On this day

In 1509, the religious reformer John Calvin was born in Noyon, Picardy, France.

In 1645, Royalists and Parliamentarians clashed at Langport, England. The battle produced a major Parliamentarian victory in the English Civil War.

In 1723, the English jurist and historian William Blackstone was born in London, England.

In 1806, the Mutiny of Vellore, the first Sepoy Mutiny in South India.

In 1821, the United States took possession of the Florida territory it had purchased from Spain.

In 1832, President Andrew Jackson refused to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States.

In 1871, the novelist Marcel Proust was born Auteuil, France.

In 1921, rioting and gun battles destroyed lives and property in Belfast, Ireland in what became known as Belfast's Bloody Sunday.

In 1925, the Scopes "Monkey" Trial began in Dayton, Tennessee.

In 1940, the Vichy Government was established in France.

In 1941, the Creole jazz pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton died in Los Angeles, California.

In 1966, the Chicago Freedom Movement held a rally at Soldiers Field in Chicago, Illinois.

In 1973, Pakistan's National Assembly resolved to recognize Bangladesh as an independent state.

In 1978, the philanthropist John D. Rockefeller III died from an automobile accident in Mount Pleasant, New York.

In 1985, the French DSGE
bombed and sank Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior in Auckland, New Zealand, murdering one activist during the event.

In 1991, Boris Yeltsin began his five-year term as Russia's first elected president.