Black Death
1349 Black Death Massacre: Townspeople of Fulda, Landgraviate of Hesse massacre Jews, blaming them for the Black Death; part of a wave of pogroms across Western Europe
Hugo Grotius Escapes
1621 Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius escapes in a book chest from Loevestein Castle in the Netherlands
- 1622 First American Indian (Powhatan) massacre of Europeans around Jamestown, Virginia, 347 killed
- 1630 1st colonial legislation prohibiting gambling enacted (Boston)
- 1638 Religious dissident Anne Hutchinson expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony
- 1680 Parliament of Breisach accepts French sovereignty over Elzas
- 1692 Emperor Leopold I names Duke Earnest August of Braunschweig, king
- 1764 Dutch expeditionary corps launch attack on slave armies and settlements during Bernice rebellion (modern Guyana) - first major slave rebellion in South America [1]
Stamp Act Passed
1765 Stamp Act passed; 1st direct British tax on American colonists, organized by Prime Minister George Grenville
- 1775 British MP Edmund Burke makes a speech to the English Parliament advocating for peace with the American colonies
Cook sights Cape Flattery
1778 Captain James Cook sights Cape Flattery, now in Washington state
Emerald Buddha Moved
1784 The Emerald Buddha is moved with great ceremony to its current place in Wat Phra Kaew, Thailand
- 1785 Dutch Republic leader Quint Ondaatje 26) demands democracy in speech at Utrecht city hall
Thomas Jefferson, 1st Secretary of State
1790 Thomas Jefferson becomes the 1st US Secretary of State under President Washington
Reform Act Passed
1832 British Parliament, led by Charles Grey, passes the Reform Act, introducing wide-ranging changes to electoral system of England and Wales, increasing electorate from about 500,000 voters to 813,000
- 1841 A method for alkali starch extraction is patented in the US by Orlando Jones, which is later applied to corn (cornstarch)
- 1861 1st US nursing school chartered
- 1862 San Marino & Italy conclude treaty of friendship & cooperation
- 1865 Wilson's Raid: 13,480 cavalry troops led by Union General James H. Wilson destroys most of Confederate Alabama and Georgia's arms-manufacturing and rail capabilities; raid lasts through mid-April [1] [2]
- 1870 Ohio State University is established as the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, a public land grant college, in Columbus. Ohio
- 1871 William Holden of North Carolina becomes 1st governor removed by impeachment
- 1872 Illinois becomes 1st state to require sexual equality in employment
- 1873 Slavery is abolished in Puerto Rico, celebrated as Emancipation Day
- 1874 Young Men's Hebrew Association organizes in NYC
- 1888 English Football League established
- 1894 Stanley Cup, Victoria Rink, Montreal, Quebec: Montreal Hockey Club defeats Ottawa HC, 3-1 to win 3-team challenge tournament
- 1895 Auguste & Louis Lumiere show their 1st movie to an invited audience
- 1896 Charilaos Vasilakos of Greece wins 1st modern marathon in 3:18 at the Panhellenic Games
Anthracite Coal Commission
1903 US Anthracite Coal Commission, set up by President Theodore Roosevelt, submits its recommendations for shorter hours, a 10-per cent wage increase, and an 'open shop'
Assassination of Song Jiaoren
1913 Song Jiaoren, leader of the Chinese Kuomintang Party, shot at Shanghai Railway Station, dies 2 day later (thought orchestrated by Kuomintang President Yuan Shikai)
- 1917 The USA is the first nation to recognize the new government of Russia
- 1922 The Rand Rebellion in Southern Africa, which started as a strike by white mineworkers and became an armed rebellion against the state, is brought to a brutal end by the police
- 1927 Federico Garcia Lorca's first play "El Maleficio" (The Butterfly's Evil Spell) premieres in Madrid
This Year of Grace
1928 Noël Coward's musical "This Year of Grace" premieres in London
- 1929 KIT-AM in Yakima WA begins radio transmissions
- 1929 US Coast Guard vessel sinks Canadian schooner suspected of carrying liquor
The Great Ziegfeld
1936 "The Great Ziegfeld" directed by Robert Z. Leonard and starring William Powell and Luise Rainer premieres in Los Angeles (Best Picture 1937
James Stewart in the Army
1941 James Stewart is inducted into the Army, becoming the first major American movie star to wear a military uniform in World War II
- 1943 Dutch SS police chief Hans Albin Rauter threatens to kill half Jewish children
- 1943 Dutch work week extended to 54 hour
- 1943 Obligatory work for woman ends in Belgium
- 1944 600+ 8th Air Force bombers attack Berlin
