Events 1 - 200 of 219
- 1626 Yuan Chonghuan is appointed Governor of Liaodong, after he led the Chinese into a great victory against the Manchurians under Nurhaci
- 1665 Battle at Elmina, Gold Coast: Dutch Vice-admiral De Ruyter captures Fort Cormantin from the English
- 1667 Abraham Crijnssen conquers Fort Willoughby (Zeelandia), Suriname
- 1670 Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I orders all Jews expelled from Austria, given until August to comply
- 1678 Earl of Shaftesbury freed from the Tower of London
- 1693 The first women's magazine "Ladies' Mercury", is published in London
- 1696 English/Welsh nobles lay down Oath of Association
New Britain
1700 English explorer William Dampier is the first British person to visit the Pacific Island of New Britain, which he names
Argentine History
1812 The flag of Argentina, created by Manuel Belgrano, is first raised at Rosario
- 1813 1st federal vaccination legislation enacted
- 1813 US Congress authorizes use of steamboats to transport mail
Symphony No. 8
1814 Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 8 in F major premieres in Vienna
Music History
1854 German composer Robert Schumann saved from suicide attempt in Rhine River
Cooper Union Address
1860 Abraham Lincoln makes a speech at Cooper Union in the city of New York that is largely responsible for his election to the Presidency
- 1861 Russians shoot at Poles protesting Russian rule of Poland in Castle Square, Warsaw
- 1861 US Congress authorizes 1st stamped newspaper wrappers for mailing
- 1864 6th and last day of battle at Dalton, Georgia (about 600 casualties)
- 1864 Near Andersonville, Georgia, rebels open a new POW camp "Camp Sumpter"
- 1865 Civil War skirmish near Sturgeon, Missouri
- 1869 John Menard is 1st African American to make a speech in the US Congress
- 1871 Meeting of Alabama claims commission
- 1872 Charlotte Ray, 1st African American woman lawyer in USA, graduates from Howard University
- 1873 Dutch socialist Samuel van Wooden demands law against child labor
- 1874 Baseball 1st played in England at Lord's Cricket Ground
- 1879 Russian-American chemist Constantin Fahlberg discovers an artificial sweetener (later named 'saccharin'), while working on coal tar analysis at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland [1]
- 1881 Battle at Amajuba: South African Boers vs British army under General Colley
- 1883 Oscar Hammerstein patents 1st cigar-rolling machine
- 1890 D Needham and P Kerrigan box 100 rounds (6 h 39 m) in San Francisco; match is a draw
- 1900 Battle of Paardeberg: Boer General Piet Cronjé surrenders to the British after a prolonged siege
- 1900 The Trades Union Congress and the Independent Labour Party (formed in 1893) meet in London, resulting in a Labour Representative Committee and eventually the modern UK Labour Party in 1906
- 1901 A General Committee of National Liberal Federation meets and adopts a resolution deploring the continuation of the war in South Africa and condemning the British Government's insistence on unconditional surrender by the Boers
- 1901 National League Rules Committee for baseball decrees that all fouls are to count as strikes except after two strikes
- 1906 France and Britain agree to joint control of New Hebrides
Meeting of Interest
1907 Psychiatrists Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud meet for the first time in Vienna
- 1908 Sacrifice fly adopted (repealed in 1931, reinstated 1954)
Railroad History
1912 Lord Kitchener opens Khartoum-El Obeid (Nyala) railway
Back to Methusaleh
1922 George Bernard Shaw's largest-scale play "Back to Methusaleh" premieres at Garrick Theatre in NYC
1st National Radio Conference
1922 US Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover convenes 1st National Radio Conference
- 1922 US Supreme Court unanimously upholds 19th amendment to the US Constuituent - women's right to vote
- 1924 Belgium's Theunis government falls
German History
1925 Adolf Hitler resurrects NSDAP political party in Munich
Intermezzo
1933 Jean Genet's play "Intermezzo" premieres in Paris
Reichstag Fire
1933 Nazi Germany's parliament building, the Reichstag, is destroyed by fire; possibly set by the Nazis, who blame and execute Dutch Communist Marinus van der Lubbe
Academy Awards
1935 7th Academy Awards: "It Happened One Night", Clark Gable, and Claudette Colbert win
- 1936 Dutch swimmer Willy den Ouden sets new women's world 100m freestyle record (1:04.6) in Amsterdam; lasts 22 years until broken in 1956 by Dawn Fraser of Australia
Cricket History
1937 Australian cricketer Don Bradman scores 169 in 5th Test match v England in 223 minutes, ensuring Australia wins the Ashes 3-2
- 1939 Belgian government of Pierlot falls
- 1939 Borley Rectory, "the most haunted house in England", destroyed in a fire
Spanish History
1939 Britain and France recognize Francisco Franco's government in Spain
- 1939 Supreme Court outlaws sit-down strikes
