1715 King Louis XIV of France dies after a reign of 72 years—the longest of any major European monarch.
1878 1st female telephone operator starts work, Emma Nutt for the Edwin Holmes Telephone Despatch Company in Boston
1905 Wilfrid Laurier oversees Alberta and Saskatchewan joining the Confederation of Canada as its 8th and 9th Canadian provinces
1939 World War II starts when Germany invades Poland by attacking the Free City of Danzig
1941 Jews living in Germany are required to wear a yellow star of David
1951 US, Australia and New Zealand sign the ANZUS mutual defense treaty
1969 Colonel Muammar Gaddafi deposes King Idris in the Libyan revolution
HISTORICAL EVENTS TODAY
TODAY IN FILM & TV
1954 “Rear Window”, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly, is released
TODAY IN MUSIC
1785 Mozart publishes 6th string quartet, opus 10, in Vienna
TODAY IN SPORT
1972 American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer beats Russian champion Boris Spassky 12.5-8.5 in Reykjavik, Iceland; most publicised world title match ever played; Fischer 1st American to win title
MORE FACTS…
1962 United Nations announces Earth’s population has hit 3 billion
1914 The last passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, dies in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo (Cincinnati, Ohio)
FAMOUS WEDDINGS
1730 US Founding Father Benjamin Franklin establishes a common-law marriage with Deborah Read
1843 Prime Minister of Canada John A. Macdonald (28) weds his cousin Isabella Clark
1910 Actor John Barrymore (28) marries first wife actress Katherine Corri Harris (19) (divorced 1917)
