Events 1 - 200 of 227
Abdication of Richard II
1399 King Richard II of England's (supposed) abdication read out in the House of Commons by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In reality deposed by his cousin and successor Henry IV
Suleiman the Magnificent
1520 Suleiman the Magnificent succeeds his father Selam I as Ottoman Sultan (rules till 1566)
Henry VIII Leaves France
1544 King of England Henry VIII draws his armies out of France
- 1555 Bishop of Oxford Nicholas Ridley sentenced to death as a heretic
- 1619 Remonstrant Society forms in Antwerp
- 1626 Battle between King Bethlen Gabor & Earl Mansfeld-Wallenstein ends
- 1649 Last Swedish troops vacate Prague
- 1659 Peter Stuyvesant of New Netherlands forbids tennis playing during religious services (1st mention of tennis in US)
- 1659 Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked (according to Daniel Defoe's famous novel)
- 1681 Netherlands & Sweden sign treaty
Abdication of Victor Amadeus II
1730 Duke of Savoy Victor Amadeus II abdicates his throne amid scandal after marrying his mistress Anna Canalis di Cumiana
Dissolution of National Constituent Assembly
1791 The National Constituent Assembly in Paris is dissolved; Parisians hail Maximilien Robespierre and Jérôme Pétion as incorruptible patriots
- 1808 Covent Garden Theatre Royal destroyed by fire in London
Battle of Bárbula
1813 Battle of Bárbula: Simón Bolívar defeats Santiago Bobadilla
- 1818 Congress of Aken: Russia, Austria, Prussia, France & England
- 1841 Samuel Slocum patents the stapler
- 1846 Anesthetic ether is used for the 1st time, by American dentist Dr William Morton who extracts a tooth
- 1857 US occupies Sand, Baker, Howland & Jarvis Island, south of Hawaii
- 1862 First Battle of Newtonia (American Civil War), Newton County, Missouri
Blood and Iron Speech
1862 Minister-President of Prussia Otto von Bismarck delivers his famous "Blood and Iron" speech on the unification of German territories
The Pearl Fishers
1863 Opera "Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers) by Georges Bizet premieres at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris
- 1864 13 Black soldiers among the first Black soldiers to be honored with US Medal of Honor for leading charges against Confederate fortifications during Battle of New Market Heights, Virginia
- 1864 Battle of Preble's Farm Virginia (Poplar Springs Church)
- 1867 Midway Islands formally declared a US possession
- 1868 Spain's Queen Isabella is deposed, flees to France
- 1877 1st US amateur swim meet (NY Athletic Club)
- 1878 1st Portuguese immigrants arrive in Hawaii
- 1878 Great Flood hits New Zealand's South Island
Orion Nebula Photographed
1880 American amateur astronomer Henry Draper takes the 1st ever photograph of the Orion Nebula
- 1885 Bechuanaland becomes a British protectorate
- 1887 8th America's Cup: New York Yacht Club’s cutter Volunteer beats Scottish challenger Thistle by 11:48.75 seconds on corrected time to win series, 2-0 off Newport, RI
- 1888 "Jack the Ripper" murders 2 more women, Liz Stride & Kate Eddowes, in Whitechapel, London
- 1895 France proclaims a protectorate over Madagascar
The Red Badge of Courage
1895 Stephen Crane's novel "The Red Badge of Courage" is published to wide acclaim
- 1903 New Gresham's School officially opened by Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood in Norfolk, England (expansion of original school founded 1555)
- 1904 White Sox lefty Doc White, pitches his 5th shutout in 18 days
- 1906 Real Academia Galega, Galician language biggest linguistic authority starts working in Havana
- 1907 Cards Ed Konetchy steals home twice & Joe Delahanty also steals home for record 3 steals of home (vs Boston)
L'Oiseau bleu
1908 Maurice Maeterlinck's play "L'Oiseau bleu" (The Blue Bird) premieres at the Moscow Art Theatre
- 1915 Red Sox clinch AL pennant by beating Detroit
Provisional Government of National Defence
1916 Eleftherios Venizelos announces he is forming a Provisional Government in Crete as an alternative to the one in Athens; he is determined to bring Greece into the war on the side of the Allies
- 1916 Giants lose to Braves 8-3, ends 26 consecutive win streak
- 1919 Avery Hopwood's "Gold Diggers" premieres in NYC
- 1919 Elaine Massacre: Arkansas state militia and rioters kill over 200 hundred Black people in response to sharecroppers' attempt to organize against landowners; trials of survivors for murder leads to Supreme Court enacted judicial reforms [1] [2] [3]
- 1920 Time Square Theater opens at 217 W 42nd St NYC
- 1922 Government of Alexandros Zaimis forms in Greece
- 1922 Yanks clinch pennant #2, beating Boston 3-1
- 1924 Allies stop checking on German navy
- 1925 General Pangulos disbands Greek parliament
- 1926 German/French/Belgian/Luxembourg steel cartel closes
- 1928 Leon Vanderstuyft of Belgium cycles record 76 mi 604 yds in 1 hr
- 1929 1st manned rocket plane flight (by auto maker Fritz von Opel)
- 1931 Start of "Die Voortrekkers" youth movement for Afrikaners in Bloemfontein, South Africa.
