1856 ~ Birthday of Sigmund Freud, psychiatrist, founder of Psychoanalysis.

1915 ~ Birthday of T.H. White, Writer.

1915 ~ Birthday of Orson Welles, Director.

1931 ~ Birthday of Willie Mays, baseball player.

1937 ~ The German zeppelin Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

1940 ~ John Steinbeck was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.

1953 ~ Birthday of Tony Blair, ex-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1954 ~ Roger Bannister became the first man to run the mile in under four minutes.

1994 ~ Queen Elizabeth and French President François Mitterrand opened the Chunnel.

1994 ~ Paula Jones filed suit against President Clinton, alleging he'd sexually harassed her in 1991.

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Eudaimonia

1825 ~ Death of Antonio Salieri, Composer.

1840 ~ Birthday of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer.

1915 ~ World War I: A German U-boat sank the RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people.

1919 ~ Birthday of Eva Peron, wife of Argentine President Juan Peron.

1933 ~ Birthday of Johnny Unitas, American football star.

1945 ~ General Alfred Jodl signed unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in World War II.

1954 ~ The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ended in a French defeat (the battle began on March 13).

1975 ~ Birthday of Nicole Sheridan, Porn Actress.

1999 ~ Kosovo War: Three Chinese embassy workers were killed and 20 wounded when a NATO aircraft “mistakenly” bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. President Clinton called the attack a “tragic mistake”.

2007 ~ The tomb of Herod the Great was discovered.

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Eudaimonia

1794 ~ French chemist Antoine Lavoisier was tried, convicted, and guillotined all on one day in Paris.

1873 ~ Death of John Stuart Mill, Empiricist Philosopher.

1895 ~ Birthday of Fulton J. Sheen, bishop and television personality.

1968 ~ Birthday of Jamie Summers, American porn star.

1973 ~ The Second Battle of Wounded Knee ended.

1978 ~ David Berkowitz pleaded guilty to the ''Son of Sam'' killings.

1984 ~ The Soviet Union announced that it would boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics.

1985 ~ Death of Theodore Sturgeon, Science Fiction writer.

1988 ~ Death of Robert Heinlein, Science Fiction writer.

1999 ~ The Citadel, South Carolina's formerly all-male military school, graduated its first female cadet.

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Eudaimonia

1874 ~ Birthday of Howard Carter, British archaeologist.

1901 ~ Australia opened its first parliament in Melbourne.

1903 ~ Death of Paul Gauguin, French Post-Impressionist painter.

1931 ~ Death of Albert Michelson, Physicist, awarded the 1907 Nobel Prize in Physics.

1949 ~ Birthday of Billy Joel, American musician.

1961 ~ Jim Gentile of the Baltimore Orioles became the first player in baseball history to hit grand slams in consecutive innings.

1972 ~ Israeli commandos liberated a hijacked Sabena airliner at Lod airport in Tel Aviv.

1974 ~ The U.S. Congress’s House Judiciary Committee opened hearings on whether to recommend the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.

1986 ~ Death of Tenzing Norgay, Mountaineer.

1994 ~ Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.

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Eudaimonia

1818 ~ Death of Paul Revere, engraver, American Patriot.

1838 ~ Birthday of John Wilkes Booth, Actor, assassin of Abraham Lincoln.

1857 ~ The Indian Mutiny began when the Sepoys revolted against the British Army.

1869 ~ The first transcontinental railroad in the U.S. was completed at Promontory, Utah.

1899 ~ Birthday of Fred Astaire, Singer, Dancer & Actor.

1924 ~ J. Edgar Hoover became director of the FBI.

1940 ~ British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned, and Winston Churchill formed a new government.

1960 ~ The USS Triton completes the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth.

1981 ~ François Mitterrand became the first Socialist President of France..

2002 ~ FBI agent Robert Hanssen was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole for selling American secrets to Russia.

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Eudaimonia

1904 ~ Birthday of Salvador Dalí, Spanish painter.

1918 ~ Birthday of Richard Feynman, American Physicist.

1973 ~ Charges against Daniel Ellsberg for his role in the Pentagon Papers case were dismissed.

1981 ~ Death of Bob Marley, Reggae musician.

1987 ~ The first heart-lung transplant took place in Baltimore, Maryland.

1988 ~ Death of Kim Philby, Spy.

1997 ~ IBM's Deep Blue chess-playing supercomputer defeated Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player.

1998 ~ India announced that it had tested a group of nuclear weapons.

2001 ~ Death of Douglas Adams, Science Fiction author.

2003 ~ Death of Noel Redding, the bass guitarist for The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

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Eudaimonia

1820 ~ Birthday of Florence Nightingale, Nurse.

1845 ~ Birthday of Gabriel Fauré, Composer.

1884 ~ Death of Bedrich Smetana, Composer.

1889 ~ Death of John Cadbury, Chocolate Entrepreneur.

1918 ~ Birthday of Julius Rosenberg, Spy.

1942 ~ The start of Second Battle of Kharkov: During the battle the Soviets recapture the city of Kharkov from the German Army, then were encircled and destroyed.

1943 ~ Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.

1962 ~ Douglas MacArthur delivered his famous "Duty, Honor, Country" valedictory speech at West Point.

1971 ~ Mick Jagger married Bianca Perez Morena de Macias in St Tropez.

2003 ~ Al Qaeda killed 26 people in the Riyadh compound bombings.

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Eudaimonia

1787 ~ Captain Arthur Phillip left Portsmouth, England with eleven ships of convicts to establish a penal colony in Australia.