- 1940 Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discover carbon-14 (radiocarbon dating) at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, California
Academy Awards
1941 13th Academy Awards: "Rebecca", James Stewart & Ginger Rogers win
- 1942 1st transport of French Jews to nazi-Germany
- 1942 Battle of Java Sea began: 13 US warships sunk and 2 Japanese
- 1942 Radio emissions from the Sun first detected by English physicist and radio astronomer James Stanley Hey, working on WWII radar anti-jamming methods
- 1943 The Rosenstrasse protest starts in Berlin
- 1943 The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, explodes, killing 74 men
- 1943 University of Munich professor Kurt Huber, advisor to student non-violent resistance group "White Rose", arrested by Nazis
- 1945 Battle of US 94 Infantry
- 1946 4th "Road" film "Road to Utopia" premieres (NYC)
- 1947 French explorer Paul-Emile Victor founds French Polar Expeditions to oversee French scientific missions
First Israeli President
1949 Chaim Weizmann becomes 1st President of Israel
Conference of Interest
1957 Mao Zedong's famous speech to the Supreme State Conference "On Correct Handling of Contradictions Among People" expounding Maoist ideals
- 1957 Premiere of only prime-time network TV show beginning with an "X": "Xavier Cugat Show" on NBC (until X-Files)
- 1958 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
- 1960 Oil pipe line from Rotterdam to Ruhrgebied opens
Olympic Games
1960 US Olympic Ice Hockey Team beats USSR 3-2 en route to gold medal
- 1960 Veikko Hakulinen of Finland wins his 3rd career Olympic cross country gold medal as part of Finland's 4 x 10k relay team at Squaw Valley, CA; winner: 50k (Oslo, 1952) and 30k (Cortina d’Ampezzo, 1956)
- 1961 The first congress of the Spanish Trade Union Organisation is inaugurated
Assassination Attempt
1962 South Vietnam President Ngô Đình Diệm's palace bombed by dissident air pilots in a failed assassination attempt
Contract of Interest
1963 Mickey Mantle of NY Yankees sign a baseball contract worth $100,000
Daytona 500
1966 8th Daytona 500: Polesitter Richard Petty comes from 2 laps down to win the event after 198 laps were completed because of rain
- 1966 Ice Dance Championship at Davos won by Diane Towler and Bernard Ford of great Britain
- 1966 Ice Pairs Championship at Davos won by Belousova and Protopopov of the Soviet Union
- 1967 Antigua & St Christopher-Nevis become associated states of UK
- 1967 Dominica gains independence from England
- 1967 Rio de la Plata Treaty
Vietnam War
1968 CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite delivers a scathing editorial on America's chances of winning the Vietnam War
Coup d'état
1969 General Hafez al-Assad becomes head of Syria via military coup
Shanghai Communique
1972 US President Richard Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai issue Shanghai Communique
- 1973 American Indian Movement occupy Wounded Knee in South Dakota
- 1973 White Sox slugger Dick Allen signs 3 year $750,000 contract
- 1974 "People" magazine begins sales
- 1974 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1975 CDU-politician Peter Lorentz kidnapped in West Berlin
- 1975 US House of Representatives pass $21.3 billion anti-recession tax-cut bill
- 1976 Final meeting between Mao Zedong and Richard Nixon
Music History
1977 Rolling Stones' guitarist Keith Richards gets suspended sentence for heroin possession in Canada
- 1978 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
Grammy Awards
1980 22nd Grammy Awards: Song of the Year - Kenny Loggins' "What A Fool Believes"; Best Album - Billy Joel's "52nd Street"
- 1980 Israel & Egypt exchange ambassadors
- 1980 Terrorists occupies Dominican embassy in Bogota
- 1981 Greatest passenger load on a commercial airliner-610 on Boeing 747
Music History
1981 Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder record the single "Ebony & Ivory"
- 1982 Dan Issel (NBA-Nuggets), hits on 63rd consecutive free throw
Event of Interest
1982 Earl Anthony becomes 1st pro bowler to win more than $1 million
- 1982 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
- 1982 Wayne Williams found guilty of murdering 2 of 28 blacks in Atlanta
- 1983 Eamonn Coghlan of Ireland set indoor mile record of 3:49.78
World Record
1984 Carl Lewis jumps world record indoor (8.675 m)
- 1984 Worker's union leader Billy Nair freed in South Africa
- 1984 WRC-AM in Washington, D.C. changes call letters to WWRC
- 1985 Farmers converge in Washington to demand economic relief
- 1985 Mauritania's new constitutional charter published
- 1985 US dollar is worth Ÿ3.9355 (Netherlands)
- 1986 The United States Senate allows its debates to be televised on a trial basis
- 1987 "Washington Week In Review" 20th anniversary on PBS
- 1987 American Mike Conley sets world indoor triple jump record (17.76m) in New York
- 1987 Donald Regan resigns as White House chief of staff
- 1987 NCAA cancels SMU's entire 1987 football schedule for gross violations of NCAA rules regarding athletic corruption
