644 Umar ibn al-Khattab, second Muslim caliph, is killed in Medina by Lu’lu, an enslaved Persian captive.
1534 English parliament passes the Act of Supremacy making Henry VIII and all subsequent monarchs the Head of the Church of England.
1620 Great Patent granted to Plymouth Colony.
1631 John Eliot arrives in Boston, Massachussets. He was the first Protestant minister to dedicate himself to the conversion of native Americans to Christianity.
1640 English Long Parliament forms.
1783 Robert Raikes publishes a letter on the success of his Sunday schools in the Gloucester Journal which is seen by William Fox, who promotes a national Sunday school movement.
1818 Pliny Fisk sets sail for Palestine aboard the Sally Ann. Ordained by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Fisk became the first American missionary to journey to the Near East.
1869 Isabella Thoburn sails with Clara Swain from Boston harbor for India, where she will found a school for women.
1906 International Radiotelegraph Conference in Berlin selects “SOS” (· · · – – – · · ·) distress signal as the worldwide standard for help.
1957 Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2 with space dog Laika aboard, a mostly-Siberian husky, the 1st animal in space
1929 Orthodox priest Alexander Vasilyevich Nikulin serving in the village of Bolshaya Sosnova is arrested “for anti-Soviet agitation,” and will be sentenced to three years in the prison camps. After his released he serves churches secretly despite a warrant for his arrest.
1970 US President Richard Nixon promises gradual troop removal of Vietnam
TODAY’S HISTORICAL EVENTS
TODAY IN FILM & TV
1953 “Tokyo Story”, Japanese film directed by Yasujirō Ozu, starring Chishū Ryū, Chieko Higashiyama and Setsuko Hara, is released
TODAY IN MUSIC
1992 “I Will Always Love You” (Dolly Parton cover) single released by Whitney Houston (Billboard Song of the Year 1993)
TODAY IN SPORT
1991 Ayrton Senna wins Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide; shortest F1 race ever run (14 laps) because of wet conditions; Senna retains his 3rd World Drivers Championship by 24 points from Nigel Mansell
DO YOU KNOW THIS FACT ABOUT TODAY? DID YOU KNOW?
Turkey switches from Arabic to Roman alphabet, on this day in 1928
WOULD YOU BELIEVE THIS FACT ABOUT TODAY? WOULD YOU BELIEVE?
The Times of India, world’s largest circulated English language daily broadsheet newspaper founded as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce, on this day in 1838
