- 1718: France declared war on Spain.
                      - 1788: Connecticut became the fifth state by ratifying the
                        Constitution of the United States.
                      - 1793: The first hot-air balloon flight in the U.S. lifted off in
                        Philadelphia with Jean-Pierre Blanchard of France as the balloonist.
                      - 1799: The first income tax was imposed in England.
                      - 1848: The first commercial bank in San Francisco was established.
                      - 1861: The Star of the West, a merchant vessel bringing
                        reinforcements to Federal troops at Fort Sumter, S.C., retreated
                        after being fired on by a battery in the harbor. It was the first
                        hostile act of the Civil War. Mississippi became the second state
                        to secede from the Union.
                      - 1894: The film "Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze" was
                        released to theaters.
                      - 1903: Two N.Y. businessmen bought the struggling American League
                        Baltimore baseball franchise for $18,000 and moved it to New York,
                        where it became the Yankees.
                      - 1913: Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th president of the United
                        States, was born in Yorba Linda, Calif.
                      - 1942: The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff was created.
                      - 1945: American soldiers led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur invaded Luzon
                        in the Philippines.
                      - 1951: The Washington Capitals NBA club folded.
                      - 1956: "Dear Abby," an advice column written by Abigail Van Buren,
                        made its debut.
                      - 1967: The NFL's New Orleans franchise took the name the Saints.
                      - 1968: The "Surveyor Seven" space probe made a soft landing on the
                        moon, marking the end of the American series of unmanned
                        explorations of the lunar surface.
                      - 1969: The Concorde jetliner made its first test flight, in Bristol,
                        England.
                      - 1990: The Supreme Court struck down Dallas' ordinance imposing
                        strict zoning on sexually oriented businesses.
                      - 1991: A special committee of the Major League Baseball authorities
                        officially banned all-time hit leader Pete Rose from being elected
                        into the Hall of Fame.
                      - 1992: Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina declared their own republic and
                        said it would remain part of federal Yugoslavia.
                      - 1996: International donors pledged a total of $1.37 billion dollars
                        in aid to the new Palestinian Authority.
                      - 1998: Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam met convicted loyalist
                        killers in Belfast's Maze prison. Later the prisoners voted to send
                        their political allies back into multi-party peace talks.

                      *Happy Birthday*
                      ----------------
                      - Joan Baez, 58, folk singer
                      - Frank J. Biondi Jr., 54, HBO president
                      - Muggsy Bogues, 34, NBA guard
                      - K Callan, 57, actress, "Lois & Clark"
                      - Bob Denver, 64, actor, "Gilligan's Island"
                      - Dick Enberg, 64, sportscaster
                      - Crystal Gayle, 48, country singer
                      - David Johansen (a.k.a. Buster Poindexter), 49, singer/musician
                      - Judith Krantz, 71, novelist
                      - Dave Matthews, 32, singer/musician
                      - Jimmy Page, 55, guitarist, Led Zeppelin
                      - Joely Richardson, 34, actress, "101 Dalmatians"