1859
Don't look down!
French acrobat Charles Blondin, AKA Jean Francois Gravelet, walked across Niagara Falls on a tightrope.
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1908
A powerful natural explosion from an unknown cause rocked the Tunguska Basin, in eastern Siberia, flattening hundreds of square miles of forest and resulting in tremors that could be felt hundreds of miles away.
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1921
President Warren G. Harding appointed former president William H. Taft chief justice of the United States.
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1934
Adolf Hitler secured his position in the Nazi party by a "blood purge," ridding the party of other leaders such as Ernst Roehm and Kurt von Schleicher.
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1936
Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind was published.
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1971
The 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18, was ratified by the states.
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1998
The remains of a Vietnam War serviceman buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers were identified as those of Air Force pilot Michael J. Blassie.
