- 1606 England adopts the Union Flag, replaced in 1801 by current Union Flag, also known as the Union Jack
The Tatler
1709 Richard Steele's British literary and society journal "The Tatler" is first published establishing a new type of journalism featuring essays on contemporary manners
Madame Bovary
1857 French novelist Gustave Flaubert's first novel and masterpiece "Madame Bovary" is published in book form
- 1905 French Dufaux brothers test helicopter
The Pleasure Garden
1926 Alfred Hitchcock releases his first film as director, "The Pleasure Garden," in England; the silent drama is made in Germany
- 1957 Jim Spalding set a 2,088 pin nine-game bowling record
1961 Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into space and orbit Earth, aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft
Interview with a Vampire
1976 Anne Rice's debut novel "Interview with a Vampire" is published by Knopf
Mad Max
1979 Australian film "Mad Max," starring Mel Gibson and directed by George Miller, is released
- 1988 Harvard University patents a genetically engineered mouse (first for animal life)
TV Show Appearance
1990 Anime TV series "Moomin," based on the Moomin children's books by Tove Jansson, first appears on Tokyo TV
- 1991 2,500th episode of Entertainment Tonight airs
- 1992 Euro Disney (Disneyland Paris) opens in Marne-la-Vallee, France
- 2012 Bodleian, Oxford University and Vatican libraries announce over 1.5 million pages of ancient texts will be made available across the internet
- 2013 A man-made 32-foot, 60-tonne monument dating to around 2000 BCE is discovered in the Sea of Galilee
Event of Interest
2016 Breakthrough Starshot: Scientists and internet entrepreneurs, including Yuri Milner, Stephen Hawking and Mark Zuckerberg, announce interstellar project to send robot spacecraft to Alpha Centauri
