Emperor Frederick Barbarossa
1155 Pope Adrian IV crowns Frederick I Barbarossa Holy Roman Emperor at St Peter's Basilica, Rome
- 1178 Five monks at Canterbury report something exploding on the moon shortly after sunset (only known observation) [1]
- 1264 The Parliament of Ireland meets at Castledermot in County Kildare, the first definitively known meeting of this Irish legislature
- 1316 Peace of Fexhe signed by Prince-Bishop Adolph II of Mark, limiting his powers
Crown of Ireland Act
1542 Crown of Ireland Act 1542 passed by the Parliament of Ireland, gives English King Henry VIII the title "King of Ireland"
Philadelphia Founded
1682 English Quaker William Penn founds Philadelphia, in the Pennsylvania Colony
- 1757 Battle at Kolin Bohemia: Austrian army beats Prussia
- 1767 Samuel Wallis, an English sea captain, sights Tahiti; considered the first European to reach the island
- 1778 British Redcoats evacuate Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and head for New York
- 1779 French fleet occupies St Vincent, West Indies
- 1812 War of 1812 begins as the US declares war against Britain
Battle of Waterloo
1815 Battle of Waterloo; Napoleon Bonaparte and France defeated by British forces under Duke of Wellington and Prussian troops under Field Marshall von Blücher
Der Freischutz
1821 Carl Maria von Weber's opera "Der Freischutz" ("The Marksman") premieres at Schauspielhaus, Berlin, Germany
First Photo of Lightning?
1847 American photographer Thomas Martin Easterly takes the earliest known photograph of lightning using the daguerreotype process in St. Louis, Missouri [1]
- 1863 After long neglect, Confederates hurriedly fortify Vicksburg
Siege of Petersburg
1864 Siege of Petersburg: Ulysses S. Grant ends four days of assaults and begins a nine month siege
- 1864 The January Uprising, an insurrection in Russia's Kingdom of Poland aimed at restoration of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth is quashed after 1-1/2 years
- 1872 Woman's Suffrage Convention held at Merchantile Liberty Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Susan B. Anthony Fined for Voting
1873 Susan B. Anthony fined $100 ($2,200 in 2020 value) for voting for US President in Rochester, New York; she refused to pay and no further action against her was taken
- 1879 W. H. Richardson, an African-American inventor, patents the children's carriage (Patent no. 405599)
- 1887 The Reinsurance Treaty between Germany and Russia is signed
- 1892 Brothers Edward and Robert Jordan plant 1st Macadamia nuts in Oahu, Hawaii
- 1894 Premier Roseberry declares Uganda a British protectorate
- 1898 Steel Pier, 1st amusement pier opens in Atlantic City, New Jersey [1]
- 1900 Empress Dowager Cixi orders I-Ho-Chuan (Boxers) to kill all foreigners
- 1900 General Luigi Pelloux resigns as premier of Italy
- 1905 Russian police open fire on a workers' rights demonstration in Łódź, Congress Poland, killing 10, and leading to an armed insurrection against the occupying forces
- 1908 Japanese immigration to Brazil begins when 781 people arrive in Santos aboard the Kasato-Maru ship
- 1909 American educator Nannie Helen Burroughs forms National Training School for Women and Girls in Washington D.C
- 1911 Detroit Tigers trail Chicago White Sox, 13-1 at Bennett Park, Detroit; recover to win, 16-15 for the biggest comeback in Major League Baseball history
Republican Party Split
1912 The Chicago national Republican Convention splits between President Taft and Theodore Roosevelt; after Taft is nominated, Roosevelt and progressive elements of the Party form the Progressive Party (also known as the 'Bull Moose Party')
- 1926 Theodor Lessing laid-off "because he is a Jew" in Hanover
Earhart 1st Woman to Fly Across Atlantic
1928 American aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean (as a passenger), landing at Burry Port, Wales
De Gaulle Calls for French Resistance
1940 General Charles de Gaulle makes his first speech on the BBC to the French people, since arriving in London, an appeal to defy Nazi occupiers - regarded as the beginning of French Resistance during WWII
- 1940 German occupiers slaughter cattle, pigs and chickens
Their Finest Hour
1940 Winston Churchill gives his "this was their finest hour" speech to the House of Commons urging perseverance in the war after the Dunkirk evacuation and the fall of France
Louis KOs Conn
1941 In his 18th world heavyweight title defence Joe Louis KOs Billy Conn in 13th round in front of a crowd of 54,487 at the Polo Grounds, NYC
- 1941 Turkey signs peace treaty with Nazi Germany
- 1942 Bernard W. Robinson, becomes 1st African American ensign in US Navy
- 1942 Eric Nessler of France stays aloft in a glider for 38h21m
- 1943 SS Police in Amsterdam sentence 12 resistance fighters to death for the fire-bombing at the census records bureau in March
- 1944 Farewell concert of conductor Willem Mengelberg in Paris, France
- 1944 German submarine U-767 sunk by English Navy destroyers in the English Channel
Haw-Haw Charged with Treason
1945 William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw), fascist politician and Nazi propaganda broadcaster, charged with treason in England
Plane Crash
