- 585 BC Solar eclipse, as predicted by Greek philosopher Thales, while Lydians at war with the Medes leads to a truce. One of the cardinal dates from which other dates calculated.
- 640 Severinus begins his reign as Catholic Pope (elected in 638)
- 1037 Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II removes "Constitutio the Feudis"
Joan of Arc Accused of Wearing Male Clothing
1431 Joan of Arc is accused of relapsing into heresy by donning male clothing again, providing justification for her execution
- 1521 Pope Leo X signs treaty with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V
- 1608 Claudio Monteverdi's "Arianna" premieres in Mantua
- 1635 Zorilla's "El Desafio de Carlos V" premieres in Madrid
- 1644 Bolton Massacre by Royalist troops under the command of the Earl of Derby (English Civil War)
- 1731 All Hebrew books in Papal State are confiscated
- 1741 Spain and Bavaria sign treaty
- 1742 1st indoor swimming pool opens (Goodman's Fields, London)
Battle of Jumonville Glen
1754 Battle of Jumonville Glen: forces led by George Washington kill French Canadian officer Joseph Coulon de Jumonville
- 1818 Walk-in-the-Water, 1st steam vessel to sail Lake Erie launched
Trail of Tears
1830 US President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act, a key law leading to the forced removal of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes out of Georgia and surrounding states, setting the stage for the Cherokee Trail of Tears
Foul Play
1858 Dion Boucicault's play "Foul Play" premieres in London
Michelin Tyre Company
1889 Édouard and André Michelin incorporate the Michelin tyre company
- 1900 Fire in Cincinnati nearly destroys Reds' grandstand
- 1900 In China, rioters provoked by Boxers burn the Fengtai Railway Station, where many Belgians work
Kruger Flees British
1900 Paul Kruger, President of the Boer Republic of South Africa, flees its capital, Pretoria, goes to Watervalboven to evade the advancing British
- 1900 Total solar eclipse occurs
- 1901 Laws against phosphor matches enacted (inhibition white phosphorous)
- 1906 Julian Edwards,Alfred E. Aarons, Ren Shields and Will D. Cobb's musical "His Honor, The Mayor" opens ath New York Theatre, NYC; runs for 104 performances
- 1907 Auto-Cycle Union Tourist Trophy, 1st held
- 1912 Australian cricket spin bowler Jimmy Matthews takes 2 hat-tricks on same day in Triangular Tournament v South Africa at Old Trafford (3/16, 3/38); only player to achieve the feat
- 1917 Racial strife in East St Louis, Illinois, White workers march through Black neighborhoods beating people and burning some buildings; state governor call in National Guard to restore order [1]
- 1918 Azerbaijan gains independence and declares itself a Democratic Republic
- 1918 The Armenian National Council declares Armenia independent from the Russian Empire
- 1923 US Attorney General says it is legal for women to wear trousers anywhere
- 1926 Military coup by General Manuel Gomes da Costa in Portugal
- 1926 US Customs Court created by congress
- 1927 Hammond scores his 1,000th cricket run of the season after 22 days
- 1929 1st all color talking picture "On With the Show" exhibited (NYC)
- 1930 Georges Forbes succeeds Joseph Ward as premier of New Zealand
- 1932 Netherlands closes off the Zuiderzee - a new system of dams and dykes to reclaim land and provide flood protection. The country's largest hydraulic engineering project of the 20th century.
Hobbs Last 1st Class Century
1934 Jack Hobbs scores his 197th (or 199th) and last 1st class cricket century at 51 years and 163 days of age [1]
- 1934 Near Callander, Ontario, the Dionne quintuplets are born to Olivia and Elzire Dionne, later becoming the first quintuplets to survive infancy
- 1934 The Glyndebourne festival in Sussex, England, inaugurated
On Computable Numbers
1936 Alan Turing submits "On Computable Numbers" for publication, in which he set out the theoretical basis for modern computers.
