Some notable facts about this date, for more, visit http://www.onthisday.com
Facts
1497 Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounds Cape of Good Hope on way to first voyage from Europe to reach India
1926 Imperial Conference ends, giving autonomy inside British Commonwealth
1935 Flying boat "China Clipper" takes off from Alameda, California, carrying 100,000 pieces of mail on 1st trans-Pacific airmail flight
1963 American President John F. Kennedy assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas
1969 Isolation of a single gene announced by scientists at Harvard University
2005 Angela Merkel becomes the first female Chancellor of Germany
Deaths
950 Lotharius, King of Italy (947-50), dies
1718 Blackbeard, notorious English pirate, dies in battle at 38
1773 Robert Clive, English explorer and founder (British empire in India), dies at 49
1896 George Washington Gale Ferris, inventor (Ferris wheel), dies
1919 Francisco Moreno, Argentine explorer (b. 1852)
1959 Molla Mallory, eight-time U.S. Open tennis champion, dies at 75
1963 Aldous Huxley, English author (Brave New World), dies at 69
1963 C. S. Lewis [Clive Staples], Irish author (Silver Chair), dies at 64
1963 John F. Kennedy, 35th president of the United States (1961-63), assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas at 46
1980 Mae West, actress (She Done Him Wrong), dies in Hollywood at 87
1983 Michael Conrad, actor (Hill Street Blues), dies of cancer at 58
1993 Bill Bixby, US actor (My Favorite Martian), dies from cancer at 59
1995 Raymond Dart, Australian paleoanthropologist (Australopithecus africanus), dies at 95
1997 Michael Hutchence, Australiann rocker (INXS) and actor, commits suicide at 37
1998 Stu Unger, American poker player (b. 1953)
2016 Florence Henderson, American actress and singer (Carol in The Brady Bunch), dies at 82
Born on this day
1943 Billie Jean King, American tennis pro (Wimbledon 1968, 72, 73, 75), born in Long Beach, California
1958 Jamie Lee Curtis, American actress (Halloween, True Lies), born in Los Angeles, California
1967 Boris Becker, German tennis star (Wimbledon 1985, 86, 89), born in Leimen, Germany
1984 Scarlett Johansson, American actress (Lost in Translation, Avengers), born in NYC, New York
Stu Unger
Florence Henderson
