Today:
1. 452 – Attila the Hun invades Italy.
2. 793 – Vikings raid the abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, marking the beginning of Viking invasions of England.
3. 1042 – Harthacnut, King of England and Denmark, dies and is succeeded by Edward the Confessor.
4. 1783 – The Laki volcano in Iceland begins an eight-month eruption, causing significant climatic and agricultural impact.
5. 1949 – George Orwell’s dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” is published.
6. 1966 – Topeka, Kansas is devastated by a tornado that registers as an F5 on the Fujita scale.
7. 1967 – During the Six-Day War, the USS Liberty incident occurs when Israeli forces attack the American ship, causing significant casualties.
8. 1968 – James Earl Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr., is captured.
9. 1984 – Ghostbusters and Gremlins are released in the United States.
10. 2004 – The first Venus Transit since 1882 occurs, visible from much of the world.