Today:
326: The old St. Peter’s Basilica was consecrated in Rome.
1307: According to legend, William Tell shot an apple off his son’s head.
1477: William Caxton printed “The Dictes and Sayengis of the Philosophres,” the first dated book printed in England.
1803: The Battle of Vertières, the last major battle of the Haitian Revolution, was fought.
1883: U.S. and Canadian railroads adopted standard time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times.
1903: The Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty was signed by the United States and Panama, granting the U.S. exclusive rights over the Panama Canal Zone.
1916: The First Battle of the Somme in France ended after more than four months of fighting.
1928: The animated cartoon “Steamboat Willie” premiered, marking the debut of Mickey Mouse.
1978: In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones led over 900 members of his Peoples Temple cult in a mass murder-suicide.
1993: Twenty-one political parties in South Africa approved a new constitution that ended the white minority rule.