1914 ~ The last Passenger Pigeon died in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo.

Poor Martha.

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Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating

31 B.C. ~ Battle of Actium: Off the western coast of Greece, forces of Octavian defeat troops under Mark Antony and Cleopatra. This date is often used for the beginning of the Roman Empire.

1666 ~ The Great Fire of London started in Pudding Lane at the house of Thomas Farrinor near London Bridge. Samuel Pepys, a neighbor, was woken by the fire at around 1 AM. The fire burned for three days destroying 10,000 buildings including St. Paul's Cathedral, but only 16 people are known to have died.

1898 ~ The Battle of Omdurman: British and Egyptian troops led by Horatio Kitchener defeated Sudanese tribesmen led by Khalifa Abdullah al-Taashi, establishing British dominance in the Sudan.

1945 ~ The official surrender of Japan was accepted by General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz from a delegation led by Mamoru Shigemitsu, aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, bringing World War II to an end.

1948 ~ Birthday of Christa McAuliffe, schoolteacher & astronaut.

1964 ~ Death of Alvin York, Hero. He was the most decorated American soldier of World War I.

1969 ~ Death of Ho Chi Minh, Vietmamese Revolutionary, President & Prime Minister.

1973 ~ Death of J. R. R. Tolkien, British writer.

1974 ~ Birthday of Inari Vachs, Porn Actress.

1991 ~ The U.S. recognized the independence of the Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

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Eudaimonia

301 ~ San Marino, the world's oldest republic still in existence, was founded by Saint Marinus.

1658 ~ Death of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England.

1875 ~ Birthday of Ferdinand Porsche, German automotive engineer.

1893 ~ Death of James Harrison, Australian pioneer of mechanical refrigeration.

1939 ~ World War II: France and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany.

1954 ~ The last new episode of The Lone Ranger was aired on radio after 2,956 episodes over a period of 21 years.

1962 ~ Death of e. e. cummings, poet.

1976 ~ The Viking 2 spacecraft landed on Mars and took the first close-up, color photos of the planet's surface.

1995 ~ eBay founded.

2004 ~ More than 300 people died at the end of a three-day siege at a school in Beslan, Russia.

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Eudaimonia

476 ~ Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was deposed.

1781 ~ Los Angeles was founded as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciúncula (The City of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula).

1824 ~ Birthday of Anton Bruckner, Composer.

1888 ~ George Eastman registered the trademark Kodak.

1907 ~ Death of Edvard Grieg, Norwegian Composer.

1957 ~ The Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel.

1957 ~ The Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution in Great Britain came to the conclusion that outlawing homosexuality impinged upon civil liberties.

1965 ~ Death of Albert Schweitzer, Physician, J.S. Bach interpreter, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 1952.

1995 ~ Death of William Kunstler, Attorney.

1998 ~ Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

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Eudaimonia

I assume they changed it to Los Angeles so that they didn't need envelopes 18" long just to write the address?

(Gotta' admit though, "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciúncula" has a nice ring to it.

1793 ~ The French National Convention voted to implement terror measures to enforce the principles of the French Revolution.

1847 ~ Birthday of Jesse James, outlaw.

1857 ~ Birthday of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Visionary & Pioneer of Astronautics.

1882 ~ The first Labor Day parade in the U.S. was held in New York City.

1939 ~ The U.S. declared its neutrality in World War II.

1957 ~ “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac was published.

1972 ~ A Palestinian terrorist group called "Black September" attacked Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games.

1735 ~ Birthday of AnnMarie, Porn Actress.

1982 ~ Death of Douglas Bader, World War II RAF fighter pilot.

1997 ~ Death of Mother Teresa, Inspiration.

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Eudaimonia

Rest in Peace, Mother Teresa. Rest in Peace.

1620 ~ The Pilgrims set sail on the Mayflower from Plymouth, England, to settle in North America.

1766 ~ Birthday of John Dalton, British chemist and physicist. He was one of the earlier proponents of the atomic theory.

1847 ~ Henry Thoreau left Walden Pond and moved in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord, Massachusetts.

1928 ~ Birthday of Robert Pirsig, Author (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance).

1941 ~ The requirement to wear the Star of David with the word "Jew" inscribed, was extended to all Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas.

1965 ~ India invaded West Pakistan.

1986 ~ Birthday of Raven Riley, Porn Actress.

1995 ~ Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig's record of playing 2,131 consecutive baseball games.

1996 ~ Eddie Murray became the 15th member of the 500 home run club with a home run at Oriole Park in Baltimore, Maryland.

2005 ~ The California Legislature became the first legislative body in the U.S. to approve same-sex marriages.

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Eudaimonia

1776 ~ World's first submarine attack. American submersible craft Turtle attempted to attach a bomb to the hull of the British flagship Eagle in New York Harbor.

1907 ~ RMS Lusitania set sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England to New York City.

1908 ~ Birthday of Dr. Michael DeBakey, Heart Surgeon and inventor of the MASH.

1912 ~ Birthday of David Packard, Electrical Engineer.

1940 ~ The Blitz – Under orders from Adolf Hitler, the Luftwaffe began to bomb London. This was the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing.

1977 ~ The U.S. agreed to transfer control of the Panama Canal to Panama at the end of the 20th century.

1986 ~ Desmond Tutu becomes the first black African to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa.

1992 ~ Ciskei soldiers kill 24 at political rally.

