• 1054 – The Chinese, the Arabs and possibly Amerindians (the who?) observe a supernova near the star Tauri. It was bright enough to be seen during the day for several months.
  

• 1634 – The city of Trois-Rivières is founded in New France. It would later become Quebec.
  

  Coat of arms of Trois-Rivières

• 1636 – Roger Williams establishes the city of Providence, Rhode Island

• 1776 – The second continental congress adopts the United States Declaration of Independence
  

  Yeah, America!

• 1778 – Kaskaskia is captured by George Clark and his men during the Illinois campaign of the American Revolutionary War. The population of Kaskaskia as determined by the 2000 census was 9.
• 1802 – The United States Military Academy opens at West Point, New York
• 1803 – The Louisiana Purchase is announced.
  
• 1817 – Construction begins on the Erie Canal at Rome, New York. It would take 15 years to complete the 360+ mile canal.
• 1827 – New York State abolishes slavery.
• 1837 – The world’s first long-distance railway, Grand Junction Railway between Birmingham and Liverpool is opened. Today it is part of the West Coast Main Line, a railway system between London and Scotland.
• 1840 – The first transatlantic crossing with a scheduled end (as opposed to simply “whenever you get there”) takes place aboard the Cunard Line’s RMS Britannia, a 700 ton wooden paddle steamer.
• 1845 – Henry David Thoreau embarks on his two year experiment in simple and solitary living at Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts.

Walden Pond

• Walt Whitman’s seminal work, Leaves of Grass, is published in Brooklyn.
  

  Walt Whitman in 1887. Check out that beard.

• 1862 – 10-year-old Alice Liddell is told a story by Lewis Carroll. The story would eventually become Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland when it would be published in November, 1865.
  

  Cover of the 1898 printing of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

• 1863 – After 47 days of fighting, the siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi during the American Civil War ends. The town would not recognize Independence Day for almost eighty years following the battle.
• 1881 – The Tuskegee Institute opens in Tuskegee, Alabama
  

  The Tuskegee Institute in 1916

• 1886 – France offers the Statue of Liberty to the United States.
  

  As a lighthouse, the flames inside the statue's torch were the cause of death for hundreds of birds each night.

• 1892 - Western Samoa changes the location of the International Date Line such that the country recognizes 367 days per year.
• 1894 – Sanford B. Dole, relative of the pineapple magnate, proclaims the Republic of Hawaii.
• 1934 – The nuclear chain-reaction design for the atomic bomb is patented by Hungarian physicist, Leo Szilard, who would go on to later work on the Manhattan Project.
• 1939 – After being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig announces his retirement from baseball at Yankee Stadium. After a presentation by Babe Ruth, Gehrig addressed the crowd: –

“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

–

“Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I’m lucky. Who wouldn’t consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball’s greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I’m lucky.

–

“When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift — that’s something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies — that’s something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter — that’s something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so that you can have an education and build your body — it’s a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed — that’s the finest I know.

–

“So I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for. Thank you.”

• 1946 – The Philippines attains full independence from the United States after 381 years of colonial rule.
• 1947 – The Indian Independence Bill is passed by the British House of Commons, leading to British India being split into today’s India and Pakistan.
• 1959 – The 49-star-flag is debuted in Philadelphia after Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state.
  

  Congressmen celebrate Alaska's new statehood

• 1960 – Ten months after its admission as the 50th U.S. state on August 21st, 1959, the 50-star flag is debuted once again in Philadelphia.
• 1966 – The Freedom of Information Act is signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
• 1969 – The Zodiac Killer attacks his first two victims in Blue Rock Springs, California. One survives.
• 1976 – In 53 minutes, Israeli commandos rescue 102 hostages from a hijacked Air France flight from Israel to Paris who were being held in Entebbe Airport in Uganda.
• 1976 – On the other side of the globe, America celebrates its bicentennial.
  • Among other things, New Jersey offers a Bicentennial Lottery where the winner would receive $1,776 a week for 20 years ($1,847,040, all before taxes)
  • NASA paints an American flag and the official bicentennial logo on the side of its massive vehicle assembly building. Each star on the flag is six feet across, the blue background behind the stars is the size of a regulation basketball court, and each stripe is as wide as a road lane
    

    NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building in 1976. The bicentennial logo (the star on the right) wasn't replaced with the NASA logo until 1998.

