[Shinegayboyx]

Thank goodness for Wikipedia!

Best - the Amistad slavery ruled illegal (1841)

Because, my birthday:

1839 - Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, fifty-three rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinque take over the slave ship Amistad.

Oh and some other stuff happened, combining the good, the bad and the ugly:

963 - The imperial army proclaims Nicephorus Phocas to be Emperor of the Romans on the plains outside Cappadocian Caesarea.

1566 - Nostradamus, French astrologer dies

1582 - Battle of Yamazaki: Toyotomi Hideyoshi defeats Akechi Mitsuhide.

1776 - John Hancock signs Declaration of Independence

1777 - Vermont becomes the first American state to abolish slavery.

1917 - Forty-eight die in rioting in East St. Louis, Illinois (the state where I was born), as lower-paid black laborers clash with whites.

1941 - Nazi massacre of Jews in Lutsk, Ukraine. Jewish men were summoned for work, about 2000 of them were taken to the Lubart Fortress and murdered. German soldiers from rearguard units stationed in the city participated in the murder. (The bad)

1947 - An object speculated to be a UFO crashes near Roswell, New Mexico, though the United States Air Force claims it is a weather balloon.

1950 - Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto, Japan was burned down by a young but very mad monk

1961 - Ernest Hemingway, Nobel Prize laureate dies.

1964 - President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits segregation in public places. (The good)

1973 - Peter Kay, British comedian is born.

1985 - Nakura is born. (The ugly)

1999 - Mario Puzo, American author dies.