1520 King Henry VIII of England orders bowling lanes at Whitehall

1641 Paul de Chomedy de Maisonneuve claims Montreal

1660 Asser Levy granted butcher's license (kosher meat) in New Amsterdam

1764 Edward Gibbon observes a group of friars singing in the ruined Temple of Jupiter in Rome, which inspires him to begin work on The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

1783 Jean Pilstre de Rozier makes 1st tethered balloon ascent

1789 1st US presidential tour by George Washington in New England

1846 American Dr William Thomas Green Morton's 1st public use of ether

1860 11-year-old Grace Bedell writes to Abraham Lincoln telling him to grow a beard

1866 Great fire in Quebec destroys 2,500 houses

1878 Edison Electric Light Company incorporated

1881 1st American fishing magazine, "American Angler" published

1895 Henry Perky patents a machine he developed with William Ford for the preparation of cereals for food, otherwise known as shredded wheat

1897 Aaron and Samuel Bloch carry 1st Mail Pouch

1914 US Clayton Anti-trust Act passed (union & strike rights)

1919 14 horses begin 300-mile race from Vermont to Massachusetts for $1000 prize money

1924 US President Calvin Coolidge declares Statue of Liberty a national monument

1928 German dirigible "Graf Zeppelin" lands in Lakehurst, New Jersey

1933 20th Amendment to the US Constitution goes into effect: President term begins in January not March

1937 Ernest Hemingway's novel "To Have and Have Not" published

1952 "Charlotte's Web" by E. B. White and illustrated by Garth Williams is published by Harper & Brothers

1954 Hurricane Hazel makes landfall in the US in North Carolina as a category 4 hurricane, 195 die in US and Canada

1956 First plane to land safely on water - Pan Am Flight 6 San Francisco to Honolulu, all 24 passengers and 7 crew survive

1966 LBJ signs a bill creating US Department of Transportation

1969 Bank of America World Headquarters (555 California) dedicated

1974 Nobel prize for chemistry awarded to Paul J. Flory for work on macro molecules

1975 Iceland moves intl boundary from 50 to 200 miles

1979 1st Monday night game from NYC, Jets beat Vikings 14-7 (Shea Stad)

1981 Professional cheerleader Krazy George Henderson leads what is thought to be the first audience wave in Oakland, California.

1984 Central Intelligence Agency Information Act passes

1985 Shuttle Columbia carries Spacelab into orbit

1991 Clarence Thomas is confirmed as a US Supreme Court Justice

1997 Nobel Prize for Chemistry awarded to Jens Christain Skou, Paul D. Boyer and John E. Walker for their work on enzymes in the body

2003 The Staten Island Ferry boat Andrew J. Barberi collides with a pier at the St. George Ferry Terminal in Staten Island, killing 11 people and injuring 43.

2011 Legoland Florida (the world's largest Legoland theme park) opens in Winter Haven, Florida

2018 American retailer Sears files for bankruptcy

2019 Record 12 Democratic presidential candidates participate in a live TV debate in Westerville, Ohio