Facts
1576 Eighty Years' War: In Flanders, Spanish defeat Walloon and capture Antwerp
1841 First wagon train arrives in California
1862 Dr Richard Gatling patents Gatling machine gun in Indianapolis
1879 African American inventor Thomas Elkins patents refrigerating apparatus
1922 Howard Carter discovers tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt
2008 Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be elected President of the United States
Deaths
1652 Jean-Charles de la Faille, Flemish mathematician (b. 1597)
1781 Johann Nikolaus Götz, German poet (b. 1721)
1955 Cy Young, American baseball pitcher and MLB all-time wins leader, dies at 88
1967 June Thorburn, actress (Tom Thumb), dies in plane crash at 36
1995 Paul Eddington, actor (Jim Hacker), dies at 68
1995 Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel (1974-77 and 1992-95) and 1994 Nobel Peace Prize winner, assassinated
2008 Michael Crichton, American author, dies at 66
2010 Sparky Anderson, American baseball manager, dies at 76
2015 Melissa Mathison, American screenwriter (E.T.), dies of cancer at 65
Born on this day
1969 Matthew McConaughey, American actor (Contact, A Time to Kill), born in Uvalde, Texas
June Thorburn
Paul Eddington
