TODAY IN HISTORY

1806:

The Holy Roman Empire went out of existence as Emperor Francis II abdicated.

1890:

Cy Young gained the first of his 511 major league victories as he pitched the Cleveland Spiders to a win over the Chicago Colts.

1914:

Austria-Hungary declared war against Russia and Serbia declared war against Germany.

1926:

Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel, arriving in Kingsdown, England, from France in 141⁄2 hours.

1942:

Queen Wilhemina of the Netherlands became the first reigning queen to address a joint meeting of Congress, telling lawmakers that despite Nazi occupation, her people’s motto remained, “No surrender.”

1945:

During World War II, the U.S. B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb code-named “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan, resulting in an estimated 140,000 deaths.

1961:

Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov became the second man to orbit Earth as he flew aboard Vostok 2.

1965:

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.

1986:

William J. Schroeder died at Humana Hospital-Audubon in Louisville, Kentucky, after living 620 days with the Jarvik 7 artificial heart.

1991:

The World Wide Web made its public debut as a means of accessing webpages over the Internet.

2009:

Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed to become a Supreme Court justice by a Senate vote of 68-31.

2018:

Twin Northern California wildfires grew to become the largest wildfire in state history, burning more than 440 square miles north of San Francisco.