- 241 BC First Punic War: Battle of the Aegates Islands - The Romans sink the Carthaginian fleet bringing the First Punic War to an end
- 418 Jews are excluded from public office in the Roman Empire
- 1198 The Giralda minaret designed by architect Ben Ahmad for the Almohad mosque in Seville is completed. Now the Bell Tower for Seville's cathedral.
- 1535 Spanish Bishop of Panama Tomés de Berlanga discovers the uninhabited Galapagos Islands after his ship drifts off course
Dutch Rebellion
1578 Queen Elizabeth I of England gives Johan Casimir £20,000 to aid Dutch rebellion
- 1624 England declares war on Spain
- 1783 USS Alliance under Captain Barry fights and wins the last naval battle of the US Revolutionary War off Cape Canaveral
- 1791 John Stone of Concord, Massachusetts, patents a pile driver
- 1791 Pope condemns France's Civil Constitution of the clergy
- 1801 First official census in Great Britain, revealing a population of approximately 10 million
- 1820 Karol Kurpiński's opera "Kalmora, or The Paternal Right of the Americans" premieres at the Warsaw Opera
- 1830 The KNIL also known as the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army is created
- 1831 The French Foreign Legion is established by King Louis-Philippe to support his war in Algeria
- 1847 1st money minted in Hawaii
Abraham Lincoln's Patent
1849 Abraham Lincoln applies for a patent (only US President to do so) for a device to lift a boat over shoals and obstructions
- 1861 West African political leader El Hadj Umar Tall seizes the city of Segou, destroying the Bambara Empire of Mali
- 1862 Great Britain & France recognise independence of Zanzibar
- 1862 US issues 1st paper money in the form of $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500 and $1000 notes
- 1864 Red River campaign begun in Louisiana by Union forces
- 1865 Battle of Monroe's Crossroads, North Carolina
- 1874 Purdue University (Indiana) admits its 1st student
Bell's 1st Telephone Call
1876 First telephone call; Alexander Graham Bell says "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you" to his assistant Thomas Watson
- 1888 1st performance of Caesar Franck's symphonic poem for chorus and orchestra "Psyché"
Sullivan vs Mitchell
1888 Heavyweight Boxing champ John L. Sullivan draws Charlie Mitchell in 30 rounds
- 1891 Almon Brown Strowger, an undertaker in Topeka, Kansas, patents the strowger switch, a device which led to the automation of telephone circuit switching
- 1893 Ivory Coast becomes a French colony (Cote d'Ivoire)
- 1893 New Mexico State University cancels its 1st graduation ceremony; its only graduand Sam Steele was robbed & killed the night before
- 1896 Bronx acquires O'Brien Square
- 1900 Battle of Driefontein, South Africa, British offensive against the Boers, who are forced to withdraw
- 1900 Regents for the King of Uganda and leading chiefs sign a treaty with Great Britain agreeing to the organization of the government, taxation, courts, military, and other functions of their country, which is under British protection.
- 1900 Stanley Cup, Montreal Arena, Westmount, Quebec: Montreal Shamrocks outclass Halifax Crescents, 11-0 to sweep challenge series, 2-0
Movie Camera not Invented by Edison
1902 A United States court of appeals rules that Thomas Edison did not invent the movie camera
Sonatine
1906 1st performance of Maurice Ravel's "Sonatine" by pianist Paule de Lestang, in Lyon, France
- 1906 Baker Street & Waterloo Railway opens, constructed by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London. The contraction Bakerloo became the official name in July 1906.
