303 First official Roman edict for persecution of Christians issued by Emperor Diocletian at Nicomedia, ordering all churches to be closed and scriptures burnt
- 896 Pope Formosus crowned Arnulf King of Carinthia and Holy Roman Emperor
- 1071 Battle of Cassel; Robert I the Frisian defeats Arnulf III/I
- 1281 Simon de Brion elected Pope Martinus IV
- 1288 Girolamo Masci elected Pope Nicolas IV
- 1300 Pope Boniface VIII issues papal bull (decree) instating a Jubilee Year, granting forgiveness of sins and debts for those who fulfill various conditions
- 1371 King Robert II of Scotland (1371-90) becomes the first monarch of the House of Stewart
Syon Abbey Founded
1415 English King Henry V lays the foundation stone for Syon Abbey for nuns of the Bridgettine Order. Became one of the wealthiest abbeys in England.
Charles VIII Crowned King of Naples
1495 French King Charles VIII enters Naples to claim crown
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
1632 Galileo Galilei's book "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" is published comparing the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems and whether the Earth orbits the sun
St. Peter's Baldachin
1633 St. Peter's Baldachin, the cathedral's sculptural centerpiece, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini is inaugurated by Pope Urban VIII in Rome
- 1656 New Amsterdam granted a Jewish burial site
- 1744 Battle of Toulon [Battle of Cape Sicié]: Spanish naval fleet supported by France's Levant fleet breaks through a two-year-old British blockade of Italy, allowing the Spanish to go on the offensive against Savoy
- 1746 French troops conquer Brussels
- 1746 Jacobite troops vacate Aberdeen
- 1774 British House of Lords rules authors do not have perpetual copyright
- 1775 1st US joint stock company (to make cloth) offers shares at 10 cents
- 1775 Jews expelled from their settlements on the outskirts of Warsaw, Poland
- 1784 Empress of China, the first US ship to trade with China, sails from New York
1797 The last invasion of Britain is launched by the French near Fishguard, Wales, during the French Revolutionary Wars
- 1819 The Adams–Onís Treaty between Spain and the United States is signed, ceding Florida to the US and defining the boundary between the US and New Spain
- 1825 Russia and Britain establish the Alaska-Canada boundary
- 1828 Russia and Persia sign the Peace of Turkmantsjai
- 1836 Dutch garrison evacuates fort Du Bus New Guinea
- 1847 Battle of Buena Vista begins between US and Mexican troops
Little Civil War
1847 Royalist troops of Queen Maria II of Portugal put down a revolutionary insurrection
- 1854 1st meeting of Republican Party (Michigan)
- 1856 Republican Party holds its first national meeting in Pittsburgh
- 1860 Organized baseball played in San Francisco for 1st time between the Eagles and the Red Rovers
- 1860 Shoe-making workers of Lynn, Massachusetts, strike successfully for higher wages
- 1861 On a bet Edward Weston leaves Boston to walk to Lincoln's inauguration
- 1864 -27] Battle at Dalton Georgia
- 1864 2nd and last day of Battle of Okolona, Mississippi
- 1864 Skirmish at Calfkiller Creek (Battle of Dug Hill), Tennessee
- 1865 Battle of Wilmington, NC (Fort Anderson) occupied by Federals
- 1865 Tennessee adopts a new constitution abolishing slavery
- 1872 1st national convention of Prohibition Party (Columbus Ohio)
- 1876 Johns Hopkins University opens
- 1878 Greenback Labor Party forms (Toledo, Ohio)
Symphony No. 4
1878 Peter Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony in F premieres at a Russian Musical Society concert in Moscow [February 10 O.S.]
- 1882 The Serbian kingdom is refounded.
- 1882 With 120 miles James Saunders wins NYC's 24 hour race & $100 prize
- 1887 Union Labor Party organized in Cincinnati
- 1888 “Father of American Golf” John Reid first demonstrates golf on a Yonkers cow pasture to friends
- 1889 US President Cleveland signs bill to admit Dakotas, Montana & Washington state to the union
- 1892 Manitoba Rugby Football Union forms
- 1898 Black postmaster lynched, his wife & 3 daughters shot in Lake City, South Carolina
- 1900 Battle at Wynne's Hill, South Africa (Boers vs British army)
- 1904 The Hague Tribunal gives its decision in claims against Venezuela; it sets the sum to be paid by Venezuela and gives preferential treatment to the three powers that initiated the block - Britain, Germany, and Italy
- 1904 The United Kingdom sells a meteorological station on the South Orkney Islands to Argentina; the islands are subsequently claimed by the United Kingdom in 1908.