- 1944 American movie star James Stewart flies his 12th combat mission, leading the 2nd Bomb Wing in an attack on Berlin
- 1945 Arab League forms with adoption of a charter in Cairo, Egypt
- 1945 US 3rd Army crosses Rhine at Nierstein
- 1946 1st US rocket to leave the Earth's atmosphere (50 miles up)
- 1946 Britain signs treaty granting independence to Jordan
- 1952 Dutch DC-6 crashes near Frankfurt, killing 44
- 1953 Antonín Zápotocký chosen as President of Czechoslovakia
- 1954 Closed since 1939, the London bullion market reopens
- 1954 Northland Center, the world's largest shopping mall at the time, opens in Oakpark, Michigan
All Shook Up
1957 "All Shook Up" single released by Elvis Presley
- 1957 Earthquake shakes San Francisco
- 1957 Republic of India adopts Saka calendar along with Gregorian
- 1958 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
- 1963 British Minister of War John Profumo denies having sex with Christine Keeler
- 1963 The Beatles release their 1st album, "Please Please Me"
Music History
1964 Barbra Streisand appears on the cover of NY Times Magazine section
Sports History
1964 LPGA Western Open Women's Golf, Scenic Hills CC: Carol Mann her 1st of 2 major titles by 2 shots from Ruth Jessen and Judy Kimball
- 1965 Dudley Senanayake wins his third in general elections in Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
Election of Interest
1965 Nicolae Ceausescu is elected General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party
- 1965 US confirms its troops used chemical warfare against the Vietcong
Boxing Title Fight
1967 Muhammad Ali KOs Zora Folley in 7 for heavyweight boxing title
- 1968 Antonín Novotný resigns presidency of Czechoslovakia
- 1968 Lynda Johnson ordered off San Francisco cable car for eating an ice cream cone
- 1968 Student riot in Nanterre near Paris
Sports History
1969 Ethiopian double Olympic marathon gold medalist Abebe Bikila (36) is paralyzed in auto accident near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; regained upper-body mobility, but never walked again
- 1970 "Blood Red Roses" opens & closes at John Golden Theater NYC
- 1971 Brian Faulkner becomes the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland
- 1971 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1972 In Eisenstadt v. Baird the US Supreme Court rules unmarried people have same right to contraception as married people.
Sports History
1972 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar named NBA MVP
- 1972 Nick Mileti purchases Cleveland Indians for $9 million
Event of Interest
1972 US Congress approves the Equal Rights Amendment (still not ratified)
- 1972 Yankees trade Danny Cater to the Red Sox for Sparky Lyle
- 1973 Joffrey Ballet revives Diaghilev's "Parade" at The City Center, NYC
- 1975 A fire at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in Decatur, Alabama causes dangerous lowering of cooling water levels
- 1975 AIAW Women's Basketball Tournament, Delta State beats Immaculata 90-81 in Harrisonburg
- 1975 Walt Disney World Shopping Village opens
- 1977 Dutch coalition government under Labour Party (PvdA) leader Joop den Uyl falls
Event of Interest
1977 Indira Gandhi resigns as Prime Minister of India
- 1978 France performs nuclear test
- 1978 Karl "The Great" Wallenda, German acrobat (The Flying Wallendas) dies after falling off a tight-rope between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at 73
Event of Interest
1978 Robert Frost Plaza, at California, Drumm & Market, San Francisco, dedicated
- 1978 The Rutles mockumentary "All You Need is Cash" debuts on NBC television
- 1979 Israeli parliament approves peace treaty with Egypt
- 1979 NHL votes to accept 4 WHA teams (Oilers, Jets, Nordiques & Whalers)
- 1979 Provisional Irish Republican Army assassinates Richard Sykes, the British ambassador to the Netherlands, in The Hague
- 1979 The Provisional Irish Republican Army explode 24 bombs in various locations across Northern Ireland
- 1981 Soyuz 39 carries 2 cosmonauts (1 Mongolian) to Salyut 6
- 1981 Toshihiko Seko runs world record 25k (1:13:55.8)/30k (1:29:18.8)
- 1981 US 1st class postage raised to 18 cents from 15 cents
- 1982 3rd NASA Space Shuttle Mission: Columbia 3 launches
- 1982 Iran offensive against Iraq
- 1983 Chaim Herzog elected Israeli president
NHL Record
1984 Islander Bryan Trottier ties NHL record scores 5 seconds into game
- 1984 Teachers at the McMartin preschool in Manhattan Beach, California are charged with Satanic ritual abuse of the children in the school. The charges are later dropped as completely unfounded.
