Pizarro Receives Royal Charter
1519 Francisco Pizarro receives royal charter for the west coast of South America
- 1529 Francisco Pizarro appointed Governor of Peru
Death of Atahualpa
1533 Francisco Pizarro orders the death of the last Sapa Inca Emperor, Atahualpa
- 1576 Muitende Spanish troops conquer Aalst
Rembrandt Declares Insolvency
1656 Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn declares he is insolvent after living beyond his means and spending too much on artwork and rare items. Leads to the most experimental and exuberantly creative period of his career.
Casanova Imprisoned
1755 Giacomo Casanova is arrested in Venice for affront to religion and common decency and imprisoned in the Doge's Palace
- 1757 Battle at Hastenbeck: French army beats Duke of Cumberland
Siege of Louisbourg Ends
1758 British battle fleet under general James Wolfe conquers Louisbourg
United States Post Office
1775 US Continental Congress creates United States Post Office (U.S.P.O.) in Philadelphia under Benjamin Franklin
NY Ratifies Constitution
1788 New York becomes 11th state to ratify US constitution
Bolívar Meets San Martin
1822 Secret meeting of Simón Bolívar and Jose de San Martin
- 1826 Riots in Vilnius, Lithuania cause the death of many Jews
- 1832 HMS Beagle anchors in Montevideo
- 1835 1st sugar cane plantation started in Hawaii
- 1847 Moses Gerrish Farmer builds 1st miniature train for children to ride
- 1847 The Liberian Declaration of Independence is signed making Liberia a sovereign nation, independent from the American Colonization Society
- 1858 Baron Lionel de Rothschild becomes the 1st Jewish person elected to the British Parliament
Battle of Salineville
1863 Battle of Salineville: Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 364 troops surrender to Union forces after a 17-day unauthorized raid through Indiana and Ohio
- 1864 -30] US Civil War: Union Brig. General Edward McCook leads unsuccessful cavalry raids at Lovejoy Station, Georgia
- 1864 -30] US Civil War: Union General George Stoneman leads unsuccessful raid in Macon, Georgia
- 1865 Patrick Francis Healy is 1st African American awarded PhD (from University of Leuven, Belgium)
- 1865 The capital of New Zealand moves from Auckland to Wellington
- 1866 Canoe Club opens in England
- 1878 In California, poet and American West outlaw calling himself "Black Bart" makes his last clean getaway when he steals a safe box from a Wells Fargo stagecoach. The empty box found later with a taunting poem inside.
- 1881 French marines occupy Tunisian harbor city Sfax
Parsifal
1882 Richard Wagner's opera "Parsifal" premieres in Bayreuth, Germany
- 1887 1st Esperanto book published
- 1891 France annexes Tahiti.
- 1891 Henry James' "American" premieres in London
- 1896 Vitascope Hall, 1st permanent for-profit movie theatre, opens in New Orleans
- 1897 37.5 cm rainfall at Jewell, Maryland (state record)
- 1902 Australia beat England by 3 runs at Old Trafford
- 1903 Horatio Nelson Jackson, Sewall K. Crocker, and a bulldog named Bud complete 1st automobile trip across the United States; San Francisco to New York in a 2-cylinder Winton (63 days, 12 hours, and 30 minutes)
- 1908 United States Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte issues an order to immediately staff the Office of the Chief Examiner (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation)
- 1914 Britain attempts to organize a conference among major European powers to resolve dispute between Austria-Hungary and Serbia; France, Italy, and eventually Russia agree to participate. but Germany refuses
Churchill Orders British Fleet Ready
1914 First Lord of the Admiralty (British Minister of Navy) Winston Churchill orders British fleet to remain in state of readiness as threat of war in Europe grows
- 1914 Irish Volunteers unload a shipment of 1,500 rifles and 45,000 rounds of ammunition arrive from Germany aboard Erskine Childers' yacht the Asgard; British troops fire on jeering crowd on Bachelors Walk, Dublin, killing three citizens
- 1915 International School for Wijsbegeerte forms
- 1916 The US Protests the 'Blacklist' issued by the British forbidding trade with some 30 US firms
Rise of J. Edgar Hoover
1917 J. Edgar Hoover gets job in US Department of Justice
- 1918 Race riot in Philadelphia (3 whites & 1 black killed)
- 1926 National Bar Association incorporates
- 1926 Philippines government asks USA for a plebiscite on independence
- 1928 In only his second and final defense of his world heavyweight boxing title, Gene Tunney scores an 11-round TKO win over Tom Heeney at Yankee Stadium, NYC
- 1928 New York Yankees score 11 runs in 12th inning, beating Tigers 12-1 in Detroit
- 1931 LPGA Western Open Women's Golf, Midlothian CC: June Beebe beats Mrs. Melvin Jones, 3 & 2 for golf's only major title
DiMaggio Hitting Streak Ends
1933 Joe DiMaggio ends 61 game hitting streak in Pacific Coast League
- 1936 The Axis Powers decide to intervene in the Spanish Civil War.