- 1906 Black evangelist William J Seymour arrives in Los Angeles, California
- 1907 Leonid Andreyev's "Zhizn Cheloveka" premieres in St Petersburg
- 1907 London's first cabs with taximeters begin operating
1909 Great White Fleet, the first US fleet to circle the globe, returns to Virginia
- 1911 The Canadian Parliament resolves to maintain union with the British Empire, while controlling domestic fiscal affairs
- 1912 J Vedrines makes 1st airplane flight over 100 mph-161.29 kph
- 1915 Germany begins "unrestricted" submarine war
- 1915 WWI: Germany sinks American Merchant ship Carib with mine, and torpedoes Norwegian ship Regin
- 1916 The House-Grey Memorandum, drafted by US and Britain, states: 'Should the Allies accept [the American idea of a conference to end the war] and should Germany refuse it, the United States would "probably" enter the war against Germany'
- 1917 German Navy torpedoes 7 Dutch ships
- 1918 Germany claims Baltic states, Finland & Ukraine from Russia
- 1922 Congress authorizes Grant Memorial $1 gold coin
- 1922 London issues a unilateral declaration of Egyptian independence
- 1923 1st successful chinchilla farm in US, in Los Angeles, California
- 1923 US Transcontinental airmail service begins
- 1927 ARC soccer team forms in Alphen on the Rhine
- 1927 Baruch Spinosa's house of mourning opened as a museum
- 1928 First solo flight from England to Australia lands in Darwin 15½ days after takeoff, piloted by Australian aviator Bert Hinkler
- 1932 Purple Heart (the Badge of Military Merit) award reinstituted
- 1933 Hungarian scholar and the founder of Tibetan studies Alexander Csoma de Kőrös declared a Bodhisattva (Buddhist saint) in Japan
Land Speed Record
1933 Malcolm Campbell sets a world land speed record of 272.46 mph driving his famous Blue Bird car at Daytona Beach, Florida
It Happened One Night
1934 "It Happened One Night" directed by Frank Capra and starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert opens at NY's Radio City Music Hall (Academy Awards Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay 1935)
In Search of Sheba
1934 André Malraux and Édouard Corniglion-Molinier set out to find the lost capital of the Queen of Sheba, as mentioned in the Old Testament
- 1935 Airplanes are no longer permitted to fly over the White House
- 1936 Construction on Ypenburg Netherlands airport begins
Figure Skating World Championship
1936 Sonja Henie of Norway follows up her Winter Olympics victory with an incredible 10th consecutive women’s World Championship figure skating gold medal in Paris, France
Netherlands Recognizes Franco Regime
1939 Netherlands recognizes Francisco Franco's dictatorial regime in Spain
- 1940 Finnish troops vacate Koivisto island
- 1940 German air force sinks 2 German destroyers, killing 578
- 1941 Arthur "Bomber" Harris becomes British Air Marshal
- 1941 German assault on El Agheila Libya
- 1941 IG Farben company decides to build its Buna-Werke (rubber factory) adjacent to Auschwitz Concentration Camp to have easy access to slave labor and safe cover from Allied bombing
- 1941 Nazi police raid Amsterdam and round up 429 young Jews for deportation to be sent to Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps
- 1941 Paul Creston's 1st Symphony premieres
- 1941 Roy Harris' "Ballad of a Railroad Man" premieres
1942 World War II: President Franklin Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines as American defenses collapse
- 1943 3 members of White Rose student anti-Nazi resistance group are executed in Munich, Germany
Tagus River Plane Crash
1943 Plane crash in the Tagus River, Lisbon, Portugal kills 23 with 15 survivors including singer Jane Froman
