On this day in history
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Source: HistoryNet.com
1519: Charles of Spain is elected Holy Roman emperor in Barcelona.
1535: Sir Thomas More is beheaded in England for refusing to swear allegiance to King Henry VIII as head of the Church.
1536: Jacques Cartier returns to France after discovering the St. Lawrence River in Canada.
1685: James II defeats James, the Duke of Monmouth, at the Battle of Sedgemoor, the last major battle to be fought on English soil.
1770: The entire Ottoman fleet is destroyed by the Russians at the Battle of Chesma.
1788: 10,000 troops are called out in Paris as unrest mounts in the poorer districts over poverty and lack of food.
1835: John Marshall, the third chief justice of the Supreme Court, dies at the age of 79. Two days later, while tolling in his honor in Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell cracks.
1854: The Republican Party is officially organized in Jackson, Michigan.
1885: Louis Pasteur gives the first successful anti-rabies inoculation.
1945: Operation Overcast begins in Europe--moving Austrian and German scientists and their equipment to the United States.
1982: President Ronald Reagan agrees to contribute U.S. troops to the peacekeeping unit in Beirut.
1989: Canada's federal government sells its remaining 53-percent interest in Air Canada, completing privatization of the airline; the new issue of 41.1 million shares is an immediate sellout.
2013: An unattended 74-car freight train carrying crude oil runs away, rolls downhill for 11 km and derails at a speed of 100 kmh in the town of Lac-Mégantic. The resulting fire and explosion kills 47 people and incinerates the centre of the town.