- 1985 NASA launches Intelsat VA F-10
- 1986 "On My Own" single released by Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald (Billboard Song of the Year 1986)
- 1986 Ehrig skates ladies world record 5 km (7:20.99)
- 1986 HBO launches boxing's heavyweight-title-unification-tournament
- 1986 Heart's "These Dreams" single goes #1
- 1986 Ice Pairs World Championship at Geneva won by Ekaterina Gordeeva & Sergei Grinkov (USSR)
Boxing Title Fight
1986 Jamaican boxer Trevor Berbick upsets Pinklon Thomas by unanimous decision in Las Vegas to win WBC heavyweight title
- 1986 Kania skates ladies' world record 1500m (1:59.30)
Event of Interest
1988 US Congress overrides President Reagan's veto of sweeping civil rights bill
- 1989 Clint Malarchuk of the Buffalo Sabres suffers a near-fatal injury when another player accidentally slits his throat.
Sports History
1989 Pete Rozelle announces retirement as NFL commissioner after 29 years
- 1989 US Supreme Court upholds 1 person 1 vote rule of NYC Board of Estimate
- 1990 Anchorage jury finds Capt Hazelwood not guilty of Valdez oil spill
- 1990 The ML umpires announce that they will boycott exhibition games
- 1991 Law enforcement officers raid fraternities at University of Virginaa, seizing drugs
- 1991 NY Daily News begins using motto "Forward with NY"
- 1991 Pamela Smart (HS teacher) found guilty in NH of manipulating her student-lover to kill her husband
- 1992 US Air NY to Cleveland crashes on take off at LaGuardia, 27 die
Not a Moment Too Soon
1994 "Not a Moment Too Soon" second studio album by Tim McGraw is released (Billboard Album of the Year 1994)
- 1994 Dutch Ambassador to US christens a new tulip (the Hillary Clinton)
- 1994 Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid is the first woman to win architecture's Pritzker Prize [1]
- 1994 South African government and ANC take power in Ciskei homeland
- 1994 Soyuz TM-21 lands
- 1995 Deputy Governor of Bank of England, Rupert Pennant-Rea, resigns following revelations of his affair with a freelance journalist
- 1996 Cheryl Depew of Florida crowned 13th Miss Hawaiian Tropic International
- 1996 STS 76 (Atlantis 16), launches into orbit
- 1997 Comet Hale-Bopp Closest Approach to Earth (1.315 AU)
- 1999 "Amazed" single released by Lonestar (Billboard Song of the Year 1999)
- 2004 Ahmed Yassin, co-founder and leader of the Palestinian Sunni Islamist militant group Hamas, and bodyguards killed in the Gaza Strip by Israeli Air Force AH-64 Apache fired Hellfire missiles
- 2006 BC Ferries' M/V Queen of the North runs aground on Gil Island British Columbia and sinks; 101 on board, 2 presumed deaths
- 2006 ETA, armed Basque separatist group, declares permanent ceasefire
- 2006 Three Christian Peacemaker Teams Hostages are freed by British forces in Baghdad after 118 days captivity and the death of their colleague, American Tom Fox
- 2008 French Swimmer Alain Bernard sets world record of 47.50 for 100m freestyle long course after winning the European LC Championships 2008
- 2009 Mount Redoubt, a volcano in Alaska began erupting after a prolonged period of unrest
- 2010 NASA's rover 'Spirit' gets caught in a sand trap on Mars and ceases communications with Earth [1]
Sports History
2011 Lawrence Taylor pleads guilty for misdemeanors of sexual misconduct and is sentenced to six years probation
- 2012 Australia's most wanted man, Malcolm Naden, is captured after seven years on the run in Gloucester, New South Wales
- 2012 Ireland returns to recession as GDP falls by 0.2% in the fourth quarter of 2011 following a fall of 1.1% in the third quarter
- 2012 Largest protest in Quebec's history occurs in Montreal with over 200,000 people marching against government tuition hikes and for free access to post-secondary education
- 2012 Massive fire devours thousands of hectares of ancient forests and threatens wildlife on Mount Kenya
- 2013 37 people are killed and 200 are injured in a refugee camp fire in Ban Mae, Thailand
Music History
2013 American rock band My Chemical Romance announce their break-up
- 2014 251 people are killed after a boat capsizes in Lake Albert, Uganda
- 2014 43 people are killed by a mudslide in Oso, Washington