- 1944 World War II: US Army Air Forces accidentally bomb Dutch town of Nijmegen, around 800 civilians die
- 1945 Arab League forms (Cairo)
- 1945 British troops take Ramree Island, Burma
- 1945 Canadian 3rd Division occupies Moyland
- 1948 Arabs bomb attack in Jerusalem, 50 die
- 1950 Wallace Brockway and Herbert Weinstock's revised and expanded edition of reference book "Men of Music: Their Lives, Times and Achievements" is published
- 1952 German husband and wife team Ria and Paul Falk win the mixed pairs gold medal at the Oslo Winter Olympics; defeat American siblings, Karol and Peter Kennedy
- 1952 Germany takes the Olympic bobsleigh double with gold in the 4-man event at the Oslo Winter Games; Adreas Ostler and Lorenz Niebert score their 2nd gold medals after winning the 2-man a week earlier
- 1955 British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sets sail
- 1956 1st English soccer match at Kunstlicht: Portsmouth vs Newcastle United
- 1957 Jockey Ted Atkinson, 3,500th win
- 1957 Walter O'Malley says Dodgers may play 10 exhibitions in California in 1958
- 1958 Australian swimmer Jon Konrads sets 6 world records in 2 days
- 1958 Egypt & Syria form United Arab Republic (UAR)
- 1958 Indonesian air force bombs Padang, Sumatra and Menado, Celebes
- 1959 Inaugural Daytona 500: Lee Petty and Johnny Beauchamp cross finish line side by side; Beauchamp declared unofficial winner; ruling overturned after 3 days by NASCAR founder Bill France Sr
- 1960 German skier Georg Thoma becomes the first non-Nordic athlete to win the Nordic combined event at the Squaw Valley Winter Olympics
NBA Record
1962 Philadelphia center Wilt Chamberlain sets NBA record with 34 free-throw attempts (converts 19) in Warriors 139-121 win over St. Louis Hawks at Philadelphia Civic Center
- 1963 The Beatles begin their own music publishing company (Northern Songs)
- 1964 The Beatles arrive back in England after their successful first US visit
- 1965 Rodgers & Hammerstein's television musical "Cinderella", starring Lesley Ann Warren and Stuart Damon, with Pat Carroll and Celeste Holm, premieres on CBS-TV
- 1965 USSR launches Kosmos 57 into earth orbit (Voskhod Test)
- 1966 Soviets launch Kosmos 110 with Veterok & Ugolek, 1st 2-dog crew
- 1967 25,000 US and South Vietnamese troops launch Operation Junction City against the Viet Cong. Largest US airborne assault since World War II.
- 1967 Barbara Garson's "MacBird" premieres in NYC
- 1967 Sling-shot goal post & 6' wide border around field are standard in NFL
Silent Sun
1968 Rock group Genesis release their 1st record "Silent Sun"
- 1969 Barbara Jo Rubin becomes 1st female jockey to win at an American parimutuel race at a major US track aboard Cohesian at Charles Town, West Virginia
- 1969 The Beatles begin recording what becomes their "Abbey Road" album at EMI Recording Studio at 3 Abbey Road in Westminster, London, England; the studio was later renamed in honor of their achievements there
1970 12th Daytona 500: Pete Hamilton wins by just 3 car lengths over David Pearson, after passing him with 9 laps to go
- 1972 Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani becomes Emir & Prime Minister of Qatar
- 1972 Red Wings rookie Henry Boucha scores in his first NHL Game in 5-4 win over Toronto Maple Leafs at Olympias Arena in Detroit, Michigan
- 1972 The Official IRA bombs Aldershot military barracks, the headquarters of the British Parachute Regiment, killing seven people; thought to be in retaliation for Bloody Sunday.
- 1973 "Turkish Delight" Holland's most successful film, directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Rutger Hauer is released
- 1973 US and China agree to establish liaison offices in Beijing and Washington, D.C.