- 1933 Berlin/Hart/Heyman/Myers ballet "As Thousands Cheer," premieres in NYC
- 1934 Babe Ruth's final game as a Yankee, goes 0 for 3
- 1934 Charley O'Leary becomes the oldest person at 58 to get a hit in the majors
- 1934 St Louis Card clinch pennant as Dizzy Dean wins his 30th of year
Porgy and Bess
1935 George Gershwin's opera "Porgy and Bess" premieres in Boston
The Boulder Dam
1935 The Boulder Dam (later the Hoover Dam), astride the border of Arizona and Nevada, is dedicated by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt
- 1936 International Commission of Straits (Dardanelles & Bosphorus) ends
- 1936 Pinewood Studios opens in Buckinghamshire England
Treaty of Munich
1938 Treaty of Munich signed by Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Édouard Daladier and Neville Chamberlain, forces Czechoslovakia to give territory to Germany. Chamberlain infamously declares "Peace for our time" on his return to London.
- 1939 Britain first evacuates citizens in anticipation of war.
- 1939 Chicago pitcher Clint Brown sets MLB record with his 61st relief appearance as White Sox beat St. Louis Browns, 7-5
- 1939 Germany & Russia agree to partition Poland
- 1939 In the first televised college football game, Fordham beats Waynesburg, 34-7 at Randalls Island, NY
- 1940 47 German aircraft shot down above England
- 1941 Approximately 33,771 Jews are shot to death or buried alive at Babi Yar ravine (near Kiev) Ukraine by Nazi troops over two days
- 1941 German assault on Moscow, Operation Typhoon, begins
Nimitz Finds Guadalcanal
1942 Admiral Chester Nimitz's B-17 finds Guadalcanal using a National Geographic map
- 1942 SS exterminates 3,500 Jews in Zelov Lodz Poland in 6 week period
Greenberg's Winning Grand Slam
1945 Detroit's future Baseball Hall of Fame first baseman Hank Greenberg smacks an AL pennant-winning grand slam on the final day of the season as the Tigers beat St. Louis Browns, 6-3
Nuremberg War Trials
1946 Twenty-two Nazi leaders, including Joachim von Ribbentrop and Hermann Goering, are found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death or prison at the Nuremberg war trials
- 1949 American chemist Percy L. Julian at the Glidden Company announces an improved method for producing cortisone
Ralph Kiner Record
1949 Pirates Ralph Kiner hits his 54th HR & NL record 16th in September
Chief Justice Earl Warren
1953 Earl Warren appointed Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court
- 1953 Robert Anderson's "Tea & Sympathy" premieres in NYC
- 1953 WICS TV channel 20 in Springfield, IL (NBC) begins broadcasting
- 1953 WMT (now KGAN) TV channel 2 in Cedar Rapids-Waterloo, IA (CBS) begins
- 1954 1st nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus, commissioned by the US Navy
James Dean Dies in Car Crash
1955 American actor and cultural icon James Dean is killed in a car crash aged 24
- 1956 Phillies Robin Roberts gives up a major league record 46th HR
- 1956 White Sox Jim Derrington, 16, is youngest to start a game (he loses)
- 1957 French government of Mauroy resigns due to Algeria
- 1957 WKYT TV channel 27 in Lexington, KY (CBS) begins broadcasting
- 1958 French Guinee becomes independent republic Guinea
- 1958 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
The Flintstones
1960 "The Flintstones" the first animated sitcom created by Hanna-Barbera premieres on ABC in the US
- 1960 On Howdy Doody's last show Clarabelle finally talks "Goodbye Kids"
- 1960 West Germany signs trade agreement with East Germany
Boston Tea Party
1961 Bill for Boston Tea Party is paid by Mayor Snyder of Oregon who wrote a check for $196, the total cost of all tea lost
- 1962 KCRL TV channel 4 in Reno, NV (NBC) begins broadcasting
