1960 – Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser (a ruby laser), at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California.

1888 – Nikola Tesla delivers a lecture describing the equipment which will allow efficient generation and use of alternating currents to transmit electric power over long distances.

2015  American businessman Donald Trump announces his campaign to run for President of the United States in the upcoming election.

1957 – At Malden Island in the Pacific Ocean, Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb in Operation Grapple.

1940 – Richard and Maurice McDonald open the first McDonald's restaurant.

1973 – Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched.

1961 – Civil rights movement: A white mob twice attacks a Freedom Riders bus near Anniston, Alabama, before fire-bombing the bus and attacking the civil rights protesters who flee the burning vehicle.

1939 – Lina Medina becomes the youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five.

1796 – Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox inoculation.

1985 – Police bombed MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia, killing six adults and five children, and destroying the homes of 250 city residents.

1862 – The USS Planter, a steamer and gunship, steals through Confederate lines and is passed to the Union, by a southern slave, Robert Smalls, who later was officially appointed as captain, becoming the first black man to command a United States ship.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote:

Everyone needs a hobby. 

 islander wrote:
Got to have some kompromat to trade for his bowl of soup.

 kurtster wrote:

well that would be appropriate for 'this day in history' right?  

Are you now building dossiers on everyone?

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
You posted this a year ago today.

1941 – Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin.

1997 – Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format.

868 – A copy of the Diamond Sūtra is published,<2> making it the earliest dated and printed book known.

1994 – Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.

1975 – Sony introduces the Betamax videocassette recorder.