- 1937 End of the Battle of Brunete in the Spanish Civil War.
- 1938 1st radio broadcast of "Young Widder Brown" on NBC
- 1939 Yankee catcher Bill Dickey hits 3 consecutive HRs
- 1941 1st Dutch Austrians depart Hague
- 1941 US embargo on oil-export to Japan
- 1942 RC churches protest, Dutch bishops stand against spread of Judaism
- 1943 120°F (49°C), Tishmoningo, Oklahoma (state record)
- 1943 Otto Skorzeny's commando group arrives in Rome
- 1944 Japanese suicide attack on US lines in Guam
- 1944 Soviet troops arrive in Weichsel
- 1944 The first German V-2 rocket hits Great Britain (nicknamed "gasometer").
- 1944 US offensive at St-Lo/2nd Armour div occupies St Gilles
Prime Minister Clement Attlee
1945 After Labour landslide in general election, Clement Attlee becomes British Prime Minister
Potsdam Declaration
1945 Declaration of Potsdam: US, Britain and China demand the unconditional surrender of Japan during WWII
- 1945 Japanese government disregards US ultimatum
Nuclear Bombing of Nagasaki
1945 Physicist Raemer Schreiber and Lieutenant Colonel Peer de Silva depart Kirtland Army Air Field to transport the plutonium core for the Fat Man bomb (bombing of Nagasaki) to the island of Tinian where the bomb is assembled
- 1945 US cruiser Indianapolis reaches Tinian with atom bomb
- 1945 Winston Churchill resigns as Britain's Prime Minister after election defeat
- 1946 Aloha Airlines began service from Honolulu International Airport
National Security Act
1947 US President Truman signs National Security Act (1947), establishing Department of Defense, CIA, National Security Council and Joint Chiefs of Staff
- 1948 1st Black host of a network show - Bob Howard Show on CBS
Durocher Returns
1948 Leo Durocher returns to Ebbets Field as manager of New York Giants
- 1948 President Harry Truman issues Executive Order No. 9981 to desegregate the US armed forces, directing "equality of treatment and opportunity" in the military
- 1949 WCPO TV channel 9 in Cincinnati, OH (CBS) begins broadcasting
- 1950 Dodgers' Jim Russell is 1st to switch-hits HRs twice in a game
- 1950 KNIL (Royal Dutch East Indies Army) unites
- 1951 Netherlands ends state of war with Germany
- 1952 King Farouk I of Egypt abdicates [Black Saturday]
Sports History
1952 Mickey Mantle hits his 1st grand-slammer
- 1953 Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle orders an anti-polygamy law enforcement crackdown on residents of Short Creek, Arizona, which becomes known as the Short Creek Raid
- 1953 Cuban pirate radio station's 1st transmission at Santiago de Cuba
Event of Interest
1953 Fidel Castro leads a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks, intended to spark a revolution in Cuba
Event of Interest
1956 Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser announces plan to nationalize Suez Canal, initiating the "Suez Crisis"
- 1957 Carlos Castillo Armas, Dictator and President of Guatemala, is assassinated by a palace guard with leftist sympathies
- 1957 Mickey Mantle hits career HR # 200
- 1957 USSR launches 1st intercontinental multistage ballistic missile
- 1958 Army launches 4th US successful satellite, Explorer IV
Sports History
1959 Chicago White Sox Larry Doby plays final MLB game; retires in 1962 after playing for the Chunichi Dragons in Japan
Baseball Record
1962 Milwaukee Brave Warren Spahn sets HR record of 31 by a pitcher
- 1963 Skopje, Yugoslavia, destroyed by earthquake, kills 1,000+
- 1963 The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development votes to admit Japan.