- 1974 Ethiopian police shoot at demonstrators
- 1978 2 tankers with propane gas explode killing 15 at Waverly, Tenn
- 1979 Cleveland Metroparks Zoo's Primate & Cat Building is dedicated (Cleveland, Ohio)
- 1979 St Lucia gains independence from Britain
Miracle on Ice
1980 "Miracle on Ice": US ice hockey team beats heavily favoured Soviet Union, 4-3 at Lake Placid in one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history; Americans go on to win gold medal
- 1980 Afghanistan declares martial law
- 1980 Aleksandr Tikhonov of the Soviet Union earns his 4th straight gold medal as part of the 4 x 7.5k biathlon relay team at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics
- 1980 Soviet biathlete Anatoly Alyabyev wins his 2nd gold medal of the Lake Placid Winter Olympics as part of the 4 x 7.5k relay team; also wins individual gold
- 1980 Swedish World Cup and World champion Ingemar Stenmark wins his 2nd gold medal of the Lake Placid Winter Olympics, taking out the slalom; follows-on from giant slalom success
NHL Record
1981 Slovak brothers Anton & Peter Šťastný score NHL rookie record 8 points each in Quebec Nordiques, 11-7 win over Washington Capitals at Capital Centre
- 1982 NYC Mayor Koch announces he will run for NY governor (unsuccessful)
- 1983 Hindus kill 3000 Muslims in Assam, India
- 1983 Vladimir Salnikov (USSR) sets 1500m free style swimming record
- 1986 Start of the People Power Revolution in the Philippines
- 1987 Bruno Marie-Rose runs indoor world record 200m (20.36 sec)
- 1989 Finnish Ministry of Public Health installs sex education to thwart stress
- 1989 NY Lotto pays $26.9 million to one winner (#s are 1-5-12-19-44-50)
- 1989 Pepsi-Cola airs its first Spanish commercial on network TV during the Grammy Awards broadcast on CBS
Strategic Defense Initiative
1989 UK physicist Stephen Hawking calls the proposed missile defense system known as Star Wars a "deliberate fraud"
- 1989 US authors demonstrate against Iranian death threats against Salman Rushdee, author of "The Satanic Verses"
- 1990 1st day India v NZ cricket at Auckland NZ 5-78 at lunch, 9-387 stumps
- 1992 "Park Your Car in Harvard Yard" closes at Music Box NYC
Streisand on SNL
1992 Barbra Streisand surprises cast members in a cameo appearance at the end of a "Coffee Talk" sketch on "Saturday Night Live"
- 1992 Barry Diller resigns as CEO of Fox
- 1993 Vinod Kambli scores 224 v England at Bombay, 411 balls, 23 fours
- 1995 Algiers police kill at least 99 prison rioters
- 1995 Steve Fossett completes 1st air balloon over Pacific Ocean (9600 km)
- 1996 Spaces shuttle Columbia 19 (STS 75) launches into orbit
- 1997 Scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland announce they have cloned an adult mammal, producing Dolly the sheep, born on 5 July 1996 (d. 2003)
- 1998 Petr Svoboda scores the winner as the Czech Republic claims its first ever Olympic ice hockey gold medal with a 1-0 victory over Russia in Nagano, Japan
- 1998 XVIII Winter Olympic Games close in Nagano Japan
- 2002 Angolan revolutionary politician and military leader of UNITA, Jonas Savimbi is killed in a military ambush in the province of Moxico
- 2003 Pakistani pace bowler Shoaib Akhtar bowls the fastest ball recorded in cricket history at 100.2 mph (161.3 km/h)
- 2006 At least six men stage Britain's biggest robbery ever, stealing £53m (about $92.5 million or 78€ million) from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent
Contract of Interest
2008 Marco van Basten signs a four-year contract with Ajax, starting from 1 July
2009 81st Academy Awards: "Slumdog Millionaire", Sean Penn and Kate Winslet win. Heath Ledger posthumously wins Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the Joker in "The Dark Knight".
- 2010 Taiwan's economy exits from the recession with 9.22% growth in the last quarter of 2009 after increased demand from China and other key markets in the region
- 2011 An earthquake measuring 6.3 in magnitude strikes Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 181 people
- 2012 Train crash in Buenos Aires, Argentina, kills 50 and injures hundreds
- 2013 13 Chadian soldiers and 65 Muslim insurgents are killed in conflict in Northern Mali
- 2013 29 people are killed and 150 are injured by 3 Syrian army missiles in Aleppo
- 2013 The European Commission forecast for 2013 expects growth of 0.1% across the 27 members of the EU but a contraction of 0.3% in the Eurozone economy
- 2013 The UK's AAA credit rating is downgraded by Moody's Investors Service to AA+; the agency expects growth to "remain sluggish over the next few years"
- 2014 After winning the men's parallel giant slalom at the Sochi Winter Olympics, Russian snowboarder Vic Wild wins his 2nd gold in the parallel slalom
- 2014 At age 34, Mario Matt of Austria becomes the oldest champion in Olympic alpine skiing history with the slalom gold medal at Sochi
