This Day In History

• 781 BC - Oldest Chinese recording of a solar eclipse • 1039- Henry III becomes Holy Roman Emperor

• 1070- Roquefort cheese created in a cave near Roquefort, France

• 1647- English Parliamentary army under Cornet George Joyce takes King Charles I as a prisoner during Second Civil War

• 1666- Battle at Dunkirk: English vs Dutch fleet

• 1769 - A transit of Venus is followed five hours later by a total solar eclipse, the shortest such interval in history

• 1783- Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier make 1st public hot-air balloon flight (unmanned), covering 2km and lasting 10 minutes with an estimated altitude of 1,600-2,000m

• 1792- Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for Britain

• 1805- Tripoli forced to conclude peace with US after war over tribute

• 1824- First free press (without government approval) founded in Australia - the Hobart Town Gazette by exconvict Andrew Bent [1]

• 1850- Self-deodorizing fertilizer patented in England

• 1859- Second Italian War of Independence: Battle of Magenta, results in a French-Sardinian victory under Napoleon III over the Austrians under Marshal Ferencz Gyulai

• 1878- Cyprus ceded by Turkey to Britain for administrative purposes

• 11887 - Pasteur Institute founded by French biologist Louis Pasteur in Paris

• 1899- MLB Boston Beaneaters pitcher John Clarkson 1st to throw an "immaculate inning" (strikes out three batters on nine pitches) against Philadelphia Quakers

• 1912 - Cone of Mount Katmai (Alaska) collapses

• 1916- General Aleksei Brusilov begins a massive Russian offensive on the Eastern Front (WWI)

• 1918- French troops, with the aid of US troops, stop the Germans at Chateau-Thierry as they attempt to cross the Marne

• 1920- Peace of Trianon between Allies & Hungary

• 1928- President of the Republic of China Zhang Zuolin is assassinated by Japanese agents.

• 1940- British complete the "miracle of Dunkirk" by evacuating 300,000 allied troops from France