Tuesday, July 5, 2005
1610: A London and Bristol Company expedition, under the direction of proprietary governor John Guy, leaves Bristol with 40 settlers to create the first British settlement in Newfoundland.
1687: Sir Isaac Newton publishes his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (3 vol., Latin) in which he sets out his theories of motion and gravitation.
1810: Phineas Taylor Barnum is born at Bethel, Connecticut. He'll famously remark that "No one ever lost money underestimating the American public," but that's hyperbole; he'll manage to go broke himself four times during the course of his career.
1811: Venezuela declares independence from Spain.
1865: William Booth, a born-again former pawnbroker, opens the Christian Revival Society to bring the faith to the darkest parts of Britain's slums. In 1878 he will rename it The Salvation Army.
1934: Violence erupts on "Bloody Tuesday" in San Francisco, California, as striking longshoremen try to prevent cargo from being unloaded by hijacking and wrecking trucks. More than a hundred people are injured, but only two, both strikers, are killed.
1946: Engineer Louis Reard unveils the first modern two-piece bathing suit for women, which he calls the "bikini." It will eventually pass mayonnaise to become the most important French influence on American culture.
1971: The 26th amendment to the U.S. Constitution goes into effect, lowering the voting age to 18. The drinking age remains 21 in most places, though, because drinking requires somewhat more sense.