- 1937 Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco opens to vehicular traffic
Chamberlain Prime Minister
1937 Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- 1938 Foundation for Tel Aviv harbor laid
Mathis der Maler
1938 Paul Hindemith's opera "Mathis der Maler" premieres in Zurich
- 1940 Belgium surrenders to Germany, King Leopold III gives himself up
- 1940 British-French troops capture Narvik, Norway
- 1941 1st night game at Griffith Stadium, Washington, D.C. (NY Yankees pip the Senators 6-5)
- 1941 Allied troops begin evacuation of Crete
- 1942 1,800 Czechs murdered by Nazis during attack on Heydrich
- 1946 1st night game at Yankee stadium (Senators 2, Yanks 1)
President Manuel Roxas
1946 Manuel Roxas is inaugurated as the last President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines
- 1946 US Patent filed for a hydrogen bomb
- 1948 Iraq captures Ge'ulim settlement
- 1948 Israeli Air Force is officially founded shortly after the start of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
Baseball Record
1951 After starting MLB career going 0-for-12, New York Giants Willie Mays connects for his 1st major league home run in a 4-1 loss to the Boston Braves at the Polo Grounds, NYC
- 1951 Bernardus Johannes Alfrink appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Utrecht and Titular Archbishop of Tyana
Radio Premiere
1951 Radio programme "Crazy People" (later titled The Goon Show) premieres on the BBC, created by Spike Milligan
- 1951 The Jerry Colonna Show debuts on ABC-TV
- 1952 Memphis Kiddie Park opens in Brooklyn, Ohio; the park's Little Dipper roller coaster would become the oldest operating steel roller coaster in North America.
- 1952 The women of Greece are given the right to vote.
- 1953 Premier of 1st animated 3-D cartoon in Technicolor-"Melody"
- 1955 Henry Bolte becomes Premier of the state of Victoria
Agricultural Act of 1956
1956 Eisenhower signs farm bill allows government to store agricultural surplus
- 1956 Pittsburgh Pirates Dale Long becomes 1st to hit HRs in 8 straight games
- 1957 NL approves baseball's Brooklyn Dodgers' & NY Giants' move to the US west coast
- 1957 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1957 WPSD TV channel 6 in Paducah, KY (NBC) begins broadcasting
French History
1958 French government of Prime Minister Pierre Pflimlin resigns; 200,000 demonstrate against Charles de Gaulle
- 1959 Congressional Committee of Astronautics meets Project 7 astronauts
- 1959 Johnson & Bart's musical "Lock Up Your Daughters" premieres in London
- 1959 Monkeys Able & Baker zoom 300 miles (500 km) into space on Jupiter missile, become 1st animals retrieved from a space mission
Amnesty International
1961 Amnesty International founded in London (Nobel Peace Prize 1977)
The Orient Express
1961 Last trip (Paris to Bucharest) on the Orient Express (after 78 years)
- 1961 Record 27 HRs hit in 7 AL games
- 1962 Suit alleging de facto school segregation filed in Rochester, NY
- 1962 US stock market drops $20.8 B in 1 day
- 1962 Wide World of Sports with Chris Schenkel premieres on CBS radio
- 1963 Cyclone hits Chittagong, Bangladesh; about 1 million houses destroyed
- 1963 Estimated 22,000 die in a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal (India)
Music History
1964 Dmitri Shostakovich completes his 9th String quartet
Indian History
1964 Jawaharlal Nehru cremated in New Delhi
- 1964 Palestine National Congress forms the PLO in Jerusalem
- 1964 Unmanned Apollo 2 Saturn test launched into Earth orbit
- 1965 Fire & explosion at Dhori mine in Dhanbad India kills 400
- 1966 "Ballad Of Irving", parody song by Frank Gallop peaks at #34 in US
- 1966 Dmitri Shostakovich's 11th String quartet premieres in Leningrad
- 1967 Dmitri Shostakovich completes his 2nd Violin concert
Event of Interest
1967 Francis Chichester arrives home at Plymouth from Round-the-world trip
- 1967 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1968 MLB: AL announces it is splitting into 2 divisions
- 1968 MLB: NL grants San Diego Padres a franchise
McCarthy Wins Oregon
1968 Senator Eugene McCarthy wins Democratic presidential primary in Oregon
- 1970 Arms Trial Begins: several men are charged in a Dublin court with conspiracy to illegally import arms for use by the Irish Republican Army (IRA)
- 1970 The formerly united Free University of Brussels officially splits into two separate entities, the French-speaking Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Dutch-speaking Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
Ram
1971 Paul McCartney releases "Ram", his 2nd solo album
- 1971 USSR Mars 3 launched, 1st spacecraft to soft land on Mars
- 1972 Four Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers and four civilians killed when a bomb they were preparing exploded prematurely at a house in Belfast
- 1972 White House "plumbers" first break in at the Democratic National Headquarters and install listening devices at Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C.
