196 BC The Rosetta Stone and others like it are inscribed with the Decree of Memphis proclaiming the rule of the King of Ptolemaic Egypt, Ptolemy V
- 1003 Peace deal is signed between Holy Roman Emperor Henry II and the pagan Wends (Slavs)
- 1309 Pope Clement V excommunicates Venice and its population after Venice seized the papal city of Ferrara
- 1329 Pope John XXII issues the papal bull "In Agro Dominico," condemning the writings of German mystic Meister Eckhart as heretical
- 1351 Battle of the Thirty: 30 English and 30 Breton knights and squires square off using swords, maces, lances and daggers - considered one of the most chivalrous battles in history
- 1599 English nobleman Robert Devereux becomes Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
- 1613 The first English child born in Canada at Cuper's Cove, Newfoundland to Nicholas Guy
King Charles I
1625 Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland ascends the English throne
- 1642 Sixth Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Joseph, takes office an unusual 18 months after his predecessor passed away
Bombay to East India Company
1668 English King Charles II grants Royal Charter giving control of Bombay, India to the English East India Company
- 1706 Tekle Haymanot I takes the throne as Emperor of Ethiopia, upon the retirement and/or abdication of his father, Iyasu I, at 21
- 1708 James Francis Edward Stuart, Prince of Wales, and pretender to the Great British throne James III flees to Dunkirk after failed invasion attempt
- 1709 Dike at Hardinxveld breaks, flooding Alblasserwaard in the Netherlands
- 1713 Spain loses Menorca and Gibraltar to Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht
- 1721 France and Spain sign the Treaty of Madrid
- 1790 The modern shoelace with an aglet patented in England by Harvey Kennedy
- 1794 Denmark and Sweden form a neutrality compact
US Navy Founded
1794 Naval Act of 1794 is signed by President George Washington, authorizing the building of six frigates and establishing a permanent US Navy
Die Schopfung
1808 Joseph Haydn makes his final public appearance, attending a birthday performance of his oratorio "The Creation" ("Die Schopfung") at Vienna University [1]
Battle at Horseshoe Bend
1814 Battle at Horseshoe Bend: General Andrew Jackson defeats the Red Sticks, part of the Creek Indian tribe near Dadeville, Alabama
- 1836 First Mormon temple is dedicated in Kirtland, Ohio
- 1836 Mexican Army executes over 425 Texian Army prisoners of war in Goliad, Republic of Texas [1]
- 1841 First US steam fire engine is tested in New York City
- 1848 John Parker Paynard originates medicated adhesive plaster
- 1849 Joseph Couch patents steam-powered percussion rock drill
- 1860 M. L. Byrn patents a "covered gimlet screw with a 'T' handle," more popularly known as a corkscrew
Day of Fasting and Prayer
1863 American Confederate President Jefferson Davis calls for a day of fasting & prayer
- 1865 Battle of Spanish Fort: Union forces led by E.R.S. Canby lay siege to the heavily fortified Confederate Spanish Fort in Baldwin County, Alabama
- 1866 American Andrew Rankin patents the urinal
Johnson Vetoes Civil Rights Bill
1866 US President Andrew Johnson vetoes civil rights bill; it later becomes 14th amendment
- 1868 Lake Ontario Shore Railroad Company is organized in Oswego, New York
- 1871 First international rugby union match, Scotland beats England 1-0 at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh
- 1879 Longest championship fight (136 rounds)
- 1881 Rioting takes place in Basingstoke, Hampshire in England, to protest against the Salvation Army's daily vociferous promotion of rigid Temperance
- 1884 First long-distance telephone call, Boston to New York
- 1890 A tornado strikes Louisville, Kentucky, killing 76 and injuring 200.
- 1900 Recognising that the war in South Africa is going to take a major commitment, Parliament passes the War Loan Act, calling for £35 million to support the fight against the Boers.