• 1987 – World War II Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie is convicted of crimes against humanity.
• 1997 - NASA’s Pathfinder lands on Mars
  

  The surface of Mars upon Pathfinder's landing in 1997

• 2004 – The cornerstone is laid on the former World Trade Center site in New York City for One World Trade Center (no longer “Freedom Tower” — it’s official!)
  
• 2006 – North Korea fires six test missiles — four short-range, one medium-range, and one long-range, which is rumored to have failed mid-air above the Sea of Japan.
• 2009 – After 8 years of closure, the crown of the Statue of LIberty re-opens for guests.
  

Can you say Moonwalk?

Presenting the illusion that the dancer is stepping forward whilst actually moving backward, the moonwalk originated in 1943 but wasn’t made famous for nearly forty years in 1983 when Jackson preformed his signature move on Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever. I am willing to bet that just about every person in the world, baring the few tribes that have somehow avoided modern man, infants, and possibly the Amish, have tried to moon walk!  Annie is OK, and Michael is Awesome!

ABC, easy as…123

Rolling Stone magazine described the young Michael as “a prodigy” with “overwhelming musical gifts”, noting that Michael “quickly emerged as the main draw and lead singer” after he began to dance and sing with his brothers. Though Michael sang with a “child’s piping voice, he danced like a grown-up hoofer and sang with the R&B/gospel inflections of Sam Cooke, James Brown, Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder”.

She’s not my lover…

Billie Jean’ lyrics, written by Michael himself, refer to a real-life experience, in which the a mentally insane female fan claimed that Jackson fathered one of her twins. You gotta be pretty Awesome to have someone you’ve never met ACTUALLY BELIEVE you had sex with her!

Thriller: 60 million people can’t be wrong!

Where the red leather jacket become Awesome! Thriller has sold an estimated 110 million copies worldwide, with seven of the album’s nine songs released as singles, and all seven hitting the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album won a record-breaking eight Grammy Awards at the 1984 Grammys. Almost as Awesome as this, in 2007, the inmates of Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, a maximum security prison in Cebu, in the Cebu Province of the Philippines, imitated the zombie dance featured in the music video. That video was an instant hit, with 23 million views. MJ’s Thriller has 13 million more with 37 million views!

Front man for supergroup, USA for Africa

We Are The World was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie with solos appearances by some of the Awesome-est singers ever including; like Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Diana Ross, Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, and Cyndi Lauper. Hitting #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 17, 1985, followed by #1 in the UK, and finally making the top spot in almost every country throughout the world. Awesome!

Don’t Stop

Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough was Jackson’s first solo album away from Motown Records only took three months to hit the top of the charts and be certified gold! The music video was directed and produced by Nick Saxton featured a smiling Jackson floating over a background of disco lights and performing dance techniques while singing the song in a tuxedo. At one stage, Jackson is seen dancing in triplicate, which was considered innovative at the time.

Beat It

Even Weird Al’s spoof of this hit was gold! Well, Australian gold! According to Yankovic, in 1989 he presented his lyric which include: “Eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it. If it’s gettin’ cold, reheat it. Have a big dinner, have a light snack. If you don’t like it, you can’t send it back.  Just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it.’ to Jackson for permission for the parody. Jackson allegedly thought it was amusing, and agreed to allow the parody. On October 19, 1989, the RIAA certified “Eat It” as a gold single. Awesome!

Bad

As I was putting this post together I was aiming at 10 Awesome Michaels. I asked my friends, searched google, wikipedia, youtube, and called my mom.  Those were the Top 8 Awesome ‘Michaels’ I came up with. I needed two more.

Until, I got 3! Captain EO Michael, Man in the Mirror Michael, and whoever is impersonating him on Sunset Blvd.

How Awesome are all of those? EO 3D was amazing, Man in the Mirror inspired millions and continues to today, and the creepy guy on Sunset Strip made a killing today! All 3 are pretty Awesome and had to make the list! Oh, and then there is always Michael and Magic. And of course, there’s always reason to marvel at MJ’s patent entitled “Method and means for creating anti-gravity illusion.”