Obama signs the Dodd–Frank Wall Street reform act into law (2010), and Armstrong becomes the first human to step onto the Moon (1969). Born on this day: Ernest Hemingway, Robin Williams and Sixtus IV. Died: Robert Burns, Alan B. Shepard, Jr. and Tony Bennett.
33 events, 60 births and 54 deaths on this date.
The law tightened rules on banks and financial firms after the 2008 crisis, creating new oversight bodies and consumer protections. It was a direct response to the crash that pushed the economy into the Great Recession.
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza · Public domainNeil Armstrong stepped down onto the lunar surface at 02:56 UTC, taking the first human footsteps on another world. Buzz Aldrin followed about nineteen minutes later, and the pair spent their time on the Moon as the Apollo 11 mission's landing crew.
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Dorgon, the regent ruling for the young Shunzhi emperor, decreed that Han Chinese men must shave the front of their heads and wear their remaining hair in a braid like the Manchus. Refusal was punishable by death, making the edict a bitter symbol of Manchu rule.</description>
Striking railway workers and angry crowds set fire to and looted much of the city centre as anger over wage cuts boiled over. The violence was among the worst of the 1877 strikes that spread across the United States.
Egypt finished the Aswan High Dam after eleven years of work, built with Soviet help. It tamed the Nile's yearly floods, stored water for farming and generated hydroelectric power.
With this vote the Senate gave the consent needed for America to join a mutual defence alliance with European and North American nations. Treaties require Senate approval under the Constitution, so this was the step that made the United States a member of NATO.
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Ernest Hemingway wrote spare, understated prose that reshaped American fiction, from The Sun Also Rises to The Old Man and the Sea. He also reported from wars in Spain and Europe, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.
Lloyd Arnold · Public domain
Robin Williams was an American actor and comedian famed for his improvisation, whose spontaneous characters ranged from the alien Mork to Mrs Doubtfire. He won an Academy Award for Good Will Hunting in 1997.
Eva Rinaldi · CC BY-SA 2.0
Pope from 1471 to 1484, Sixtus IV commissioned the Sistine Chapel and founded the Vatican Library, and he gathered the artists who brought early Renaissance art to Rome. He is also remembered for his nepotism and for backing the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici.
Pedro Berruguete · Public domain
Burns is Scotland's national poet, best known for writing in Scots dialect and for songs like Auld Lang Syne, still sung at Hogmanay. He died in 1796, aged 37, and his work went on to inspire many of the period's political thinkers.
Public domain
Shepard was the first American in space, flying Freedom 7 in 1961, and later the fifth person to walk on the Moon during Apollo 14. He is remembered as a naval aviator and test pilot who became one of NASA's best-known astronauts.
NASA Edgar D. Mitchell · Public domain
Tony Bennett, the American singer behind the signature song I Left My Heart in San Francisco, died at 96. He had sold over 50 million records and was also a painter and an autobiographer.
Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0
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