1776-George Washington asks for a spy, Nathan Hale volunteers
1813-American naval commander Oliver Hazard Perry defeats the British in the Battle of Lake Erie
1846-Elias Howe takes out a U.S. patent for a lockstitch sewing machine
1924-Leopold and Loeb are found guilty of the murder of Bobby Franks in Chicago in "the crime of the century"
1977-Hamida Djandoubi, convicted of torture and murder, is the last person to be executed by Guillotine in France
2008-The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, described as the biggest scientific experiment in the history of mankind, is powered up in Geneva, Switzerland
2020-California's August Complex wildfire becomes the largest recorded in state history at 471,000 acres (736 square miles)