1842 ~ Birthday of Sir Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert & Sullivan, Composer.

1861 ~ Queen Victoria issued a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognized the breakaway Confederate states as having belligerent rights.

1888 ~ Brazil abolished slavery.

1912 ~ The Royal Flying Corps (now the Royal Air Force) was established in the U.K.

1937 ~ Birthday of Roger Zelazny, Science Fiction author.

1940 ~ Winston Churchill made his "blood, tears, toil and sweat" speech to the House of Commons.

1979 ~ Birthday of Lauren Phoenix, Canadian Porn Actress.

1981 ~ Mehmet Ali Agca attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II at St. Peter's Square in Rome.

1995 ~ Alison Hargreaves became the first woman to climb Everest without oxygen or the help of sherpas.

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Eudaimonia

1787 ~ Delegates began gathering in Philadelphia for a convention to draw up the U.S. Constitution.

1925 ~ Death of H. Rider Haggard, Author.

1948 ~ The independent state of Israel was proclaimed.

1955 ~ The USSR and seven other communist bloc countries signed a mutual defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact.

1969 ~ Birthday of Cate Blanchett, Australian actress (Galadriel).

1973 ~ Skylab 1, the first American space station, was launched.

1978 ~ Death of Robert Menzies, twelfth Prime Minister of Australia.

1987 ~ Death of Rita Hayworth, American actress.

1998 ~ Death of Frank Sinatra, Singer & Actor.

2004 ~ Piers Morgan was fired as editor of the Daily Mirror for publishing photographs of alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British soldiers that were shown to be fake.

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Eudaimonia

1868 ~ The U.S. Senate failed to convict President Andrew Johnson of the articles of impeachment against him.

1943 ~ The Jewish Warsaw ghetto uprising ended.

1955 ~ Birthday of Olga Korbut, gymnast.

1966 ~ Birthday of Janet Jackson, Super Bowl Half Time Flasher.

1966 ~ The Chinese Cultural Revolution started when The Communist Party issued the "May 16 Notice".

1969 ~ The Soviet space probe Venera 5 landed on Venus.

1990 ~ Death of Sammy Davis, Jr., Entertainer.

1990 ~ Death of Jim Henson, Puppeteer.

2002 ~ Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones opened in theaters.

2005 ~ Newsweek magazine retracted its Koran abuse story that started protests in Afghanistan.

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Eudaimonia

I seem to remember once before the question was raised, Were Sammy Davis jr and Jim Henson the same person? You never saw them together, makeup can do wonders AND the both "died" on the same day. Jim made funny little people, probably drawn from his Sammy experiences as a funny little person. It's compelling.

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Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating

1749 ~ Birthday of Edward Jenner, inventor of vaccination.

1838 ~ Death of Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, French diplomat.

1935 ~ Death of Paul Dukas, French composer.

1936 ~ Birthday of Dennis Hopper, Actor & Director.

1943 ~ The RAF carried out the Dambusters raid.

1954 ~ The U.S. Supreme Court issued their decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

1974 ~ Thirty-three people were killed by terrorist bombings in Ireland.

1992 ~ Death of Lawrence Welk, American musician.

1996 ~ President Bill Clinton signed a measure requiring neighborhood notification when sex offenders move in - Megan's Law.

2004 ~ Same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts.

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Eudaimonia

1872 ~ Birthday of Bertrand Russell, Logician & Philosopher, awarded The Nobel Prize in Literature 1950.

1910 ~ The Earth passed through the tail of Halley’s Comet.

1911 ~ Death of Gustav Mahler, Austrian Composer.

1919 ~ Birthday of Dame Margot Fonteyn, Ballet dancer.

1937 ~ Birthday of Brooks Robinson, Baseball Hall of Famer.

1944 ~ Monte Cassino fell to the Allies.

1974 ~ India became the sixth nuclear nation by successfully detonated its first nuclear weapon.

1975 ~ Death of Leroy Anderson, American Composer.

1980 ~ Mount St. Helens in Washington state exploded, leaving 57 people dead or missing.

2004 ~ Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage.

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Eudaimonia

1536 ~ Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England was beheaded for adultery.

1795 ~ Birthday of Johns Hopkins, Philanthropist.

1890 ~ Birthday of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese leader.

1921 ~ The U.S. Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants.

1925 ~ Birthday of Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge leader.

1935 ~ Death of T. E. Lawrence, English soldier ("Lawrence of Arabia").

1965 ~ Tui Malila, the longest living animal known, died in Tonga at the age of either 188 or 192.

1983 ~ Birthday of Eve Angel, Hungarian Porn Actress.

2001 ~ Sun Zhonghua was killed by People's Republic of China government officials because she refused to be sterilized under the "One child" policy.

2004 ~ PM Blair hit with a purple flour filled condom.

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Eudaimonia

1806 ~ Birthday of John Stuart Mill, English philosopher.

1873 ~ Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.

1883 ~ The eruption of Krakatoa began, leading ultimately to the volcano's destruction three months later.

1896 ~ Death of Clara Schumann, German Pianist and Composer.

1901 ~ Birthday of Max Euwe, Dutch world chess champion.

1927 ~ Charles Lindbergh took off from Long Island, New York, on the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, arriving in Paris the next day.

1940 ~ The first prisoners arrive at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

1961 ~ U.S. marshals were sent to restore order in Montgomery, Alabama.

2000 ~ Death of Jean Pierre Rampal, French flutist.

2002 ~ Death of Stephen Jay Gould, American paleontologist.

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Eudaimonia