1947 Gene Roddenberry survives plane crash in the Syrian Desert while working for Pan American World Airways
- 1948 American Library Association adopts Library Bill of Rights
- 1948 Future Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Robin Roberts debuts for the Philadelphia Phillies, taking a 2-0 loss against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Shibe Park, Philadelphia
- 1948 National Security Council authorizes covert operations for 1st time
- 1950 Cleveland Indians score an American League record 14 runs in 1st inning; beat Philadelphia A's, 21-2 at Cleveland Stadium
- 1951 Charles De Gaulle wins French parliamentary election
- 1951 In South Africa, the Suppression of Communism Act commences
- 1953 Monarchy of Egypt formally abolished after the 1952 revolution and proclaimed the Republic of Eqypt; Army General Muhammad Naguib becomes 1st president
- 1953 Red Sox rookie Eugene Stephens is 1st player in AL history to register 3 hits in an inning as Boston scores 17 runs in the 7th during 23-3 rout of visiting Detroit Tigers at Fenway Park, Boston
- 1953 USAF C-124 Globemaster crashes shortly after takeoff from Tachikawa Air Base, Japan, killing 129 servicemen; at the time, it was the deadliest incident in aviation history
- 1954 Pierre Mendès forms French government
- 1959 1st telecast transmitted from England to US
- 1959 Governor of Louisiana Earl K. Long is committed to a state mental hospital; he responds by having the hospital's director fired and replaced with a crony who proceeds to proclaim him perfectly sane
- 1959 New York City premiere of the film version of Kathryn Hulme's "The Nun's Story"
- 1960 San Francisco Giants hire Tom Sheehan to replace Bill Rigney; baseball's oldest debuting manager (66) goes 46-50-2 for remainder of season
- 1961 CBS radio cancels Gunsmoke
- 1961 KBMT TV channel 12 in Beaumont, Texas (ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1963 3,000 blacks boycott Boston public school to protest de facto segregation
- 1964 African Groundnut Council forms in Dakar
- 1964 Blacks and White activists attempt to desegregate a motel swimming pool, in St Augustine, Florida; owner pours acid into water, police arrest dozens (including 17 rabbis), and the Ku Klux Klan firebombs the location [1]
Music History
1967 Closing day of the Monterey International Pop Festival, Southern California, featuring first major US appearances of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, and Otis Redding
- 1967 Houston Astros pitcher Don Wilson no-hits Atlanta Braves, 2-0 at the Astrodome, Houston
- 1967 Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townsend wage a battle of guitars at the Monetery Pop Festival
- 1968 Supreme Court bans racial discrimination in sale and rental of housing
The Wild Bunch
1969 "The Wild Bunch", directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring William Holden and Ernest Borgnine, is released
- 1969 A report published by the International Commission of Jurists on the British government's policy in Northern Ireland is critical of both the British government and the Northern Ireland government
Election of Interest
1970 Edward Heath's Conservative Party win the General Election in UK, replacing the Labour Party
- 1971 Social Democratic and Labour Party and Nationalist Members of Parliament refuse to attend the state opening of Stormont (North Ireland Parliament)
- 1972 3 members of the British Army are killed by an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb in a derelict house near Lurgan, County Down
- 1972 BEA Trident crashes after takeoff from Heathrow killing 118
Sports History
1972 US Supreme Court, 5-3, confirms lower court rulings in Curt Flood case, upholding baseball's exemption from antitrust laws [1]
- 1973 NCAA makes urine testing mandatory for participants
Meeting of Interest
1973 Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev visits the US and President Nixon
- 1974 Gaston Thorn forms Luxembourg government
- 1975 NBC News & Information Service (24 hr news) premieres on radio
- 1976 A Joseph William Turner watercolor auctioned for £340,000
Sports History
1976 Bowie Kuhn voids Oakland A's sales of players, totaling $35 million - Joe Rudi & Rollie Fingers to Boston Red Sox, and Vida Blue to NY Yankees
Sports History
1977 Billy Martin & Reggie Jackson get into a dugout altercation
Music History
1977 Sex Pistols Johnny Rotten & Paul Cook, beaten by a group of rabble-rousers outside of a London pub
- 1977 Space Shuttle test model "Enterprise" carries a crew aloft for 1st time, it was fixed to a modified Boeing 747
- 1978 Victor de la Torre wins Peru election
Sports History
1979 Billy Martin becomes Yankee manager (2nd time), replacing Bob Lemon
- 1979 US President Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sign SALT II treaty limiting nuclear weapons
- 1980 Dutch 2nd Chamber joins oil boycott of South Africa
World Record
1980 Indian "human computer" Shakuntala Devi sets a world record by mentally multiplying two random 13-digit numbers in 28 seconds; She correctly answered that 7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779 = 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730 !