- 1962 KMEX TV channel 34 in Los Angeles, CA (IND) begins broadcasting
United Farm Workers
1962 Mexican-American labor leader César Chávez founds the United Farm Workers
- 1962 NY Mets lose record 120th game as Cubs turn triple play & beat NY 5-1
- 1963 56th Postmaster General: John A. Gronouski of Wisconsin takes office
Baseball History
1965 LA Dodger Don Drysdale (23-12) wins 13th straight game, 7 by shutouts
- 1966 Bechuanaland, in southern Africa, gains independence from Great Britain, becomes Republic of Botswana
- 1966 USSR performs underground nuclear test
- 1967 BBC starts its own popular music radio station (Radio 1)
- 1967 Palace of Fine Arts reopens (1st time during 1915 exposition)
- 1967 USSR's Kosmos 186 & 188 complete 1st automatic docking
- 1968 1st Boeing 747 jumbo jet rolls out
- 1968 AL & NL umpires form a new Association of Major League Umpires
Love Child
1968 The Supremes release single "Love Child"
Democratic Unionist Party
1971 Ian Paisley and Desmond Boal launch the [Ulster] Democratic Unionist Party
- 1971 Last Washington Senator home game, Yanks win career 5th forfeit game Yanks trailing 4-2 in 9th with 2 outs, fans rush field
- 1972 Passenger train derails killing 48 (Rust Stasie, South Africa)
Baseball Record
1972 Pittsburgh right fielder Roberto Clemente doubles off Mets' Jon Matlack to become the 11th MLB player to record 3000 hits as Pirates beat NY, 5-0
- 1973 Mel Gray begins NFL streak of 121 consecutive game receptions
- 1973 New York Yankees close 50th year at Yankee Stadium with an 8-5 loss to Detroit Tigers for an 80-82 season record; manager Ralph Houk resigns
- 1973 USSR performs underground nuclear test
- 1974 General Francisco da Costa Gomesz succeeds General António de Spínola as President of Portugal
- 1975 5 drown in flash flood of sewer and water tunnel at Niagara Falls, New York
- 1975 The Hughes (later McDonnell-Douglas, now Boeing) AH-64 Apache makes its first flight.
- 1977 Due to US budget cuts, the Apollo program's ALSEP experiment packages left on the Moon are shut down.
- 1977 Dutch Antillean government of Juancho Evertsz resigns
- 1977 Ian Dury releases the album "New Boots and Panties!!" which achieves platinum status
- 1977 Philippine political prisoners, Eugenio Lopez, Jr. and Sergio Osmeña III successfully escaped from Fort Bonifacio Maximum Security Prison in the Philippines
Ringo the 4th
1977 Ringo Starr releases album "Ringo the 4th"
- 1977 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
- 1978 Cleveland, Houston, NY, Philadelphia & Pittsburgh Phillies win 3rd consecutive NL East Division title
- 1978 Major Indoor Soccer League grants 1st 6 franchises to Cincinnati
- 1978 Phillies clinch NL East title
- 1979 Milwaukee Brewers lose 5-0 ending 213 straight games without a shutout
- 1980 1,754 turn out to see Phillies play NY Mets at Shea Stadium
Iran–Iraq War
1980 Iran rejects a truce call from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
Baseball Record
1980 Oakland outfielder Rickey Henderson sets AL stolen base record with his 97th in A's 5-1 win over Chicago White Sox; breaks Ty Cobb's mark of 96 set in 1915
- 1980 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1981 French parliament votes to abolish the death penalty, led by Minister of Justice Robert Badinter
- 1981 International Olympic Committee votes to award Seoul, South Korea as host of the 1988 Summer Olympic Games
- 1981 Last game at Minn's Metropolitan Stadium, lose to KC 5-2
- 1982 12th Commonwealth Games open in Brisbane, Australia
Nebraska
1982 Columbia Records releases Bruce Springsteen's sixth studio album "Nebraska", a solo record, made without a backing band
