Today in History, 6/26

1284: According to legend, the Pied Piper lures 130 children away from the village of Hamelin.
1541: Francisco Pizarro is assassinated in Lima, Peru by the son of a rival.1723: After a siege and artillery bombardment, the city of Baku, Azerbaijan surrenders to the Russians.

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1819: Abner Doubleday is born.1824: William Thomson, Lord Kelvin is born. He invented the Kelvin scale of absolute temperature measurement.1870: Christmas is declared a federal holiday in the United States.
1870: The first section of boardwalk in Atlantic City is opened to the public.
1892: Pearl S. Buck is born. She wrote novels about peasant life in China and is one of the people who made that land more accessible to Americans.1898: Chesty Puller, the most decorated Marine in history, is born. I'd make a joke about having a porn star name, but I think he could rise from the grave and kick my ass.1904: Peter Lorre is born. Here's his first scene in The Maltese Falcon

1909: Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley's manager (and enabler) is born. If I understand correctly, he wasn't a real colonel at all, but just called himself one as was the style among certain Southern gentlemen of the time. Of course, he wasn't real Southern gentlemen at all - his real name was Andreas Cornelius van Kuijk and he was from Holland. Man, the things I learn doing this blog!1915: Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino crime family is born. After he was murdered in 1985, the Roman Catholic Church refused him last rites because of his state as an unrepentant murderer.1917: The first troops of the American Expeditionary Force arrive in France during WWI.
1918: During WWI, the Battle for Belleau Wood ends as forces under General Jack Pershing defeat the Germans.
1927: The Cyclone roller coaster opens in Coney Island.1928: Yoshiro Nakamatsu is born. He is credited with inventing the floppy disc, the CD, the DVD, CinemaScope and the digital watch along with about 2,000 other patents.1934: The initial flight of the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first practical helicopter.1945: The United Nations Charter is signed in San Francisco.
1955: Mick Jones, lead guitar and vocalist of The Clash, is born. Here's "Rock the Casbah" live from 1982.

1956: Chris Isaac is born.

1959: Mark McKinney, of The Kids in the Hall, is born.

1959: The Saint Lawrence Seaway opens, opening the Great Lakes to ocean-going ships.1963: John F. Kennedy speaks the famous words "Ich bin ein Berliner" on a visit to West Berlin.
1963: Richard Garfield is born. He created the game Magic: The Gathering and thus the whole collectible card game industry.
1970: Chris O'Donnell is born. He played Robin in the twin suckfests Batman Forever and Batman & Robin.
1974: The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley's chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, OH.
1993: The US launches a missile attack on the Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad in retaliation for the attempted assassination of former President George H.W. Bush.

Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.