Quoted Text

Events
1513 – Italian Wars: Battle of Novara. Swiss troops defeat the French under Louis de la Tremoille, forcing the French to abandon Milan. Duke Massimiliano Sforza is restored.
1523 – Gustav Vasa is crowned king of Sweden. This is the Swedish national day
1644 – The Qing Dynasty Manchu forces led by the Shunzhi Emperor capture Beijing during the collapse of the Ming Dynasty.
1654 – Charles X succeeds his abdicated cousin Queen Christina to the Swedish throne.
1674 – Shivaji, founder of the Maratha empire, is crowned.
1683 – The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world's first university museum.
1752 – A devastating fire destroys one-third of Moscow, including 18,000 homes.
1808 – Napoleon's brother, Joseph Bonaparte is crowned King of Spain.
1809 – Sweden promulgates a new Constitution, which restores political power to the Riksdag of the Estates after 20 years of Enlightened absolutism. At the same time, Charles XIII is elected to succeed Gustav IV Adolf as King of Sweden.
1813 – War of 1812: Battle of Stoney Creek – A British force of 700 under John Vincent defeats an American force two times its size under William Winder and John Chandler.
1822 – Alexis St. Martin accidentally shot in the stomach, which leads way to William Beaumont's studies on digestion.
1832 – The June Rebellion of Paris is put down by the National Guard.
1833 – U.S. President Andrew Jackson becomes the first President to ride on a train.
1844 – The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) is founded in London.
1857 – Sophia of Nassau marries the future King Oscar II of Sweden-Norway.
1859 – Australia: Queensland is established as a separate colony from New South Wales (Queensland Day).
1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Memphis – Union forces capture Memphis, Tennessee, from the Confederates.
1882 – More than 100,000 inhabitants of Bombay are killed as a cyclone in the Arabian Sea pushes huge waves into the harbour.
1882 – The Shewan forces of Menelik II of Ethiopia defeat the Gojjame army in the Battle of Embabo. The Shewans capture Negus Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam, and their victory leads to a Shewan hegemony over the territories south of the Abay River.
1889 – The Great Seattle fire destroys the entirety of downtown Seattle, Washington.
1892 – Chicago 'L' begins operation
1894 – Governor Davis H. Waite orders the Colorado state militia to protect and support the miners engaged in the Cripple Creek miners' strike.
1909 – French troops capture Abéché (in modern-day Chad) and install a puppet sultan in the Ouaddai Empire.
1912 – The eruption of Novarupta in Alaska begins. It is the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.
1918 – World War I: Battle of Belleau Wood – The U.S. Marine Corps suffers its worst single day's casualties while attempting to recapture the wood at Chateau-Thierry.
1919 – The Republic of Prekmurje ends.
1921 – The Southwark Bridge in London, is opened for traffic by King George V and Queen Mary.
1932 – The Revenue Act of 1932 is enacted, creating the first gas tax in the United States, at a rate of 1 cent per US gallon (1/4 ¢/L) sold.
1933 – The first drive-in theater opens, in Camden, New Jersey, United States.
1934 – New Deal: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Securities Act of 1933 into law, establishing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
1939 – Judge Joseph Force Crater, known as the "Missingest Man in New York", is declared legally dead.
1942 – World War II: Battle of Midway. U.S. Navy dive bombers sink the Japanese cruiser Mikuma and four Japanese carriers.
1944 – World War II: Battle of Normandy begins. D-Day, code named Operation Overlord, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The allied soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history.
1946 – The National Basketball Association is created, with eleven original teams.
1964 – Under a temporary order, the rocket launches at Cuxhaven, Germany, are terminated, though they never resume.
1971 – Soyuz program: Soyuz 11 launches.
1971 – A midair collision between a Hughes Airwest Douglas DC-9 jetliner and a United States Marine Corps McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II jet fighter near Duarte, California claims 50 lives.
1971 – Vietnam War: The Battle of Long Khanh between Australian and Vietnamese communist forces begins.
1974 – A new Instrument of Government is promulgated making Sweden a parliamentary monarchy.
1981 – Bihar train disaster A passenger train travelling between Mansi and Saharsa, India, jumps the tracks at a bridge crossing the Bagmati river. The government places the official death toll at 268 plus another 300 missing; however, it is generally believed that the actual figure is closer to 1,000 killed.
1982 – 1982 Lebanon War begins: Forces under Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon invade southern Lebanon in their "Operation Peace for the Galilee", eventually reaching as far north as the capital Beirut.
1984 – Tetris, one of the best-selling video games of all-time, is released.
1985 – The grave of "Wolfgang Gerhard" is exhumed in Embu, Brazil; the remains found are later proven to be those of Josef Mengele, Auschwitz's "Angel of Death". Mengele is thought to have drowned while swimming in February 1979.
1993 – Mongolia holds its first direct presidential elections.
2002 – Eastern Mediterranean Event. A near-Earth asteroid estimated at 10 meters diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya. The resulting explosion is estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb.
2004 – Tamil is established as a Classical language by the President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in a joint sitting of the two houses of the Indian Parliament.
2005 – The United States Supreme Court upholds a federal law banning cannabis, including medical marijuana, in Gonzales v. Raich