Ford-Carter TV debate
1976 Soyuz 22 returns to Earth
1977 3rd test of Space Shuttle Enterprise
1977 Cheryl Ladd replaces Farrah Fawcett on Charlie's Angels
1978 100,000 cheering Egyptians welcome Sadat home from Camp David summit
1979 Jane Fonda & 200,000 attend anti-nuke rally in Battery Park, NYC
1979 Lou Brock steals record 935th base
1980 Big Thunder Mountain Railroad opens
1983 Columbia moves to Vandenberg AFB for mating in preparation of STS-9
1983 Phillies Steve Carlton wins his 300th game (beating St Louis Cards)
1984 SF 49er Joe Montana misses his 1st start in 49 games
1984 Sparky Anderson is 1st manager to win 100 games in both leagues
1986 Houston Astro Jim Deshales sets record of striking out 1st 8 men starting a ball game, beating the LA Dodgers 4-0
1988 Jose Canseco becomes baseball's 1st to steal 40 bases & hit 40 HRs
1990 PBS begins an 11 hour miniseries on The Civil War
1990 Saddam says he will destroy Israel
1991 NY Islanders Mike Bossy & Denis Potvin inducted into NHL Hall of Fame