More than 69,000 people lost their lives to a magnitude 8.0 earthquake in Sichuan, China.
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Revolutionary War soldiers formed the Society of St. Tammany.
One hundred and forty thousand miners went on strike in Pennsylvania.
National Hospital Day was first observed.
The US Commerce Department decided that hurricane names would no longer be only female.
Juan María Fernández y Krohn tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II with a bayonet.
