Some notable facts about this date, for more, visit http://www.onthisday.com
Facts
1586 Sir Thomas Herriot introduces potatoes to England from Colombia
1854 Eureka Stockade: In what is claimed by many to be the birth of Australian democracy, more than 20 goldminers at Ballarat, Victoria, are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences
1967 1st human heart transplant performed by Dr Christian Barnard in South Africa
1984 Bhopal disaster: Union Carbide pesticide plant leak 45 tons of methyl isocyanate and other toxic compounds in Bhopal, India, kills 2,259 (official figure) - other estimates as high as 16,000 (including later deaths) and over half a million injured
1989 Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George H. W. Bush, declare the Cold War over
Deaths
311 Diocletian, Roman Emperor (284-305), dies at 66
1610 Honda Tadakatsu, Japanese general (b. 1548)
1888 Carl Zeiss, German scientific instrument and lens maker (Carl Zeiss AG), dies at 72
1894 Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish novelist (Treasure Island), dies at 45
1910 Mary Baker Eddy, founder (Christian Science (Monitor)), dies at 89
1919 Pierre A Renoir, French painter/sculptor, dies at 78
1976 Mary Nash, actress (Philadelphia Story, Till the Clouds Roll By), dies at 91
1995 Jimmy Jewel, comedian, dies at 82
2009 Richard Todd, Irish-born British actor (Dorian Gray, Assassin Yangtse Incident), dies at 90
Born on this day
1960 Julianne Moore, American actress (Magnolia, The Kids are Alright), born in Fayetteville, North Carolina
1971 Frank Sinclair, Jamaican footballer
1981 David Villa, Spanish footballer
A Couple of Pics from those no longer with us
Mary Nash
Richard Todd