- 1906 Europe's worst mining accident when a coal dust explosion kills 1,060 at Courrieres, France
- 1910 Pittsburgh Courier begins publishing
- 1910 Republic of China officially abolishes slavery
- 1913 Stanley Cup, Quebec Skating Rink, Quebec City, Quebec: Quebec Bulldogs retain trophy; defeat Sydney Millionaires (NS), 6-2 for a 2-0 sweep of the challenge series
- 1913 William Knox becomes 1st in American Bowling Congress to bowl 300
- 1914 Suffragettes in London damage Rokeby's painting Venus of Velasquez
- 1915 British Army captures Neuve Chapelle, Belgium
- 1917 Batangas was formally founded as one of the Philippines's earliest encomiendas
- 1920 Home Rule Act passed by the British Parliament, dividing Ireland into two parts; it is rejected by the southern counties, where the Ango-Irish war continues for a year
Malone Scores 6
1920 NHL's Quebec Bulldog Joe Malone scores 6 goals vs Ottawa Senators
- 1922 KLZ-AM in Denver CO begins radio transmissions
- 1922 State of siege proclaimed during mine strike Johannesburg, South Africa
1st Flight Over Mt Demawend
1925 Walter Mittelholzer is 1st to fly over Mount Demawend in Iran
Bavaria Lifts Hitler Ban
1927 Bavaria lifts ban on Adolf Hitler's speeches
- 1928 Christine Collins' son, Walter Collins, disappears in Los Angeles
Event of Interest
1931 Oswald Mosley leaves British Labour party and founds the "New Party"
King of Swing
1937 Benny Goodman unofficially crowned the “King of Swing” at New York City's Paramount Theater as his band plays before exuberant sell-out crowd filled with teenagers; unable to attend nightclub performances, kids dance in the aisles
Jezebel
1938 "Jezebel" film premieres directed by William Wyler, starring Bette Davis and Henry Fonda, from the play by Owen Davis
10th Academy Awards
1938 10th Academy Awards: "The Life of Emile Zola", Spencer Tracy & Luise Rainer win
- 1939 17 villages damaged by hailstones in Hyderabad, India
- 1940 1st US opera telecast, W2XBS, NYC: Ruggero Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci"
- 1941 Lee MacPhail, Dodger GM predicts all players will wear batting helmets
- 1944 U-575 sinks British corvette HMS Asphodel in the Atlantic Ocean killing 92 of the 97 men aboard
Firebombing of Tokyo
1945 Deadliest air raid of World War II sets Tokyo on fire after night time B-29 bombings, more than 100,000 people die, mostly civilians
Kesselring Succeeds Rundstedt
1945 Fieldmarshal Albert Kesselring succeeds Gerd von Rundstedt as commander of German Army Command in the West
3rd Army and 1st Army Make Contact
1945 George S. Patton's 3rd U.S. Army makes contact with General Courtney Hodge's 1st U.S. Army
- 1945 Germany blows up Wessel Bridge on Rhine
- 1945 Japan grants occupied Vietnam independence
- 1945 US troops land in western Mindanao, Philippines in Operation VICTOR IV
- 1946 Train derailment kills 185 near Aracaju, northeast Brazil
- 1948 1st civilian to exceed speed of sound - Herb H Hoover, Edwards Air Force Base, California
Hoover Declines Post
1951 FBI director J. Edgar Hoover declines post of baseball commissioner
Cuban Coup d'état
1952 Military coup led by General Fulgencio Batista in Cuba
Sports History
1959 Dorothy Comiskey Rigney, sells her 54% share of MLB Chicago White Sox to Bill Veeck, for a reported $27M
Event of Interest
1959 Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth" premieres in NYC
- 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese occupation force in Lhasa, Tibet
Purple Noon
1960 French-Italian crime film "Purple Noon" premieres starring Alain Delon, directed by René Clément, based on the novel "The Talented Mr Ripley" by Patricia Highsmith
- 1960 USSR agrees to stop nuclear testing
- 1962 Due to its no black policy, Phillies leave Jack Tar Harrison Hotel & move to Rocky Point Motel, 20 miles outside Clearwater, Florida
- 1962 Gala preview dinner held atop the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington, prior to opening of the Century 21 Exposition (World's Fair)
Sports History
1963 SF Warriors center Wilt Chamberlain scores 70 points in 163-148 defeat to Syracuse Nationals at Onondaga War Memorial
- 1964 Simon and Garfunkel record the first version of "The Sound of Silence" at Columbia Studios in New York City
- 1964 US reconnaissance plane shot down over East Germany
- 1965 "I've Got a Tiger By the Tail" album by Buck Owens is released (Billboard Album of the Year, 1965)
- 1965 Dutch Princess Margriet & Pieter van Vollenhoven get engaged
- 1966 5 time American Horse of the Year, Kelso, retires from racing
- 1966 North Vietnamese capture US Green Beret Camp at Ashau Valley
I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
1967 "I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You", American singer Aretha Franklin's tenth overall studio album, and first on Atlantic Records is released
- 1968 North Vietnamese and communist Laotion troops overrun a secret US radar facility, Lima Site 85, on a Laos mountaintop
