Today in History
• 258 - Pope St Sixtus II beheaded in Rome under persecutions by Roman Emperor Valerian
• 1497 - Italian explorer John Cabot returns to Bristol from North America (Newfoundland)
• 1538 - Bogotá, Colombia, is founded by Gonzalo JimĂ©nez de Quesada
• 1774 - Founder of the Shaker Movement, Mother Ann Lee, arrives in NY
• 1787 - Constitutional Convention begins debate on the first draft of the Constitution
• 1806 - Holy Roman Empire ends
• 1861 - US Congress passes First Confiscation Act
• 1901 - Kiowa land in Oklahoma is opened for white settlement
Holidays - Traditional and Obscure
• American Family Day
• Bolivia Independence Day
• Celebrations of San Salvador
• Fiesta Patronales Holiday
• National Friendship Day
• Hiroshima Day
• Jamaica Independence Day
• National Tree Day
Birthdays
• 1180 - Go-Toba, 82nd Emperor of Japan
• 1609 - Richard Bennett, English Colonial Governor of Virginia
• 1666 - Maria Sophia of Neuburg, Queen of Portugal
• 1697 - Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor (1742-45)
• 1800 - Catherine Beecher, educator (championed higher education for women)
• 1861 - Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt, 2nd wife of Theodore Roosevelt
• 1873 - John Wesley Work Jr., 1st African-American collector of folk songs and spirituals
• 1881 - Alexander Fleming, born in England, bacteriologist, penicillin; Nobel 1954