1000 Battle of Svolder, Baltic Sea: King Olaf on board the Long Serpent defeated in one of the greatest naval battles of the Viking Age. He leaps to his death overboard.
1776 Congress officially renames the country as the United States of America (from the United Colonies)
1817 Alexander Twilight, probably first African American to graduate from a US college, receives BA degree at Middlebury College
1914 First fully mechanized unit in the British Army created – the Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade (WWI)
1993 Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization exchange letters of mutual recognition
2015 Queen Elizabeth II becomes Great Britain’s longest-reigning monarch at 63 years and seven months, beating the previous record set by her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria
Today in Film & TV
1951 1st broadcast of “Love of Life” on CBS-TV
1956 Elvis Presley appears on “The Ed Sullivan Show” for the 1st time
Today in Sport
1972 Soviet Union beats the United States 51-50 in the most controversial game in international basketball history; with US leading 50-49 the final 3 seconds is replayed 3 times until the Soviets finally win
Do you know this fact about today? Did You Know?
Mary Stuart, at nine months old, is crowned “Queen of Scots” in the central Scottish town of Stirling
Would you believe this fact about today? Would You Believe?
Nurse Sally Tompkins is officially commissioned as an officer (and its only woman officer) by the Confederate US Army
