Born On This Day:

• Emperor Rudolf II, 1552
• William Makepeace Thackeray, 1811
• W.G. Grace, 1848
• Laurence Housman, 1865
• Gene Lockhart, 1891
• Richard Dix, 1894
• Chill Wills, 1903
• Clifford Odets, 1906
• S.I. Hayakawa, 1906
• Andrei Gromyko, 1909
• Harriet Nelson, 1909
• Hume Cronyn, 1911
• Red Skelton, 1913
• Nelson Mandela, 1918
• John Glenn, 1921
• Kurt Masur, 1927
• Dick Button, 1929
• Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 1933
• Hunter S. Thompson, 1937
• Hunter Thompson, 1939
• James Brolin, 1941
• Martha Reeves, 1941
• Steve Forbes, 1947
• Richard Branson, 1950
• Ricky Skaggs, 1954
• Nick Faldo, 1957
• Elizabeth McGovern, 1961
• Vin Diesel, 1967

Died On This Day:

• Petrarch, 1374
• Caravaggio, 1610
• John Paul Jones, 1792
• Jane Austen, 1817
• Benito Juarez, 1872
• Thomas Cook, 1892
• Horatio Alger, 1899
• Queen Marie Rumania, 1938
• Dr. Karl Menninger, 1990
• Jean Negulesco, 1993
• General William Westmoreland, 2005

Today's Events:

• AD 64 - Two-thirds of Rome burned as, it was said, Nero fiddled.
• 1855 - First postage stamp issued in New Zealand.
• 1877 - Thomas A. Edison discovers principle of recorded sound shouting 'Halloo!' into a strip phonograph.
• 1925 - Mein Kampf part one published in Germany; Hitler dictated book to Rudolf Hess in prison.
• 1947 - British sailors storm refugee ship Exodus 1947 killing 3 and injuring hundreds, stopping their emigration to Palestine and sending them to a former German Concentration Camp.
• 1951 - Jersey Joe Walcott beats Ezzard Charles in 7 rounds at Philly for heavyweight boxing championship.
• 1955 - First electric power generated from atomic energy sold by Atomic Energy Commission.
• 1964 - Blacks riot in New York City, violence spreads across country.
• 1968 - Intel incorporated by Robert Noyce, Andy Grove and Gordon Moore.
• 1969 - Sen. Edward Kennedy drives car off Chappaquiddick bridge in Maine killing Mary Jo Kopechne.
• 1977 - Vietnam admitted to UN.

Feast Day of Saint:

• Symphorosa and her seven sons

Holiday:

• National Day in Spain (1936)

Non-Specific Holiday:

• JAGANNATH, RATHA YATRA, Hindu Festival of Car Procession of Vishnu
• CHI HSI, Festival of the Milky Way in China (seventh day of the seventh moon)
• CHUNG YÜAN, Festival of the Dead in China (fifteenth day of the seventh moon)
• NAGA PANCHAMI, Hindu Festival of the Serpent God
• RAKHI, Hindu Festival to Pledge Protection
• CHUNG-CH'IU, Mid-autumn festival, Harvest or Moon Festival (fifteenth day of the eighth moon)
• TISH'AH B'AB (Jewish) Anniversary of fall of Jerusalem and destruction of first & 2nd temples Ab 9
• NEBUTA, Japanese Festival at peak of summer to drive off lethargy
• SOMA NOMAOI, Japanese Festival of samurai equestrian displays