- 1973 Chicago White Sox beat Cleveland Indians, 6-3, in 21 innings (game started 5/26)
- 1974 Italian fascists bomb demonstrators in Brescia, 6 killed
- 1975 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is established by the Treaty of Lagos
- 1975 Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 18 launches
Cannes Film Festival
1976 29th Cannes Film Festival: "Taxi Driver" directed by Martin Scorsese wins the Palme d'Or
- 1977 Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in Southgate, Kentucky kills 168
- 1978 Second round of the presidential elections in Upper Volta. The election is won by incumbent Sangoulé Lamizana.
The House on Garibaldi Street
1979 ABC premiere of TV's "The House on Garibaldi Street", based on the 1960 capture of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina
Papal Visit
1982 Pope John Paul II is 1st reigning pope to visit Great Britain (Adrian IV was born in England, as Nicholas Breakspear)
- 1983 "Ricky", parody song by Weird Al Yankovic hits #63
Soros Foundation
1984 George Soros founds the Soros Foundation Budapest to help countries free themselves from communism
- 1985 David Jacobsen taken hostage in Beirut Lebanon
- 1985 Discovery moves to Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (Florida) for mating of STS 51-G
- 1986 Democratic Labor Party wins parliamentary election in Barbados
- 1986 White Sox Joe Cowley sets record striking out 1st 7 Rangers he faces
- 1987 60th US National Spelling Bee: Stephanie Petit wins spelling staphylococci
- 1987 Mathias Rust, 18-year-old West German pilot, makes unauthorized landing near Red Square, Moscow in USSR
- 1987 Monitor, Civil War warship, is discovered by a deep sea robot
- 1987 Paul Pearman jumps 21 barrels on a skateboard in Augusta
- 1987 Southern League no-hit record-Bob Milacki pitches 11 1/3 no-hit inn
- 1987 Stacking of Discovery's SRBs completed
- 1990 "Dave Thomas Comedy Show" debuts on CBS-TV
- 1990 Cesar Gaviria Trujillo installed as president of Colombia
- 1990 Eugenia Charles' Dominican Freedom Party wins election in Dominica
- 1990 Longest wheelie (David Robilliard with 5h12m33s (Channel Islands)
- 1991 "Forever My Lady" debut studio album by Jodeci is released (Billboard Album of the Year, 1992)
- 1991 Ethiopian rebels seize Addis Ababa
- 1992 65th National Spelling Bee: Amanda Goad wins spelling lyceum
- 1993 200,000 demonstrate against mafia terror
- 1993 Polish government of Suchocka falls
- 1994 "Cafe American" last airs on NBC-TV
Baseball Record
1994 Twin's Dave Winfield passes Rod Carew into 15th hit list (3,054)
- 1995 48th Cannes Film Festival: "Underground" directed by Emir Kusturica wins the Palme d'Or
- 1995 Earthquake hits Russian town of Khabarovsk, killing 2,000 people
- 1995 Southwestern Florida outside of Tampa begins using new area code 941
- 1995 White Sox (5) & Tigers (7) combine for record 12 HRs at Tiger Stadium
Election of Interest
1996 Pavlo Lazarenko becomes Prime Minister of Ukraine
Whitewater Scandal
1996 U.S. President Bill Clinton's former business partners in the Whitewater land deal, James McDougal and Susan McDougal, and Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker, are convicted of fraud.