Sports History
1988 Bonnie Blair (US) wins Olympic 500m speed skating in record 39.1
- 1988 Gulfstream G-IV goes around the world 36:08:34
- 1988 Katarina Witt (GDR) wins 2nd consecutive Olympic figure skating
- 1989 German war criminals Aus der Funten and Fischer freed in Holland
- 1989 Venezuela is rocked by the riots of Caracazo
- 1990 "Hold On" single released by Wilson Phillips (Billboard Song of the Year 1990)
- 1990 Exxon Corp and Exxon Shipping are indicted on 5 criminal counts (Valdez)
Black Tot Day
1990 Final day of the rum ration in the Royal New Zealand Navy
- 1991 Ben Elton's "Silly Cow" premieres in London
- 1991 Noureddine Morcelli set 1500m mark at 3:34:16
Music History
1991 Singer James Brown is paroled from prison after serving 2 years of 6 year sentence for weapon and drug related convictions
Film & TV History
1996 American film production company "Happy Madison Productions" is founded by Adam Sandler
- 1996 First ever appearance of Pokémon in role-playing video game "Pocket Monsters Red and Green" for Game Boy in Japan
- 1996 Mark Waugh scores 126 in World Cup against India
- 1997 "Last Night of Ballyhoo" opens at Helen Hayes Theater NYC
- 1997 British singer Sade arrested in Jamaica for disobeying a police officer
- 1998 Apple discontinues development of the Newton computer
- 1998 Britain's House of Lords agrees to end 1,000 years of male precedence by giving a monarch's first-born daughter the same claim to the throne as any first born son
- 1998 FBI arrests 10 most wanted suspected serial killer Tony Ray Amati
- 1998 NE Patriot David Meggett arrested in Toronto on sex assault charges
- 1999 Aston Villa are the last Premier League team to play a match with an all-English starting XI in a 4-1 defeat by Coventry
- 1999 Korea International School is founded by Soon-Il Chung
- 1999 Olusegun Obasanjo becomes Nigeria's first elected president since mid-1983
Grammy Awards
2002 44th Grammy Awards: "Walk On"; Alicia Keys win
- 2002 Godhra train burning, a Muslim mob kills 59 Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya
- 2002 Ryanair Flight 296 catches fire in London Stansted Airport. Subsequent investigations criticize Ryanair's handling of the evacuation.
Music History
2002 Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell receives Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
- 2003 Former Bosnian Serb leader Biljana Plavsic is sentenced by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, to 11 years in prison
- 2003 Rowan Williams is enthroned as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury.
- 2004 A bombing of a Superferry by Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines worst terrorist attack kills 116
- 2004 Former BPMC general secretary Ordrick Samuel launches a new party in Barbuda, Barbudans for a Better Barbuda
Academy Awards
2005 77th Academy Awards: "Million Dollar Baby", Jamie Foxx, and Hilary Swank win
Oilers Retire Messier's #11
2007 Mark Messier's #11 jersey is retired by the Edmonton Oilers
- 2007 The Chinese Correction: the Shanghai Stock Exchange falls 9%, the largest drop in 10 years
- 2007 The general strike against Lansana Conté in Guinea ends
- 2009 Statistics Finland informs that Finland's gross domestic product diminished by 1.3% in the last quarter of 2008 from the previous quarter
- 2010 8.8 magnitude earthquake rattles central Chile; epicenter just off the coast also triggers a tsunami
Academy Awards
2011 83rd Academy Awards: Best Picture "The King's Speech", Colin Firth and Natalie Portman win best acting awards
Academy Awards
2011 83rd Academy Awards: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross win Best Original Score for 'The Social Network'
- 2013 17 Afghan militia are killed by Taliban insurgents in an attack in the Andar District
- 2013 20 people are killed in a market fire in Calcutta, India
Event of Interest
2013 Pope Benedict XVI presents his farewell address to Vatican City
- 2014 Arseniy Yatsenyuk appointed Prime Minister of Ukraine
- 2014 Chaos erupts after the Swedish Public Employment Service mistakenly invites 61,000 people to a job interview in Stockholm
- 2014 Republic of Crimea announces a referendum and ousts its regional government
- 2014 Unmarked Russia special forces invade neighboring Crimea, Ukraine to assist pro-Russian nationalists, occupying government buildings in preparation for annexation
- 2014 US Republican Governor Jan Brewer vetoes a "religious freedom" bill that would have allowed businesses to turn away gay customers
Music History
2015 70's glam rocker Gary Glitter (real name Paul Gadd) sentenced to 16 years in prison for various child sex convictions
- 2015 Russian politician Boris Nemtsov is assassinated in Moscow
Music History
2018 Barbra Streisand reveals she has cloned her dog twice
Event of Interest
2018 Jared Kushner, son-in-law of President Trump, has his top-secret security clearance at the White House downgraded