Murder of Interest
1969 James Earl Ray pleads guilty to the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.
The Singer
1970 Barbra Streisand records "The Singer" and "I Can Do It"
- 1970 Members of the Stormont Parliament of Northern Ireland given police protection
- 1970 South Africa cricket team complete 4-0 series drubbing of Australia in South Africa, in the country's last official international cricket test for 22 years
- 1971 Three members of the Royal Highland Fusiliers (a regiment of the British Army) are killed by members of the Irish Republican Army
- 1971 US Senate approves amendment lowering voting age to 18
- 1972 "What's Up, Doc?", Peter Bogdanovich's film homage to screwball comedies, starring Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, Madeline Kahn & Kenneth Mars premieres
- 1972 1st black US political convention opens in Gary, Indiana
- 1972 General Lon Nol becomes President & Prince Sirik Matak premier of Cambodia
- 1972 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1973 Morocco adopts constitution
- 1974 Christian Democrats win Belgium parliamentary election
- 1974 Lawrence Rowe completes 302 v Eng Bridgetown, 36 fours 1 six
- 1975 Dog spectacles patented in England
Stand By Me
1975 John Lennon releases single "Stand By Me", a cover of Ben E. King's song from 1961
- 1975 Sanyo Shinkansen open between Osaka and Fukuoka.
- 1977 CBS' premiere of "A Circle of Children", starring Jane Alexander and based on the life and book about this by Mary Mac Cracken
- 1977 Rings of Uranus discovered during occulation of SAO
The Incredible Hulk
1978 "The Incredible Hulk", starring Bill Bixby as David Banner, premieres on CBS
- 1978 Soyuz 28 returns to Earth
- 1979 Eubie Blake, a 92-year old ragtime piano player and composer, and Gregory Hines are musical guest on Saturday Night Live
- 1980 Willard Scott becomes the weather forcaster on the Today Show
- 1981 "Bette Davis Eyes" single released by Kim Carnes (Billboard Song of the Year 1981)
- 1982 Saleem Malik scores 100 in 2nd inning of Test Cricket debut (v SL)
- 1982 Sygyzy: all 9 planets aligned on same side of Sun
- 1982 The United States places an embargo on Libyan petroleum imports because of their support of terrorist groups.
- 1982 Travis Jackson and former commissioner Happy Chandler elected to baseball's Hall of Fame
Event of Interest
1982 US President Reagan proclaims economic sanctions against Libya
Baseball Hall of Fame
1983 Former Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers manager Walter Alston is elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
- 1984 Heavyweight Tim Witherspoon KOs Greg Page
- 1985 Dallas Maverick coach Dick Motta is 4th NBA coach to win 700 games
- 1985 French socialists lose election (National Front 9%)
- 1985 Ice Pairs Championship at Tokyo won by Elena Valova and Oleg Vasiliev (Soviet Union)
- 1985 India beat Pakistan to win "World Championship of Cricket"
Baseball Hall of Fame
1986 Ernie Lombardi (NL MVP in 1938) and Bobby Doerr, elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
- 1987 Vatican formal opposition to test-tube fertilization & embryo transfer
Event of Interest
1988 Avalanche at Swiss Ski resort Klosters nearly kills Prince Charles
Sports History
1988 NHL New York Islanders celebrate Mike Bossy night
- 1990 Ice Dance Championship at Halifax won by Klimova & Ponomarenko (Soviet Union)
- 1990 Ice Pairs World Championship at Halifax won by Ekaterina Gordeeva & Sergei Grinkov (USSR)
- 1990 Ladies Figure Skating Champions in Halifax won by Jill Trenary (USA)
- 1990 Prosper Avril resigns as President of Haiti
- 1990 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1991 Eddie Sutton is 1st NCAA coach to lead 4 schools into playoffs
- 1991 Marc Girardelli of Luxembourg clinches his 4th slalom World Cup
- 1991 Merlene Ottey runs world record 200 m indoor (22.24 sec)
- 1991 Rico Lieder, Jens Carlowitz, Karsten Just and Thomas Schonlebe walk 4x400m indoor world record (3:03.05)
Music Concert
1991 Rock for the Rainforest benefit concert held at Carnegie Hall, NYC; performers include: Sting, Elton John, Gilberto Gil; Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Caetano Veloso
- 1992 "Come and Talk to Me" single released by Jodeci (Billboard Song of the Year 1992)
- 1992 Sandra Seuser, Katrin Schreiter, Annet Hesselbarth and Grit Breuer walk female indoor world record 4x400m (3:27.22)
- 1993 Physician David Gunn shot and killed by anti-abortionist Michael Frederick Griffin in Pensacola, Florida, first anti-abortion murder of a doctor in the US
- 1994 1 million Greeks attend actress and activist Melina Mercouri's funeral
- 1995 Car bomb explodes in Karachi at shiite mosque, 17+ killed
- 1995 Chiel Meijering's "St Louis Blues" premieres in Arnhem
- 1996 NYC Mayor Rudy Guiliani visits Israel
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
1997 "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" created by Joss Whedon and starring Sarah Michelle Geller premieres on WB Television Network
Event of Interest
1997 The PalmPilot, as developed by Jeffrey Hawkins, is released
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
2003 18th Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees: AC/DC; The Clash; Elvis Costello and the Attractions; The Police; The Righteous Brothers; Benny Benjamin; Floyd Cramer; Steve Douglas; and Mo Ostin
- 2006 Mass unrest by the PCC started in São Paulo (the biggest city in Brazil) which would eventually kill more than 152 people.
