The de Medici became rulers of Florence in 1494. The Treaty of Seville was signed in 1729. The Tokugawa Shogunate ceded power to the Emperor of Japan in 1867. Jack the Ripper killed Mary Jane Kelly, his last known victim, in 1888. Wilhelm II abdicated in 1918. Kristallnacht began in 1938. This date in 1963 was especially tragic in Japan. An explosion at the Miike coal mine killed 458 people and sent 839 to hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning, while in Yokohama, a three-train collision killed 160. And the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.
Born today: Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883), Carl Sagan (1934-1996) and Billie August (1948).
It is Independence Day in Cambodia.