- 1963 US Syncom 2, 1st geosynchronous communications satellite, launched
- 1964 Teamsters President and US union leader Jimmy Hoffa convicted of fraud and conspiracy
- 1964 Train from Povoa de Varzin, Portugal derails near Oporto, 94 die
- 1965 Republic of Maldives gains independence from Britain (National Day)
- 1966 Lord Gardiner issues the Practice Statement in the House of Lords stating that the House is not bound to follow its own previous precedent
- 1966 WRLH TV channel 31 in Lebanon, NH (NBC) begins broadcasting
- 1967 Twins beat Yanks 3-2 in 18
- 1969 Sharon Sites Adams, 39, becomes 1st lady to solo sail the Pacific
Baseball Record
1970 Reds catcher Johnny Bench, playing for the day in the outfield, goes 4 for 5 with 7 RBIs including 3 consecutive HRs off St. Louis Cardinals Steve Carlton in 12-5 win at Riverfront Stadium, Cincinnati
- 1971 Apollo 15 launched (Scott and Irwin) to 4th manned landing on Moon
Music History
1972 Priscilla and Elvis Presley file for legal separation
- 1972 Rockwell receives NASA contract to construct Space Shuttle
Equus
1973 Peter Shaffer's musical "Equus" premieres in London
- 1974 France performs nuclear Test at Mururoa atoll
- 1974 USSR's Soyuz fails to dock with Salyut 3
- 1975 Soyuz 18B returns to Earth
- 1977 The 'Committee of 10' formed by prominent Soweto residents, issues a programme for the election of a new community board to have total autonomy in Soweto, South Africa
- 1977 USSR performs underground nuclear Test
- 1978 France performs nuclear Test at Mururoa atoll
- 1978 Johnny Bench hits his 300th career home run
- 1979 Estimated 109 cm (43") of rain falls in Alvin, Texas (national record)
- 1979 Pioneer 11 transmits images of Saturn and its rings
- 1981 2 climbers fall 550 m down cliff near Angel Falls, Venezuela
- 1982 Canada's Anik D1 Comsat launched by US Delta rocket
Film & TV History
1982 Indian film star Amitabh Bachchan is seriously injured filming a fight scene for the movie "Coolie"
- 1983 Challenger moves to Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (Florida), for mating for STS-8
- 1983 Jarmila Kratochvilova of Czech sets 800m woman's record (1:53.28)
- 1983 Light flashes seen on Jupiter moon Io
- 1983 US threatens action to preserve navigation in Persian Gulf
Sports History
1984 Bowie Kuhn announces pitcher Vida Blue is suspended for the rest of 1984 due to cocaine conviction
Baseball Record
1988 Mike Schmidt sets NL record appearing in 2,155 games at 3rd base, as Phillies & NY Mets end that game at 2:13 AM
- 1990 General Hospital records its 7,000th episode
- 1990 US beats Soviet Union 17-0 in baseball at Goodwill Games
Event of Interest
1990 US President George H. W. Bush signs Americans With Disabilities Act
Baseball Record
1992 Nolan Ryan strikes out his 100th batter for the 23rd consecutive season
- 1993 Boeing 737-500 crashes in South Korea, 66 killed
- 1993 The first of four photos of Mars is taken by the Mars Observer, just under a month before the spacecraft failed in flight
- 1994 Cambodia's Red Khmer surprise attack on train, kills 13
- 1994 Turkish air force bombs Kurds, struggle in Iraq, 70 killed
- 1999 Fighting ceases between India and Pakistan in the Kargil War, Kashmir, after two months of fighting
- 2005 Mumbai, India receives 99.5cm of rain (39.17 inches) within 24 hours, bringing the city to a halt for over 2 days
- 2005 Samir Geagea, the Lebanese Forces (LF) leader, is released after spending 11 years in a solitary confinement; his release came after Syria ends occupation of Lebanon
- 2005 Space Shuttle program: STS-114 Mission - Launch of Discovery, NASA's first scheduled flight mission after the Columbia Disaster in 2003
- 2012 At least 200 people are killed in a day of violence in Syria
- 2012 Insurgent attack kills 19 people and destroys a helicopter at Baqubah, Iraq
- 2012 North Korea is hit by Tropical Storm Khanun, killing 88 people and leaving 60,000 people homeless
- 2013 57 people are killed in a market bombing in Parachinar, Pakistan
Sports History
2014 Brian Ortega makes his UFC debut against Mike De La Torre at UFC on Fox 12