- 2006 The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrives at Mars.
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
2008 23rd Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees: Leonard Cohen; The Dave Clark Five; Madonna; John Mellencamp; The Ventures; Little Walter; Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff
Billy Corgan Testifies
2009 Billy Corgan testifies in front of Congress, on behalf of the musicFIRST Coalition, in support of H.R. 848, the Performance Rights Act
Event of Interest
2010 Carlos Slim becomes the first Mexican and person from an emerging economy to top Forbes Richest Person list, with net worth of US$53.5 billion
Laureus Awards
2010 Laureus World Sports Awards, Emirates Palace, Abu Dhabi, UAE: Sportsman: Usain Bolt; Sportswoman: Serena Williams; Team: Brawn F1 team
- 2012 At least 130 rockets are fired into Israel from Gaza
Election of Interest
2013 Aung San Suu Kyi is re-elected leader of the Burmese National League for Democracy
Event of Interest
2014 German Chancellor Angela Merkel warns Russia's Vladimir Putin that making Crimea part of Russia is illegal and in violation of Ukraine's constitution
See You Again
2015 "See You Again" released by Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth commissioned by film "Furious 7" as tribute to Paul Walker (Billboard Song of the Year 2015)
Music History
2015 The family of Marvin Gaye win a record $7.3 million lawsuit for music copyright infringement against Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams, and T.I.
- 2016 Twelfth Republican presidential candidates debate hosted by CNN, held in Coral Gables, Florida
Event of Interest
2017 South Korean judges uphold parliaments' decision to impeach President Park Geun-hye
- 2018 16 people die after being struck by lightning at a church in Nyaruguru District, Rwanda
- 2018 Two girls aged 8 and 6 become the first female weightlifters to appear on Iranian television after a protest
- 2019 Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 crashes just after take-off from Addis Ababa, killing all 157 on board
- 2019 Taliban force attacks Afghan army base killing or capturing about 50 soldiers in Badghis Province, Afghanistan
COVID-19 Pandemic
2020 New York governor Andrew Cuomo deploys the national guard to New Rochelle after one-mile radius zone established as 108 cases of COVID-19 detected
Event of Interest
2020 Russian lower house of Parliament passes legislation to allow Vladimir Putin to hold office of President for life
COVID-19 Pandemic
2020 Three months into the COVID-19 epidemic Chinese President Xi Jinping finally travels to Wuhan, epicenter of the outbreak as the rate of daily new infections declines in China falls to 19 new cases and 17 deaths
Appointment of Interest
2021 Merrick Garland confirmed as US Attorney General by US Senate
- 2021 Video gaming platform Roblox goes public on the New York Stock Exchange, valued at $45 billion
- 2022 After a 99-day lockout, Major League Baseball and MLB Players Association reach a new collective bargaining agreement; MLB teams set to play full 162 game season in 2022
- 2022 True global death toll from COVID-19 estimated at 18.2 million in new study by Washington University [1]
- 2023 Arch rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia agree to re-establish diplomatic ties between them in a surprise move, after talks in Beijing [1]
- 2023 California's Silicon Valley Bank, the main bank for tech-start ups, collapses after a sudden bank run and credit crisis - largest US bank fail since 2008 [1]
- 2023 Gary Lineker, the BBC’s highest-paid presenter, suspended for tweeting UK government's immigration policy a "immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s”. [1]
- 2023 Researchers in Singapore name newly discovered cockroach after the Pokemon character Pheromosa (Nocticola pheromosa) [1]
- 2023 Thai health authorities report 1.3 million people have suffered air pollution-related diseases in 2023 in northern Thailand due to smog nearly 125 times WHO standards from farm burning and forest fires [1]
- 2023 Xi Jinping appointed to a historic third term as President of China (previously restricted to two terms) [1]
Academy Awards
2024 96th Academy Awards: Best Film "Oppenheimer"; Best Director Christopher Nolan, acting Cillian Murphy, Emma Stone, Robert Downey Jr, Da'vine Joy Randolph; Ryan Gosling sings "I'm Just Ken" [1]
- 2024 First pig liver transplanted into a clinically dead human for 10 days, in milestone test for animal organ transplants into people, at Xijing Hospital, Xi’an, China [1]