- 2014 Dutch speed skaters Jorien ter Mors (1,500m champion) and Ireen Wüst (3,000m winner) each claim their 2nd gold medal of the Sochi Winter Olympics as part of the women's pursuit team
- 2014 Matteo Renzi becomes Prime Minister of Italy
- 2014 Norway sweeps the medals in the women's 30k cross country skiing at the Sochi Winter Olympics; Marit Bjørgen wins her 6th career gold ahead of teammates Therese Johaug and Kristin Størmer Steira
- 2014 Snowboard Olympic parallel special slalom event debuts and is run for the only time at the Sochi Winter Games; Russian Vic Wild and Julia Dujmovits of Canada win unique gold medals
Yanukovych Ousted
2014 Viktor Yanukovych is ousted as President of Ukraine by the parliament following the Euromaidan revolution
- 2015 57th Daytona 500: Joey Logano wins event for 2nd time after taking lead with 10 laps to go; is ahead of Kevin Harvick before caution flag on last lap ends race in his favour
2015 87th Academy Awards: "Best Picture - "Birdman", Best Director, and Best Screenplay - Alejandro González Iñárritu ("Birdman:"), Best Actor - Eddie Redmayne – ("The Theory of Everything"), Best Actress - Julianne Moore ("Still Alice")
- 2016 10 million people are without water in Delhi after caste protests in Jat sabotage the Munak water canal
- 2017 Apple's new campus is named Apple Park in Culpertino, California, nicknamed 'the spaceship', designed with Foster + Partners, the first of 12,000 employees to move in, in April [1]
- 2017 Discovery of seven Earth-sized planets orbiting star TRAPPIST-1 announced in journal "Nature" raises possibility of alien life
Songwriters Hall of Fame
2017 Jay-Z becomes the first rapper inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame alongside Max Martin, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis
- 2018 Chinese short track speed skater Wu Dajing beats men's 500m world record twice en route to winning the gold medal at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics; 2nd man in history under 40 seconds (39.584s)
- 2018 German individual Nordic combined 10k large hill champion Johannes Rydzek and normal hill winner Eric Frenzel win their 2nd gold medals of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in the 4 x 5k team event
Malaysian History
2018 Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak stirs up controversy by declaring he prefers quinoa to rice, the national dish
- 2018 Neanderthals, not humans, were the first artists on Earth, producing red cave paintings 65,000 years ago in Spain, according to new research published in "Science"
- 2018 US wins Olympic women's ice hockey gold medal for the first time in 20 years with a 4-3 shootout victory over Canada in Pyeongchang; scores tied 3-3 after overtime
- 2018 Women's big air snowboarding event makes Olympic debut at Pyeongchang; Austria's Anna Gasser is inaugural gold medallist
- 2019 Actor Jussie Smollett suspended from US TV show "Empire" after revealed that actor made false claims about racist and homophobic attack
- 2019 Musician Peter Frampton announces he has a degenerative muscular disease and his next tour will be his last
NFL History
2019 Robert Kraft, owner of NFL team the New England Patriots, charged with soliciting prostitution, as part of human-trafficking sting operation in Jupiter, Florida
Ronaldo's 1,000th Game
2020 Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo marks his 1,000th senior appearance by scoring in Juventus' 2-1 Serie A win over SPAL; 725 career goals in 836 club games and 164 internationals
- 2021 Influential French dance duo Daft Punk announce their split after 28 years
2021 US death toll from COVID-19 passes 500,000, higher than US deaths in World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War combined. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris hold a candle-lighting ceremony outside the White House and say "we must not grow numb to the sorrow".
2021 Wife of drug cartel boss "El Chapo" Emma Coronel Aispuro arrested in the US on drug trafficking charges and conspiring to free her husband from prison
- 2022 Three white men convicted of killing black jogger Ahmaud Arbery found guilty of federal hate crimes, in Georgia [1]
- 2022 US President Joe Biden announces new sanctions against Russia, saying its latest moves in Ukraine amount to "the beginning of a Russian invasion" [1]
- 2022 US Women soccer players settle their lawsuit with US soccer federation for $24 million and a promise to equalise pay [1]
- 2023 Astronomers reveal Webb telescope data is upending existing theories of how early galaxies were formed, after finding six massive galaxies 100x larger than expected soon after the Big Bang [1]
- 2024 Japan’s benchmark stock exchange, the Nikkei average reaches its highest-ever level at 39,098, breaking its 1989 record [1]
- 2024 Odysseus is the first private spacecraft to land on the Moon, albeit on its side, and it is the first US Moon landing since 1972 [1]
