Who was born on this date?

1619 - Ferdinand II was elected Holy Roman Emperor. During his reign the Thirty Years War started as a result of his attempts to eradicate Protestantism.

1640 - The Scots under Leslie defeated royalist English forces under Lord Conway at the battle of Newburn near Newcastle. Newcastle was then occupied by the Scots in the English-Scottish wars.

1811 - Percy Bysshe Shelley, the poet, eloped with Harriet Westbrook.

1830 - In Baltimore, Maryland, "Tom Thumb" the passenger-carrying train locomotive was demonstrated for the first time. In the United States, it was the first locomotive of its kind built.

1849 - Venice under Daniele Manin finally surrendered to the Austrians under Radetsky, the city having been under siege since July 20 after proclaiming independence against Austrian rule.

1850 - It was the first performance of Wagner’s opera, "Lohengrin".

1879 - Cetewayo (or Cetshwayo), last of the great Zulu kings, was captured by the British at the end of the Zulu wars.

1883 - Slavery was banned by the British Parliament throughout the British Empire.

1907 - Jim Casey, 19-years old, borrowed $100 from friend, Claude Ryan, to start a local delivery service which they named the American Messenger Company. They focused on package delivery for local retail stores, and in 1913, merged with Mac McCabe, forming Merchants Parcel Delivery. The was the first company to give consolidated delivery, placing packages with similar street address on one delivery truck. Charlie Soderstrom managed the company’s growing herd of trucks. Charlie chose the dark brown color because he liked its professional appearance. By the 1920s, the company had expanded to Oakland and Los Angeles, California; and it shortly became known as United Parcel Service. "United" for the consolidated shipments and "service". Today, UPS, United Parcel Service, delivers to over 185 countries and territories.

1910 - Montenegro proclaimed its independence from the Ottoman empire, with Nicholas I as ruler.

1914 - The battle of Heligoland Bight took place between British and German ships in the North Sea. The Germans lost four ships and 1,000 sailors; British casualties were 33 killed.

1916 - Germany declared war against Romania and Italy declared war against Germany in World War I.

1922 - At Southampton, New York, the Walker Cup, the oldest international team golf match in the United States, was held for the first time.

1922 - On WEAF in New York City, the first commercial to be broadcast on radio was heard. Announcer H.M. Blackwell spoke about a set of apartment buildings in Queens, New York, Hawthorne Court. The Queensboro Realty Company, of Jackson Heights, bought Toll Broadcasting. WEAF was owned by AT&T, then American Telephone and Telegraph, who for $50 plus long distance fees, sold their block programming of five one-minute programs, one a day for five days. It cost the Queensboro Realty Company $100 for 10 minutes of commercial airtime.

1931 - Henry Allen and the Luis Russel Band recorded "You Rascal You" for the Victor label.

1941 - Today the Football Writers Association of America was organized.

1944 - The last German troops in Marseilles surrendered and Toulon was finally cleared of German troops.

1945 - Baseball commissioner Branch Rickey met with future baseball great Jackie Robinson. They spoke about difficulties Robinson, a black athlete, would face in major league baseball. To play with the International League's Montreal, Robinson received $600 a month and a $3,500 signing bonus.

1963 - Martin Luther King, Jr, civil rights leader, gave his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Approximately 250,000 people witnessed one of the century's most stirring speeches.

1964 - On the cover of "LIFE" magazine, the Beatles appeared.

1972 - At the Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, Mark Spitz won the first of his seven gold medals. Spitz finished the 200-meter butterfly in 2 minutes, 7/10ths of a second setting a new world record.

1981 - It was the third time in 10 days, a world record for the mile run was set. Sebastian Coe, who broke Steve Ovett’s August 19, 1981, record, lost the record to Ovett on August 26, today broke it again, by a full second, in Brussels, Belgium. The new record time for Coe was 3:47.33.

1981 - After a year long battle against "The New York Post," "The New York Daily News" published its final afternoon edition.

1983 - Menachim Begin announced his resignation as prime minister of Israel.

1984 - The record for concert ticket sales was broken by The Jacksons’ Victory Tour. In only 2 months, the group surpassed the 1.1 million mark.

1988 - An unsuccessful coup attempt in the Philippines resulted in the deaths of 50 people. The uprising was against President Corazon Aquino.

1988 - 33 people were killed when jets from an Italian Air Force display team collided in mid-air and one crashed into the crowd during an air show at Ramstein, West Germany.

1990 - The government of Saddam Hussein declared Kuwait to be the 19th province of Iraq, in a move that foreshadowed the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

1994 - Father Jean-Marie Vincent, a prominent Haitian Catholic priest loyal to deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was shot dead by suspected paramilitary gunmen.

1995 - A mortar shell killed 38 people in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. The act triggered NATO airstrikes against the Bosnian Serbs.

1996 - A divorce decree was issued for Britain's Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

1997 - Nearly 300 people were killed in a single late-night altercation between the government and Islamic militants in Algeria.