1533
The Church of England splinters off
Pope Clement VII excommunicated England's King Henry VIII.
-
1804
Former vice president Aaron Burr fatally wounded former secretary of the treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Hamilton died the following afternoon.
-
1864
Confederate general Jubal A. Early and his troops attacked Washington, DC. They retreated the next day, ending the Confederate threat to occupy the capital.
-
1914
Babe Ruth made his major league baseball debut as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.
-
1977
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work to advance civil rights.
-
1989
Actor Laurence Olivier died.
-
1995
The United States and Vietnam established full diplomatic relations.
-
2011
The News of the World, a British newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch, closes after several allegations that the paper's journalists hacked into voicemail accounts belonging to not only a 13-year-old murder victim, but also the relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