- 1906 Founding of the Alpine Club of Canada in Winnipeg, Manitoba
- 1910 Fire during a barn-dance in Ököritófülpös, Hungary, kills 312
- 1912 US First Lady Helen Herron Taft and the Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese Ambassador, plant two Yoshino cherry trees on the bank of the Tidal Basin, Washington, D.C. [1]
- 1914 First successful non-direct blood transfusion is performed by Dr. Albert Hustin in Brussels
Typhoid Mary Arrested
1915 Typhoid Mary [Mary Mallon] is arrested and returned to quarantine on North Brother Island, New York after spending five years evading health authorities and causing several further outbreaks of typhoid
- 1918 Moldova and Bessarabia join Romania
- 1920 Hermann Muller becomes German chancellor (SPD)
- 1924 Canada recognizes USSR
- 1924 New French government of Poincaré begins
- 1928 KGB-AM in San Diego CA begins radio transmissions
- 1930 1st US radio broadcast from a ship at sea
- 1931 John McGraw says night baseball will not catch on
- 1932 De Bataven soccer team forms in Gendt
- 1933 Farm Credit Administration (US) authorized
- 1933 Japan leaves League of Nations
- 1933 Polythene discovered by Reginald Gibson & Eric William Fawcett
- 1936 WOS-AM in Jefferson City Missouri goes off the air
- 1937 Feijenoord Stadion, home ground of Dutch football club Feyenoord Rotterdam and nicknamed De Kuip opens after 2 years in construction
- 1938 The Battle of Taierzhuang takes place.
Peter Fraser Prime Minister
1940 Peter Fraser becomes Prime Minister of New Zealand after the death of his predecessor Michael Joeseph Savage from cancer
- 1941 Britain leases defense bases in Trinidad to US for 99 years
- 1941 Yugoslavian coup gets rid of pro-German Prince Paul
- 1942 -28] Allies raid German submarine base in St Nazaire
- 1942 Japan forces Java to use "Tokyo time" 1½ hour forward
Louis vs. Simon
1942 Joe Louis KOs Abe Simon in 6 to retain heavyweight boxing title (NYC)
Blue Ribbon Town
1943 Blue Ribbon Town (with Groucho Marx) 1st heard on CBS Radio
- 1943 WWII: Dutch resistance fighters burn and bomb the Amsterdam civil registry office in effort to destroy records and prevent the Nazis from identifying Jews and others marked for persecution; about 15% of records destroyed and 12 of the 19 known participants were tried and executed by the Nazi occupiers
- 1943 WWII: US begins assault on Fondouk Pass, Tunisia
- 1944 2,000 Jews are murdered in Kaunas Lithuania
- 1944 40 Jewish policemen in Riga, Latvia, ghetto are shot by the Gestapo
- 1944 Children's Aktion-Nazis collect all the Jewish children of Lovno
Transport No. 70 to Auschwitz
1944 Transport No. 70 departs Drancy (France) internment camp, taking 1,000 French Jews to Auschwitz extermination camp in Nazi German occupied Poland; 480 killed upon arrival, approximately 152 survive the war
- 1945 DePaul beats Bowling Green for NIT title
German Defenses Broken
1945 General Eisenhower declares German defenses on Western Front broken
- 1945 US 20th Army corps captures Wiesbaden
- 1945 World War II: Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan's ports and waterways begins.