- 1982 National railroad strike in Belgium
Bowie Kuhn Retires
1984 Bowie Kuhn ends career as Baseball Commissioner
- 1984 Browns set a team record for allowing most sacks (11), KC wins 10-6
- 1984 California Angel Mike Witt, pitches a perfect game over Texas Rangers, 1-0
- 1984 California Angels Michael Witt is 11th to pitch a perfect baseball game
- 1984 CBS' premiere of "Murder She Wrote", starring Angela Landsbury
Baseball History
1984 New York Yankees Don Mattingly wins AL batting crown with .343 avg
Howard Stern Fired
1985 Howard Stern gets fired from New York City radio station WNBC-AM
Album Release
1985 Island Records releases "Rain Dogs", the ninth studio album by singer-songwriter Tom Waits; the album features guitarist Marc Ribot, guest appearances from Keith Richards, and one of Waits' most covered songs, "Downtown Train"
- 1986 Mordechai Vanunu, who revealed details of Israel covert nuclear program to British media, is kidnapped in Rome, Italy
- 1986 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1986 US releases Soviet spy Gennadiy Zakharov
- 1987 Roy Orbison and friends (including James Burton; Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and k.d. lang) film performance at the Ambassador Hotel's Coconut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles, California for Cinemax
- 1987 Suriname constitution ratified
- 1988 Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko retires as Soviet Foreign Minister
- 1988 Dave Stieb loses 2nd consecutive no hitter bid with 2 outs in 9th
- 1988 IBM announces shipment of 3 millionth PS/2 personal computer
- 1988 Louise Ritter, US, jumps 6'8" to win Olympic gold medal
Givens, Tyson and Barbara Walter
1988 Robin Givens and Mike Tyson appear on Barbara Walter's Show
- 1988 Soviet Union beats Yugoslavia 76-63 to win the men's basketball gold medal at the Seoul Olympics; US finishes 3rd; final time US field non-NBA team
- 1989 NASA closes down tracking stations in Hawaii & Ascension
Nolan Ryan's 300th Strikeout
1989 Nolan Ryan's perfect game broken in 8th, but gets his 300th strikeout
- 1989 Senegambia separates back into Gambia & Senegal
- 1989 Toronto Blue Jays wins AL East title
- 1989 West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher grants escaping East Germans free passage to the West in speech from West German embassy balcony in Prague
- 1990 MLB Chicago White Sox beat Seattle Mariners 2-1 in last game at Comiskey Park, Chicago
- 1990 MLB Pittsburgh Pirates win NL East title
Tribute to Human Rights
1990 The Dalai Lama unveils the Canadian Tribute to Human Rights monument in Canada's capital city of Ottawa, Ontario [1]
Jerry Springer
1991 Jerry Springer's tabloid talk show "Jerry Springer" debuts on TV (syndicated)
- 1991 Rev Jean Betrand Aristide ousted as president of Haiti
George Brett's 3,000th Hit
1992 KC Royal George Brett gets 4 hits to become 18th to get 3,000 hits
- 1992 Mariel Hemmingway appears nude on TV show Civil Wars
- 1993 6.4 earthquake at Latur, India, 28,000 killed
Colin Powell Retires
1993 US Army General Colin Powell retires at 56
- 1994 Space shuttle STS-68 (Endeavour 7), launches into orbit
- 1994 Sylvestre Ntibantunganya elected president of Burundi
- 1994 Vladimir Meciars HZDDS wins Slovakia parliamentary election
- 1995 Cleveland Indian Albert Belle hits his 50th home run of season
- 1997 "Too Close" single released by Next (Billboard Song of the Year, 1998)
- 1997 Hooters agrees to pay $2 million in discrimination suits
Gun Buy Back Scheme
1997 John Howard's Australian government gun buy back scheme ends with more than 640,000 firearms compulsorily acquired, including many newly illegal semi-automatic rifles and shotguns
