Historical Events
- 1787 First Fleet headed by Arthur Phillip sets sails with 11 ships of convicts for Botany Bay, Australia [1]
- 1830 Republic of Ecuador is founded, with Juan Jose Flores as president
- 1940 Winston Churchill says "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat" in his first speech as Prime Minister to British House of Commons
- 1981 Pope John Paul II is shot and critically wounded by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Ağca in St Peter's Square, Vatican City
- 1989 Approximately 2,000 students begin a hunger strike in Tiananmen Square, China to force a dialogue with the government ahead of a visit by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
- Historical Events Today Events in 2024
Today in Film & TV
- 2004 The final episode of "Frasier" on NBC is watched by 33 million people
Today in Music
- 1767 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's first opera "Apollo et Hyacinthus", written when he was 11 years old, premieres in Salzburg
Today in Sport
- 1950 First ever race of the Formula 1 World Drivers Championship is run at Silverstone, England and won by Giuseppe Farina of italy in an Alfa Romeo
Did You Know?Famous Birthdays
Charles Watson-Wentworth
1730 - 1782
Arthur Sullivan
1842 - 1900
Witold Pilecki
1901 - 1948
Joe Louis
1914 - 1981
Jim Jones
1931 - 1978
Scott Morrison
56th Birthday
Celebrity Birthdays
Stevie Wonder
74th Birthday
Dennis Rodman
63rd Birthday
Stephen Colbert
60th Birthday
Lena Dunham
38th Birthday
Robert Pattinson
38th Birthday
Morgan Wallen
31st Birthday
Fun Fact About Today
22-year-old UK blogger halts spread of global ransomware cyber-attack by accidentally identifying "kill switch"
Famous Weddings
- 1917 American missionary and writer Pearl Sydenstricker (24) weds fellow American missionary and economist John Lossing Buck (26), becoming Pearl S. Buck; divorce in 1935
- 1922 "Latin Lover" silent actor Rudolph Valentino (27) weds film costume and set designer Natacha Rambova (25) in Mexicali, Mexico; divorce in 1925
- 1932 Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (25) weds Russian physicist Nina Varsar (23), mostly until her death in 1954
Cyrus McCormick
Fridtjof Nansen
Gary Cooper
Stanislaw Ulam
Chet Baker
Doris Day
American
British
Canadian
French
German
Russian