On this date in

1770 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born.

1776 British forces defeated the Continental Army led by George Washington at the Battle of Long Island.

1859 Edwin L. Drake drilled the first well in the United States to strike oil in Titusville, Pa.

1871 Theodore Dreiser was born.

1883 A volcano erupted on the island of Krakatoa resulting in tidal waves that killed an estimated 36,000 on the islands of Java and Sumatra.

1896 The Anglo-Zanzibar War, the shortest war on record, started and ended.

1899 C.S. Forester was born.

1908 Lyndon B. Johnson was born.

1916 Martha Raye was born.

1928 the Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed in Paris.

1929 Ira Levin was born.

1937 Tommy Sands was born.

1943 Tuesday Weld was born.

1951 Mack Brown was born.

1962 the Mariner 2 space probe was launched.

1967 Brian Epstein was found dead.

1975 Haile Selassie died.

1979 Lord Louis Mountbatten was killed.

1990 Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash.

2007 Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned; Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick pleaded guilty to a federal dogfighting charge.