[Caligula, Rome's third Emperor, began his reign in March 37 CE promisingly enough; after a couple of years, however, something hastened his descent into depravity. Possibly the job went to his head, or he may have developed some kind of mental illness. Whatever the reason, he comes down to us through history as a right perv, as famously portrayed by Malcolm McDowell in the 1979 film Caligula - aka 'the most expensive porno ever made'.]
41 CE - Caligula was assassinated by his Praetorian Guards.
1742 - Prince-elector Charles VII Albert of Bavaria became Holy Roman Emperor.
1848 - Gold was discovered by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill, near Sacramento, California.
1857 - The University of Calcutta was formally established, making it the first full-fledged university in south Asia.
1859 - Following the political union of Moldavia and Wallachia, Alexandru Ioan Cuza was elected the first Domnitor or ruler of the aptly-named United Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia.
1887 - At the Battle of Dogali Abyssinian troops under Ras Alula Engida defeated an Italian force commanded by Colonel Tommaso De Cristofori.
1907 - The Boy Scout movement was founded by Robert Baden-Powell.
1916 - In Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad, the Supreme Court of the United States declared the federal income tax constitutional.
1924 - Petrograd, formerly St. Petersburg, was renamed Leningrad; Leningrad, formerly Petrograd, has since been renamed St. Petersburg.
1927 - The Pleasure Garden - the first film directed by Alfred Hitchcock - opened in London, following the success of The Lodger, which was made after but released before.
1936 - Albert Sarraut began his second term as Prime Minister of France.
1943 - At the height of World War II US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill concluded a 10-day conference in Casablanca.
1961 - A B-52 Stratofortress bomber carrying two hydrogen bombs broke up and crashed over Goldsboro, North Carolina; one weapon nearly detonated, and its uranium core is still lost.
1966 - An Air India Boeing 707 jet named Kanchen-junga and piloted by J. T. D'Souza crashed into Mont Blanc, on the approach to Geneva airport, killing 117; among those killed was Dr. Homi J. Babha, who had recently been named chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission.
1977 - At the Massacre of Atocha in Madrid - during the Spanish transition to democracy - 5 were killed and four injured by members of the far-right group Alianza Apostólica Anticomunista.
1984 - The first Apple Macintosh was sold.
1986 - NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft passed Uranus; the usual jokes were made that are inevitably made whenever anyone mentions Uranus, most of them by me.
1993 - Turkish journalist and writer Uğur Mumcu was assassinated by a jihadist car bomb in Ankara.
2003 - The US Department of Homeland Security began its first day of business.
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