This day in history

Some historical events that happened today include:

 

1521- Spanish conquistadors under Hernán Cortés captured Aztec Emperor Cuauhtémoc in Tenochtitlan marking the end of the Aztec Empire 

 

1605- the controversial play "Eastward Hoe" by Ben Jonson, George Chapman and JohnvMarston premiered at thebBlackfriars Theatre in London. 2 of the authors landed in prison for offending King James I

 

1732- Voltaire's tragic play "Zaire" premiered in Paris

 

1784- the British parliament accepted the East India Company Act of 1784 bringing the East India Company's rule in India under the control of the British Government 

 

1792- Revolutionaries imprisoned French royals including Marie Antoinette

 

1889- William Gray of Hartford, CT patented the coin-operated telephone

 

1906- Black soldiers are accused of raiding Brownsville, TX. Despite support from local commanding officers, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered dishonorable discharges for 167 soldiers. All were cleared or wrongdoing in 1972, 165 posthumous

 

1913- Harry Brearley of Sheffield, England invented stainless steel

 

1914- Carl Wickman began Greyhound, the 1st US bus line, in Minnesota 

 

1918- Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) was established as a public company in Germany

 

1923- US Steel Corp initiated the 8-hour work day

 

1926- Enrique Tirabocchi of Argentina became the first to swim the English Channel from France to England. It took him 16 hours and 33 minutes 

 

1942- the Manhattan Project commenced under the direction of US General Leslie Groves with the aim of developing an atomic bomb

 

1950- President Harry Truman gave military aid to Vietnamese regime of Bào Ðąi

 

1956- Elvis released music single "Don't be Cruel"

 

1961- construction of the Berlin Wall began in East Germany 

 

1967- Bonnie and Clyde directed by Arthur Penn was released. It stars Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway

 

1971- Paul & Linda McCartney released "Back Seat of my Car"

 

1993- US Court of Appeals ruled Congress must save all E-Mails

 

1996- Microsoft released Internet Explorer 3.0

 

1997- South Park debut on Comedy Central

 

2014- Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani was the first woman to win the Fields Medal in mathematics 

 

2015- the US government formally returned France's Picasso painting La Coiffeuse that was stolen from Paris' National Museum of Modern Art in 2001

 

Some notable birthdays include:

 

Lucy Stone (1818) - American abolitionist with the US Woman's Suffrage Association 

Annie Oakley (1860)

Giovanni Agnelli (1866) - founder of Fiat

Julius Freed (1887) - co-founder of Orange Julius fast food chain

Bert Lahr (1895) best known as the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz

Alfred Hitchcock (1899)

James Benton Parson (1911) - 1st African American federal judge

Fidel Castro (1926)

Don Ho (1930)

Jocelyn Elders (1933) - 1st African American US Surgeon General

Dante "Danny" Bonaduce (1959)