1401: Turko-Mongol ruler Tamerlane (Timur) destroys Baghdad, killing 20,000.
1850: American President Zachary Taylor dies after eating raw fruit and iced milk.
1746: First French landing in India at Pondicherry.
1875: The Bombay Stock Exchange established, with its construction under the shade of a large banyan tree.
1893: Daniel Williams performs first successful open heart surgery without anesthesia.
1938: Bollywood Actor Sanjeev Kumar is born.
1947: Queen Elizabeth got engaged to Lt. Philip Mountbatten.
1956: Hollywood actor Tom Hanks is born.
1969: Canada makes English and French official languages.
1969: India declares Royal Bengal Tiger as its national animal.
1986: New Zealand legalizes homosexuality.
JULY 8
1497: Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama sets sail for India, becoming the first white man to reach India by sea.
1777: Vermont becomes the first US state to abolish slavery by introducing new constitution.
1852: The Great Fire of Montreal destroys 11,000 houses.
1858: The Great Indian Mutiny of 1857 finally ends, with Lord Canning officially declaring that peace had been established.
1892: The Great Fire of St John’s destroys 60 percent of the city, leaving 10,000 people homeless.
1965: Bombing of Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 21 in British Columbia kills all 52 people on board.
1974: Pierre Trudeau regains majority, with the Liberals winning 141 of 264 seats, followed by Conservatives with 95 seats, NDP 16, Social Credit 11 and others 1.
2003: British Columbia, after Ontario, allows same-sex marriages.
2013: Toronto suffers its worst-ever rainstorm that dumped a record 126 mm of rain, causing flooding, power outages, traffic chaos and $850 million in damages.