- 1981 Kimberley Ann Smith, of NC, 17, crowned America's Junior Miss
- 1981 Test cricket debut of Terry Alderman, v England at Trent Bridge
- 1981 The AIDS epidemic is formally recognized by medical professionals in San Francisco, California
- 1981 US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart retires
- 1981 Vaccine to prevent hoof & mouth disease announced
- 1982 ABC's All Talk radio network expands to 22 stations
- 1982 Voting Rights Act of 1965 extended by Senate by 85-8 vote
- 1983 IRA's Joseph Doherty arrested in NYC
1st US Woman in Space
1983 Space shuttle Challenger 2 launches the first American woman into space, astronaut Sally Ride
Sports History
1986 California Angels'Don Sutton becomes 19th MLB pitcher to win 300 games
- 1986 De Havilland Twin Otter & Bell 206 helicopter collide, kills 25
- 1986 Heike Friedrich swims female world record 200m freestyle (1:57.55)
- 1986 US House of Representatives approves Bill to impose stricter sanctions on Apartheid South Africa
- 1987 Charles Glass, ABC journalist, kidnapped in Lebanon
- 1988 Jeff Hamilton, hits 8,000th Dodger home run
- 1989 Comet Churyunov-Gerasimenko at perihelion
US Golf Open
1990 1st sudden death US Open Golf Championship is won by Hale Irwin
(Everything I Do) I Do It for You
1991 "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" single released by Bryan Adams (Billboard Song of the Year, 1991)
Event of Interest
1991 Boris Yeltsin, President of Russia, arrives in US
- 1991 Mud storm in Antofagasta Chile, kills 80
- 1991 SF Giant pitcher Dave Dravecky's cancerous left arm is amputated
- 1991 Yankee pitchers pick-off 3 Toronto Blue Jays
- 1992 Ottawa Senators make goalie Peter Sidorkiewicz their 1st draft pick
Sports History
1993 Expo's Dennis Martínez is 92nd MLB pitcher to win 200 games
- 1993 Tōru Takemitsu's "Archipelago S" premieres in Aldeburgh England
- 1994 Aleksander Popov swims world record 100m free style (48.21 sec)
- 1994 Gay Games open in NYC
Rugby World Cup
1995 All Black Jonah Lomu scores the try of the Rugby World Cup, running over Mike Catt in New Zealand's 45-29 defeat of England
- 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup Final, Råsunda Stadium, Stockholm, Sweden: Hege Riise & Marianne Pettersen score within 3 minutes of each other to give Norway a 2-0 win over Germany
Film & TV History
1995 Memorial service for Elizabeth Montgomery is held at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills
Event of Interest
1996 Ted Kaczynski, suspected of being the Unabomber, is indicted on ten criminal counts
Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam
1999 Hindi film "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam" premieres directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, starring Salman Khan, Ajay Devgn and Aishwarya Rai
The Fast and the Furious
2001 "The Fast and the Furious" film directed by Rob Cohen starring Paul Walker, Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez premieres
- 2001 Protests occur in Manipur over the extension of the ceasefire between Naga insurgents and the government of India
Film & TV History
2005 David Tennant's first appearance as the Tenth Doctor in BBC "Doctor Who" episode "The Parting of the Ways"
- 2006 The first Kazakh space satellite, KazSat is launched
- 2012 15 people are killed and 40 injured in a suicide attack in Baquba, Iraq
- 2013 27 people are killed and 30 are injured by a suicide bomb in Sher Garh, Pakistan
- 2013 31 people are killed and 60 are injured by two suicide bombings in al-Qahira, Baghdad
- 2013 Russia passes a law banning foreign same-sex couples from adopting children
Film & TV History
2014 British actor Ian McKellen is awarded an honorary degree by Cambridge University, becoming a Doctor of Letters
Event of Interest
2014 King Juan Carlos I of Spain abdicates the Spanish throne to make way for his son Felipe VI
- 2015 18 vigilantes are killed & 53 are injured after an accidental detonation of an explosive device in Monguno, Nigeria
Catholic Encyclical
2015 Pope Francis blames human selfishness for global warming in his encyclical, named "Laudato Si (Be Praised), On the Care of Our Common Home"