- 1997 American aviator Linda Finch completes Amelia Earhart's ill-fated attempted around-the-world flight
- 1997 Tornado in Jarrell, Texas kills at least 28
- 1997 Wallace Berg, 42, is 4th American to scale Mt Everest for 3rd time
- 1998 Nuclear testing: Pakistan responds to a series of Indian nuclear tests with five of its own, prompting the United States, Japan, and other nations to impose economic sanctions.
The Last Supper
1999 In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece "The Last Supper" is put back on display
- 1999 Two Swedish police officers are murdered with their own fire arms by the bank robbers Jackie Arklöv and Tony Olsson after a dramatic car chase
- 2000 Walk for Reconciliation takes place across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, part of Corroboree 2000, organized by the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation [1]
- 2002 NATO declares Russia a limited partner in the Western alliance.
Sports History
2003 Patrick Roy officially announces his retirement from the NHL
- 2003 Peter Hollingworth becomes the first Governor-General of Australia to resign his office as a result of criticism of his conduct
- 2004 The Iraqi Governing Council chooses Ayad Allawi, a longtime anti-Saddam Hussein exile, to become Prime Minister of Iraq's interim government
Sports History
2005 Super Rugby Final, Christchurch: Canterbury Crusaders claim their 5th title with a 35-25 win over the NSW Waratahs; Dan Carter lands 3 conversions & 2 penalties for the winners
- 2006 59th Cannes Film Festival: "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" directed by Ken Loach wins the Palme d'Or
Baseball Record
2006 Barry Bonds hits his 715th career home run, passing Babe Ruth on the MLB all-time list
- 2008 The first meeting of the Constituent Assembly of Nepal formally declares Nepal a republic, ending the 240-year reign of the Shah dynasty.
Un-Thinkable (I'm Ready)
2010 "Un-Thinkable (I'm Ready)" single released by Alicia Keys (Billboard Song of the Year, 2010)
- 2014 Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is elected President of Egypt
- 2016 Harambe, a gorilla at Cincinnati Zoo, is shot after dragging a 3-year-old boy who had slipped into its enclosure (Cincinnati, Ohio)
- 2017 70th Cannes Film Festival: Swedish film "The Square" directed by Ruben Ostlund wins the Palme d'Or
- 2017 Floods and landslides in Sri Lanka kill at least 151
- 2017 Tom Dumoulin wins the 100th Giro d’Italia in Milan; first Dutchman to win
- 2018 Coco-Cola launches its first alcoholic drink - Lemon-Do on island of Kyushu, Japan
- 2018 One million French smokers quit in one year after anti-smoking measures introduced according to Public Health France
- 2019 Johnson & Johnson go on trial in Oklahoma accused of deceptively marketing painkillers and downplaying risks of addiction helping create "opioid epidemic", first of 2,000 cases against US pharmaceutical firms
Event of Interest
2020 Iranian President Hassan Rouhani calls for new protections for women after the 'honor killing' of a 14-year-old by her father
Event of Interest
2020 Minnesota Governor Tim Walz declares State of Emergency in Minneapolis and activates the Minnesota National Guard after protests over the death of George Floyd in police custody
- 2021 Discovery of a mass grave with the remains of 215 children from Kamloops Indian Residential School announced by First Nation in British Columbia, Canada [1]
- 2022 75th Cannes Film Festival: Swedish director Ruben Ostlund's "Triangle of Sadness " wins the Palme d'Or [1]
- 2022 At least 31 people, mostly children, die in a stampede during a church giveaway event in Port Harcourt, southern Nigeria [1]
New Parliament House
2023 India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates India's new parliament building, amid a boycott by opposition parties (who wanted the President to open it) [1]
- 2023 Surgeons complete world's first whole eyeball transplant with a partial facial transplant, for a US veteran lineman injured in an accident, at NYU Langone Health [1]
Erdoğan Re-elected
2023 Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan re-elected after a run-off election, beating Kemal Kilicdaroglu with 52.14% of the vote, for an historic third term [1]
