On This Day for June 29 - London's Globe Theatre destroyed by fire, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga is featured, and more

This message contains graphics. If you do not see the graphics, click here to view. June 29 FEATURED BIOGRAPHY Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga READ MORE   FEATURED EVENT 1613 London's Globe Theatre destroyed by fire READ MORE   Advertisement Advertisement   MORE EVENTS ON THIS DAY 2009: American hedge-fund investment manager Bernie Madoff received a sentence of up to 150 years in prison for operating the largest Ponzi scheme in history. 2007: Apple Inc.'s first mobile "smartphone," the iPhone, went on sale, and it revolutionized the industry. [ Take our computers and technology quiz.] 2003: American actress Katharine Hepburn—a spirited performer with a touch of eccentricity who introduced into her roles a strength of character previously considered to be undesirable in Hollywood leading ladies—died in Connecticut. [Test your knowledge of A-list actors.] 1974: While on tour with the Kirov (now Mariinsky) Ballet in Toronto, Mikhail Baryshnikov defected from the Soviet Union, citing artistic reasons, and he later settled in the United States. [Sort fact from fiction in our ballet quiz.] 1941: Stokely Carmichael, a civil rights activist and a leader of black nationalism in the United States in the 1960s, was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad. [ Read about 10 milestones in U.S. civil rights history.] 1767: The Townshend Revenue Act, an import tax on tea and other goods, was imposed on the American colonists by British Chancellor Charles Townshend, bringing the Americans one step closer to revolution. [ Test your knowledge of early American history.] SEE ALL EVENTS ON THIS DAY ALSO BORN ON THIS DAY 1900 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry French author 1941 Stokely Carmichael West Indian-American activist 1920 Ray Harryhausen American filmmaker 1911 Bernard Herrmann American composer and conductor 1957 Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov president of Turkmenistan 1908 Leroy Anderson American musician SEE ALL BIOS ON THIS DAY   Advertisement   FOLLOW: To unsubscribe from Britannica e-mails, click here. Encyclopædia Britannica 325 N. LaSalle Street, Suite 200 Chicago, Illinois 60654 United States © 2020 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. Privacy Policy • Help