- 2016 Soyuz capsule returns to Earth 1st British International Space Station astronaut Tim Peake, Russian Yuri Malenchenko and American Timothy Kopra after 186 days
Election of Interest
2017 French President Emmanuel Macron's party La République en Marche and allies win a majority in 2nd round French legislative elections
- 2017 ICC Men's Cricket Champions Trophy, The Oval, London: Pakistan wins the competition for the first time with a 180-run victory over India; Player of the Series: Hasan Ali, PAK 13 wickets
- 2017 Pakistan defeat India to win cricket's Champions Trophy at the Oval in London by 180 runs, Fakhar Zaman scores 114 runs
- 2017 Rare magnitude-four earthquake causes a tsunami to hit Nuugaatsiaq in northwestern Greenland
- 2018 Ferry sinks on Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia, with 193 suspected dead
Event of Interest
2018 US President Trump orders US military to set up sixth branch of the military - a space force
- 2019 Chennai, India's 6th largest city with 4 million people, runs out of water as its reservoirs dry up
- 2019 China has been forcefully harvesting organs from marginalized groups in prison camps on a significant scale according to International Tribunal in London
- 2019 England cricket captain Eoin Morgan smashes a ODI world record 17 sixes against Afghanistan in his side's 150-run World Cup victory at Old Trafford; Morgan, 148 from 71 balls
- 2019 Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam announces the suspension of the pro-China and highly controversial extradition law, after massive protests in the city
- 2019 Sex-changing Australian bush tomato study published in journal "PhytoKeys" detailing how Solanum Plastisexum can change from male to female to hermaphrodite
- 2019 Two 14 year-old boys become the youngest in Irish history to be convicted of murder when found guilty of the murder and sexual assault of a 14 year-old girl in Dublin
- 2019 US President Donald Trump announces his campaign for re-election
- 2020 Canadian coronavirus COVID-19 known cases pass 100,000 with 8,361 deaths
- 2020 Global COVID-19 death toll passes 450,000 (451,118) with 8,421,357 cases known according to Johns Hopkins figures
- 2020 World record for greatest duration for a single lighting flash of 17.1 seconds during thunderstorm over Uruguay and Argentina according to World Meteorological Organization [1]
- 2021 Jurist and conservative Ebrahim Raisi elected President of Iran on a low turn out
- 2021 Record 82 million people now forcibly displaced, or over 1% of world's population, according to UN refugee agency [1]
Film & TV History
2022 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences apologizes to Sacheen Littlefeather for the treatment she received when she declined an Oscar on behalf of actor Marlon Brando in 1973 [1]
- 2022 Attacks in Oromia, western Ethiopia, targeting the Amhara people leave a reported 250 dead, killed by Oromo rebels amid worsening ethnic conflict in the country [1]
- 2022 Flooding in Bangladesh and nearby Indian states leave four million stranded and without electricity, with at least 41 dead as monsoon floods become more frequent and extreme [1]
- 2022 Lithuania bans the passage of EU sanctioned goods across its territory and into Russian exclave of Kaliningrad [1]
- 2023 Antony Blinken is the first US Secretary of State in five years to met with senior China officials in Beijing, aiming to re-establish regular communications [1]
Titanic Submersible Implodes
2023 Submersible vessel exploring wreck of the RMS Titanic implodes in the North Atlantic Ocean killing 5 occupants
- 2023 US Open Men's Golf, LA CC: American outsider Wyndham Clark wins his first major and $3.6m as he beats Irishman Rory McIlroy by a stroke
- 2024 Nvidia overtakes Microsoft to become the world's most valuable company at $3.34 trillion [1]
- 2024 Rema’s "Calm Down", already the most successful African song, becomes the first Afrobeats single to earn over 1 billion on-demand streams in the US [1]
- 2024 Russian President Vladimir Putin is greeted by Kim Jong Un on his arrival in North Korea, his first visit in 24 years [1]
- 2024 US President Joe Biden announces an executive action to enable 500,000 spouses and children of US citizens to apply for citizenship without leaving the country [1]