Today:
In 1509, King Henry VIII of England married Catherine of Aragon, his first of six wives.
In 1770, Captain James Cook ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef while exploring the coast of Australia.
In 1776, the Continental Congress appointed the “Committee of Five” (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston) to draft a declaration of independence.
In 1817, the first predecessor of the bicycle, Karl Drais’s “Laufmaschine” (running machine), was demonstrated in Germany.
In 1935, Edwin Armstrong gave the first public demonstration of FM radio broadcasting in the U.S.
In 1955, a racing car crashed into spectators at the Le Mans race in France, killing 83 people.
In 1962, Frank Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin allegedly became the only prisoners to escape from Alcatraz Island.
In 1963, Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc publicly burned himself to death in Saigon to protest the South Vietnamese government’s persecution of Buddhists.
In 1979, iconic American film actor John Wayne died at age 72 after battling cancer.
In 2001, Timothy McVeigh, convicted of the Oklahoma City bombing, was executed.