- 2014 Guinea confirms Ebola outbreak has already killed 59 people
- 2014 The US and EU impose sanctions on Russia
- 2016 Suicide bombings at Brussel's Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station, leave around 28 victims dead and 260 injured, ISIS claim responsibility
- 2017 Arctic records its lowest ever winter ice cover according to US National Snow and Ice Data Center, 5.5 million square miles
Westminster Bridge Defies a King and the Church
2017 Terrorist attack on London's Westminster Bridge and Houses of Parliament kills 4 including a police officer and injures 40
- 2017 Tomb of Jesus reopens after restoration in Jerusalem
- 2018 Musical "Frozen" opens on Broadway based on the film, starring Patti Murin and Caissie Levy
- 2018 The "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" between Hawaii and California has 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic and increasing rapidly according to new research
Event of Interest
2018 US President Donald Trump imposes $60 billion worth of tariffs on Chinese imports
- 2019 "Mind-blowing" discovery announced of 518 million year old fossil site in near Danshui river, Hubei province, China, with thousands of unknown fossils well preserved
- 2019 US Special Council Robert S. Mueller submits his findings on the 2016 election (The Mueller Report) to Deputy US Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and US Attorney William Barr
- 2020 India puts 1 billion people under a daytime curfew to curb COVID-19
Iran Refuses US Help
2020 Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei refuses American COVID-19 help, refers to conspiracy theory that it was manufactured by the US
- 2021 10 people shot dead at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, by 21 year-old gunman
- 2021 Evanston, Illinois, votes to become first US city to pay reparations to Black residents for past discriminations and effects of slavery, giving $400,000 to each household
- 2021 Sanctions imposed on Chinese officials over rights abuses against Uighurs in China by EU, UK, US and Canada
- 2021 World's largest painting "The Journey of Humanity" by British artist Sacha Jafri sells in Dubai for $62m to raise funds for children's charities
Event of Interest
2022 Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party reaches a deal with opposition New Democratic Party to stay in power till 2025 [1]
- 2022 Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards declares a state of emergency after tornadoes tear through New Orleans suburbs, killing at least one person [1]
- 2022 Microplastics found in human blood for first time through new research conducted at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands [1]
- 2023 Abel Prize for Mathematics (equivalent to a Nobel Prize) awarded to Argentinian–American Luis Caffarelli for his work on partial differential equations [1]
- 2023 American Library Association says 2022 had highest number of calls to censor library books in the US in over 20 years, with 2,571 titles affected, up 38%, with LGBTQ+ books most requested [1]
- 2023 American software engineer Bob Metcalfe awarded computing's Turing Award for developing Ethernet, a computer networking system now the industry standard [1]
Johnson Grilled Over Partygate
2023 Former UK PM Boris Johnson is grilled by Government Privileges Committee over whether he intentionally misled parliament over COVID-19 rule breaches by his administration [1]
AI Revolution
2023 Microsoft founder Bill Gates says development of artificial intelligence (AI) is the most important technological advance since the graphical user interface (GUI) in 1980 [1]
Beethoven's DNA Analysis
2023 New DNA analysis of composer Ludwig van Beethoven's hair reveals he probably died of cirrhosis of the liver and hepatitis B, but doesn't explain his deafness [1]
Kate's Cancer Diagnosis
2024 Catherine, Princess of Wales, says she has cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy in a video statement, after an "incredibly tough couple of months" [1]
- 2024 Terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall in Moscow during a concert kills 137, the Islamic State group claims responsibility [1]