Billie Holiday Plays Carnegie
1948 Just 11 days after being released from prison, jazz singer Billie Holiday plays in front of a sold-out crowd at Carnegie Hall, NYC
- 1948 The Second Congress of the Workers' Party of North Korea is convened
Erroll Garner Concert
1950 Jazz pianist Erroll Garner performs a solo recital at Cleveland Music Hall, a venue for traditionally classical concerts, in Cleveland, Ohio
- 1950 Netherlands recognizes People's Republic of China
- 1950 WHAS TV channel 11 in Louisville, Kentucky (CBS) begins broadcasting
Singin' in the Rain
1952 "Singin' in the Rain," a musical comedy film directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen and starring Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds, premieres at Radio City Music Hall in NYC
Assassination Attempt
1952 Failed assassination attempt of West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer
- 1952 Sun Records of Memphis begins releasing records
- 1953 21 die in a train crash in Conneaut, Ohio
- 1955 9th Tony Awards: "The Desperate Hours" (play) & "The Pajama Game" (musical) win
The Chivington Raid
1955 Steve McQueen makes his network TV debut (Goodyear Playhouse, episode "The Chivington Raid")
- 1955 WPRI TV channel 12 in Providence, Rhode Island (ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1956 French commandos land in Algeria
- 1958 CBS Labs announce new stereophonic records
- 1958 Havana Hilton opens in Cuba, later HQ for Fidel Castro
Event of Interest
1958 Nikita Khrushchev becomes Soviet Premier as well as First Secretary of the Communist Party
- 1961 Black demonstrators in Charleston staged ride-ins on street cars
- 1961 Failed assassination attempt on King Saif al-Islam Achmad of Yemen
- 1962 Ann Jellicoe's play "Knack" premieres in London
- 1962 Archbishop Rummel ends race segregation in New Orleans Catholic schools
NHL Record
1962 NHL Montreal Canadiens goaltender Jacques Plante ties record winning 6th NHL Vezina trophy
The Leopard
1963 Historical film "The Leopard" directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, and Claudia Cardinale premieres in Rome, based on the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
- 1963 Richard Beeching issues a report known as the "Beeching Axe," calling for significant cuts to the UK rail network
- 1964 Great Train Robbers sentenced to a total of 307 years behind bars
- 1964 The Great Alaska Earthquake (9.2 magnitude) and resulting tsunami kill 139 people in the largest US earthquake and second largest ever recorded
- 1964 UN troops arrive in Cyprus
- 1968 Japanese Trade & Cultural Center (Japan Center) dedicated in San Francisco
- 1969 Black Academy of Arts & Letters forms in Boston
- 1969 Launch of Mariner 7, flies 2,190-mi above southern Mars
Sentimental Journey
1970 Ringo Starr releases his first solo album "Sentimental Journey," a collection of pre-rock standards
- 1970 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1971 David Heneker and John Taylor's musical "Charlie Girl" close at the Adelphi Theatre, London, after 2,202 performances
- 1971 The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI) holds its first Annual Conference in the Ulster Hall in Belfast
- 1972 Adolph Rupp retires after 42 years of coaching University of Kentucky
- 1972 Ulster Vanguard organise industrial strike against the imposition of direct rule on Northern Ireland by Westminster
- 1972 Venera 8 launches to explore Venus
- 1972 Wyoming officially names "Curt Gowdy State Park", in honor of the nationally recognized broadcaster
1973 45th Academy Awards: "The Godfather", Marlon Brando & Liza Minnelli win; Brando declines the Oscar for Best Actor to protest Hollywood’s portrayal of Native Americans in film, in a speech by activist Sacheen Littlefeather [1]
- 1973 Dennis Amiss out for 99 v Pakistan, 3rd 99 in Test Cricket
Music History
1973 Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead) stopped for speeding and found in possession of LSD
- 1976 Washington, D.C. underground Metro opens
1977 583 die in aviation's worst ever disaster when two Boeing 747s collide at Tenerife airport in Spain
- 1978 The Rutles mockumentary "All You Need is Cash" is shown on British TV
- 1979 US Supreme Court rules 8-1 that cops can't randomly stop cars
- 1980 Elevator in Vaal Reefs gold mine, South Africa plunges more than 1900m killing all 23 miners aboard
1980 Mount St. Helens becomes active after 123 years
- 1980 Norwegian oil platform Alexander Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212