1994 ~ Death of James Clavell, Author (Shogun) & Screenwriter (To Sir, with Love; The Great Escape).

1997 ~ Death of Mobutu Sese Seko, dictator of Zaire.

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Eudaimonia

1636 ~ Harvard College founded as the first college in the Americas.

1886 ~ Birthday of Siegfried Sassoon, Poet.

1925 ~ Birthday of Peter Sellers, Actor (A Shot in the Dark, Dr. Strangelove, The Pink Panther, etc.).

1930 ~ 3M began marketing Scotch transparent tape.

1941 ~ Siege of Leningrad began.

1944 ~ London was hit by a V2 rocket for the first time.

1949 ~ Death of Richard Strauss, Composer.

1966 ~ The first episode of the science fiction television series “Star Trek” aired.

1970 ~ Death of Percy Spencer, inventor of the microwave oven.

1974 ~ President Ford granted an unconditional pardon to former President Nixon.

1981 ~ Death of Hideki Yukawa, the Japanese physicist who proposed the meson elementary particle, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1949.

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Eudaimonia

1585 ~ Birthday of Cardinal Armand-Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu, French statesman.

1776 ~ The Continental Congress officially named their new country the United States.

1828 ~ Birthday of Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist (Anna Karenina, War and Peace).

1945 ~ Admiral Grace Hopper discovered the first computer bug.

1967 ~ Birthday of Anna Malle, Porn Star.

1976 ~ Death of Mao Zedong, chief architect of the Chinese Communist Revolution.

1987 ~ Extradition to Belgium of twenty-five English football fans involved in the Heysel stadium disaster.

1993 ~ The Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.) officially recognized Israel as a legitimate state.

2001 ~ The leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud, was assassinated in Afghanistan.

2003 ~ Death of Edward Teller, Hungarian-born physicist, "Father of the Hydrogen Bomb".

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Eudaimonia

1846 ~ Elias Howe was granted a patent for the sewing machine.

1942 ~ Birthday of Stephen Jay Gould, American paleontologist.

1943 ~ World War II: German forces began their occupation of Rome.

1945 ~ Vidkun Quisling sentenced to death for collaboration with Nazi Germany.

1960 ~ Birthday of Colin Firth, Actor (Shakespeare in Love, Bridget Jones's Diary, Love Actually, The King's Speech).

1971 ~ Death of Nikita Khrushchev, Premier of the Soviet Union.

1977 ~ Hamida Djandoubi, convicted of murder, became the last person to be executed by the guillotine in France.

1990 ~ The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro, the largest church in Africa and perhaps the world, consecrated by Pope John Paul II.

2000 ~ British paratroopers rescued six held hostage by the "West Side Boys".

2008 ~ CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is finally powered up.

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Eudaimonia

1297 ~ William Wallace led a Scottish army to defeat the English in the Battle of Stirling Bridge.

1711 ~ Birthday of William Boyce, Composer.

1914 ~ In one of the earlier military engagements of WWI, Australian forces defeat Germans in New Britain.

1948 ~ Death of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, first Governor-General of Pakistan.

1973 ~ A military coup in Chile headed by General Augusto Pinochet toppled elected Marxist President Salvador Allende.

1987 ~ CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, angry over being preempted for a tennis match, walked off the set, leaving affiliates with six minutes of an empty news desk.

1987 ~ Death of Lorne Greene, Canadian actor.

2001 ~ The September 11 terrorist attacks destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City, part of The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and crashed a passenger airliner in Pennsylvania. In total, almost 3,000 were killed.

2002 ~ Death of Johnny Unitas, Football Hall of Famer.

2007 ~ Russia tests the largest conventional weapon ever, the "Father of All Bombs".

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Eudaimonia

490 B.C. ~ The Athenians defeated the Persians at the Battle of Marathon.

1683 ~ The Ottoman Empire was defeated in the Battle of Vienna.

1814 ~ War of 1812: An American detachment halted the British land advance to Baltimore in the Battle of North Point.

1880 ~ Birthday of H.L. Mencken, Journalist, Author.

1913 ~ Birthday of Jesse Owens, American track and field athlete.

1940 ~ Cave paintings discovered in Lascaux, France.

1959 ~ First episode of Bonanza. First regularly-scheduled TV program presented in color.

1977 ~ Death of Steve Biko, South African anti-apartheid activist.

1992 ~ Abimael Guzmán, leader of the Shining Path, was captured.

2003 ~ Death of Johnny Cash, Country Music Great.

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Eudaimonia

1819 ~ Birthday of Clara Schumann, Pianist, Composer.

1857 ~ Birthday of Milton S. Hershey, chocolate entrepreneur and founder of the Hershey Chocolate Company.

1899 ~ Death of Henry Bliss, the first man in the U.S. to be killed in an automobile accident.

1948 ~ Margaret Chase Smith was elected senator, and became the first woman to serve in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.

1971 ~ Frank Robinson became the 11th member of the 500 home run club with a home run at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland.

1977 ~ Death of Leopold Stokowski, Conductor.

1982 ~ Lindy Chamberlain's "dingo baby trial" opened in Australia.

1979 ~ Birthday of Catalina Cruz, Porn Actress.

1993 ~ Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat shake hands on a peace deal.

2006 ~ Kimveer Gill kills one student and wounds 19 others at Dawson College in Montreal.

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Eudaimonia