- 2014 Brian Ortega's victory over Mike De La Torre is overturned to 'No Contest' after testing positive for drostanolone
- 2014 Taghrooda wins the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes
- 2014 The Chinese government suspends a Shanghai meat dealer and makes arrests after the company sold out-of-date meat to fast food chains, including McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken
- 2014 While Israel reject long-term ceasefire that does not include destroying the Hamas tunnels, they agree to 12 hour ceasefire; Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip now exceeds 1000
- 2017 3 live king cobras reported found inside potato chip cans by customs officials in Los Angeles
- 2017 Great Britain announces it will ban gasoline and diesel cars by 2040
Event of Interest
2017 US President Donald Trump announces policy to ban transgender people from the military, overturning Obama era changes
- 2018 Authorities in Stung Treng province, Cambodia, evacuate 25,000 below collapsed Laos dam as waters rise
- 2018 Facebook has the single worst day of any public company on the stock market - losing 19% or $119 billion market value
Gravitational Redshift
2018 Observation of a black hole by The Very Large Telescope in Chile proves Albert Einstein's prediction of "gravitational redshift", published in "Journal Astronomy & Astrophysics"
- 2018 Over 700 immigrant children still separated from their parents in the US as court-imposed deadline to reunite them passes
Music Concert
2018 Sir Paul McCartney performs a "secret" gig at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, where the Beatles began
- 2019 Australian cricket captain Meg Lanning records T20 International world record individual score of 133 off 63 balls in 93-run win against England at Chelmsford; Southern Stars clinch Women's Ashes
Event of Interest
2020 Body of civil rights activist John Lewis crosses the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma for the last time (beaten there 55 years ago) with a military honor guard as part of a remembrance ceremony
Juventus Wins 9th Straight Serie A
2020 Italian football giants Juventus wins its 9th straight Serie A title with goals from Cristiano Ronaldo and Federico Bernardeschiin in a 2-0 win over Sampdoria
Adam Peaty Wins Gold
2021 Dominant British breaststroke swimmer Adam Peaty successfully defends his 100m title at the Tokyo Olympics beating Arno Kamminga of the Netherlands and Italian Nicolò Martinenghi
- 2021 Ship carrying migrants wrecks off coast of Al-Khums, Libya, killing at least 57, takes death toll in central Mediterranean to 987 for 2021 [1]
- 2021 Tunisian government in crisis after President Kais Saied sacks Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and suspends parliament with the help of the army because of its handling of COVID-19
- 2021 Weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz makes history becoming the first athlete from the Philippines to win gold at the Olympics in the 55kg class at the Tokyo Games
- 2022 Russia announces it will leave the International Space Station at the end of 2024 [1]
- 2022 Two new studies published in "Science" both confirm COVID-19 mostly likely began in the Hunan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China [1]
Kevin Spacey Cleared
2023 Actor Kevin Spacey is cleared of sex assault charges at a court in London [1]
- 2023 Cambodia's authoritarian Prime Minister Hun Sen, in power since 1985, announces he will resign and pass his office to his son [1]
- 2023 Coup in Niger as presidential guards seize President Mohamed Bazoum and ministerial buildings in Niamey [1]
- 2023 US government being kept in the dark about unidentified anomalous phenomena, (UAP or UFOs) claims former military intelligence officer David Grusch, testifying to US House committee [1]
- 2023 World's largest office building - Surat Diamond Bourse at 660,000-square-metres (bigger than the Pentagon) is unveiled in Surat India, by architectural studio Morphogenesis [1]
