This day in history

Some interesting historical events that happened today include:

 

1876- the US Patent Office issued patent #N.180,857 to Thomas Edison for improvement in Autographic Printing. Samuel F. O'Reilly would make further modifications to Edison's motorized pen design for use in the tattoo trade

 

1900- the first International Lawn Tennis Championship began and would eventually become known as the Davis Cup

 

1908- 5 years after the Wright brothers achieved motorized flight in Kitty Hawk, NC, they presented their flying machine to a public audience for the first time. Wilbur Wright piloted the aircraft ar a racecourse in Le Mans, Fance

 

1942- Warner Bros. released "The Squawking Hawk" and debut the character Henery Hawk. He appeared in 13 Looney Toon shorts and was often seen pursuing a chicken for supper. His most popular target was Foghorn Leghorn

 

1942- 6 Nazi spies who brought their activities to the US during WWII were executed for treason in Washington, D.C.

 

1950- Florence Chadwick swam the English Channel from France to England. Her time of 13 hours and 23 minutes broke American Gertrude Ederles' record

 

1960- Brian Hyland's song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini" hit #1 on Billboard's Hot 100. If you haven't heard it I recommend you do, it's still a pretty fun song.

 

1963- a British mail train became the target of a heist where 15 theives relieved a mail car of £2.6 million. All the theives were later captured and convicted but the mastermind and insider was never revealed

 

1966- The Beatles released "Yellow Submarine" in the US. The flip side of the single included "Eleanor Rigby"

 

1974- President Richard Nixon informed the public on national TV that he would resign the presidency effective noon the next day

 

1988- Sara Ferguson, Duchess of York gave birth to a baby girl

 

1992- the US Dream Team won gold at the Barcelona Olympics 

 

1995- Coolio released "Gangsta's Paradise" featuring music from Stevie Wonder. The song would be featured in the 1995 movie Dangerous Minds

 

2004- Denver Bronco quarterback John Elway was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame 

 

2013- Former Washington Post editor Benjamin Bradlee received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama

 

Some notable birthdays include:

 

Matthew Henson (1866) - in an expedition lead by Robert Peary, he was the first African American to reach the North Pole

Robert Smith (1879) - co-founded Alcohilics Anonymous 

Ernest Lawrence (1901) - physicist who invented the cyclotron. He won the Nobel Prize for it in 1939

Paul Dirac (1902) - 1933 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, he contributed to the advancement of quantum physics

Esther Williams (1921) - swimming champion turned movie star, she earned a star on the Walk of Fame in 1960

Dustin Hoffman (1937)

Svetlana Savitskaya (1948) - she was the 2nd woman in space and the first woman to complete a spacewalk. She is the only Russian woman to preform a space walk

Keith Caradine (1949)

Manjul Bhargava (1974) - Canadian American mathematician who earned the Fields Medal in 2014, often viewed as mathematics highest honor