[Although he had previously manipulated the media successfully - 1952's Checkers speech is a marvel of double talk - Nixon's brand of sleaze was no match for the media-ready youth and suave manner of JFK.]
715 CE - Ragenfrid defeated Theudoald at the Battle of Compiègne.
1212 - Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II issued the Golden Bull of Sicily, granting the Přemyslid Dynasty's Dukes of Bohemia a hereditary royal title; the first of the Kings of Bohemia was Otakar I.
1580 - Francis Drake sailed The Golden Hind into Plymouth Harbour having completed a circumnavigation of the globe; he was knighted aboard his vessel the following year by Elizabeth I for his efforts.
1687 - The Parthenon in Athens was partially destroyed when a shell launched by Venetian forces commanded by Francesco Morosini lit an ammunition dump that the occupying Turks kept inside it. Following the damage, Morosini plundered the now semi-ruined temple, taking some of the better sculptures back to Venice with him.
1789 - Thomas Jefferson was appointed the first United States Secretary of State, John Jay the first Chief Justice of the United States, Samuel Osgood the first United States Postmaster General, and Edmund Randolph the first United States Attorney General.
1810 - A new Act of Succession was adopted by Sweden's Riksdag of the Estates and Jean Baptiste Bernadotte became heir to the throne of Charles XIII.
1907 - Both New Zealand and Newfoundland became Dominions within the British Empire, conferring upon them a semi-independent status. New Zealand became fully independent in 1947, while Newfoundland lost some of its status in 1934, only to lose the rest of it when it joined Canada in 1949.
1908 - Ed Reulbach of the Chicago Cubs became the first and only pitcher to throw two shutouts in one day, which he did against the Brooklyn Dodgers.
1914 - The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was established by the Federal Trade Commission Act.
1934 - The steamship RMS Queen Mary was launched.
1937 - The Shadow debuted on radio on the Mutual Broadcasting System, starring the golden voice of a then-unknown Orson Welles.
1957 - West Side Story - book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins - opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre and ran for 732 performances in its initial run. Its original cast featured Carol Lawrence as Maria, Chita Rivera as Anita, and Larry Kert as Tony.
1960 - In Chicago, the first televised debate took place between presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy.
1961 - Bob Dylan made his breakthrough as a performer when a show he gave at Gerde's Folk City was given a rave review in the New York Times by Robert Shelton.
1962 - The Yemen Arab Republic was proclaimed.
1966 - The Chevy Camaro first appeared as part of the 1967 model year, giving generations of insecure men a new lease on life.
1969 - The Beatles released their last studio album, Abbey Road, in the UK; although it would be the last album recorded by them, technically the last album released before their breakup in 1970 was Let It Be. The cover of Abbey Road is, of course, most famous for creating the whole Paul is dead hoo-hah - one of the more durable urban legends going. Ironically, the album opens with a song called Come Together, yet was recorded as relations between band members had grown increasingly rancourous...1973 - Concorde made a non-stop supersonic crossing of the Atlantic in record time; regularly scheduled flights, however, wouldn't begin until January 1976.
1983 - Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov averted a worldwide nuclear war.
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