| 1940: | | Italy declared war against France and Great Britain, entering World War II. |
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| 1868: | | Serbian Prince Michael III was assassinated, derailing the Balkan League's plans for a coordinated rebellion against the Ottomans and destroying the league. |
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| 1847: | | | The Chicago Tribune, one of the leading daily American newspapers and long the dominant, sometimes strident, voice of the Midwest, began publication. |
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| 1819: | | | Gustave Courbet, French painter and leader of the Realist movement, was born in Ornans. |
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| 1772: | | Rhode Islanders in the American colonies boarded and sank the British revenue cutter Gaspee in Narragansett Bay. |
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| 1190: | | | Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I (Frederick Barbarossa) drowned while trying to cross the Saleph River on the Third Crusade to the Holy Land. |
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