Blizzard of Ozz
1981 "Blizzard of Ozz", the debut solo album by English rock singer Ozzy Osbourne, is released in the United States
Watching the Wheels
1981 John Lennon's single "Watching the Wheels" released posthumously in UK
- 1982 Imran takes 14-116 for cricket match v Sri Lanka at Lahore
- 1982 Randy Holt sets Wash Cap record of 34 penalty minutes
Boxing Title Fight
1983 Larry Holmes beats Lucien Rodriguez in 12 for heavyweight boxing title
Film & TV History
1983 Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" premieres in NYC
Starlight Express
1984 Andrew Lloyd Webber and Richard Stilgoe's rock musical "Starlight Express" opens at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in London's West End
- 1984 Beginning of "tanker war": over the next 9 months, 44 ships, including Iranian, Iraqi, Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti tankers, are attacked by Iraqi or Iranian warplanes or damaged by mines
- 1985 Bus transporting school children from Vorentoe High School plunges into Westdene Dam, Johannesburg, South Africa, killing 42 [1]
Film & TV History
1985 Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan acquiesces to put interviewer Richard Belzer in a hold, resulting in Belzer passing out, hitting his head on the floor, and requiring 9 stitches; Belzer sues Hogan for $5 million in damages for personal injury, they settle out of court, and Belzer buys a home in France
- 1986 Disney-MGM Studio Tour groundbreaking
Victory in Battle
1987 Chadian President Hissène Habré's troops reconquer Faya Largeau in Chad
- 1988 Ice Dance Championship at Budapest won by Bestemianova & Bukin (URS)
- 1988 Ice Pairs Championship at Budapest won by E Valova & O Vasiliev (URS)
Sports History
1988 Men's Figure Skating Champions in Budapest won by Brian Boitano (USA)
- 1988 Ok-Hee Ku wins Standard Register Turquoise Classic Golf Tournament
- 1989 Delhi beat Bengal by innings & 210 to win Cricket's Ranji Trophy
- 1989 First African American soap opera, "Generations," premieres on NBC-TV
- 1990 Bus accidentally touches high voltage wire in Karagpur India; 21 die
- 1990 US begins broadcasting TV Martí to Cuba in an effort to bridge the information blackout imposed by the Castro regime
- 1991 NCAA bans U of Minn football team from postseason play in 1992
- 1991 New Kid Donnie Wahlberg, arrested on arson charges in Kentucky
Human Touch
1992 Columbia Records releases Bruce Springsteen's 9th and 10th studio albums - "Human Touch" and "Lucky Town" - on the same day; musicians other than the E-Street Band are used
Appointment of Interest
1993 Jiang Zemin appointed President of the People's Republic of China
- 1994 Church in Piedmont Alabama collapses in tornado, 19 killed
- 1994 Ice Dance Championship at Chiba Japan won by Gritschuk & Platov (RUS)
- 1994 Ice Pairs Championship at Chiba won by Shishkova/Vadim Naumov (RUS)
- 1994 The Eurofighter takes its first flight in Manching, Germany
Back for Good
1995 "Back for Good" single released by British boy band Take That, reaches No. 1 in 31 countries
- 1995 Two-month ceasefire agreed by Government of Sudan in its civil war, to treat health conditions such as Guinea worm and river blindness, lasts six months, the longest-ever health ceasefire [1]
Meeting of Interest
1997 Martin Luther King's son meets James Earl Ray, his father's killer
- 1998 Chicago Bulls - Atlanta Hawks matchup at Georgia Dome in Atlanta, draws a crowd of 62,046, largest in any game in NBA history; Bulls win, 89-74
- 2000 Phillips explosion kills 1 and injures 71 in Pasadena, Texas.
- 2002 Passover Massacre: Suicide bomber kills 29 people in Netanya, Israel
- 2004 HMS Scylla, a decommissioned Leander class frigate, is sunk as an artificial reef off Cornwall, the first of its kind in Europe.
- 2006 United Nations Commission on Human Rights holds its final meeting before it is replaced by the Human Rights Council
- 2009 Situ Gintung, an artificial lake in Indonesia, fails, killing at least 99 people
- 2012 On This Day launches a sister site in Spanish, Hoy en la Historia
- 2013 12 people are killed in the Philippines after a mini-tornado causes a boat to capsize
- 2014 UN General Assembly condemns Russia's annexation of Crimea
- 2015 Russia's Soyuz TMA-16M launches to deliver three crew members to the international space station to research the long-term effects of micro gravity
- 2016 Suicide bomb kills more than 70 people at a park in Lahore, Pakistan, Taliban connected Jamaat-ul-Ahrar claim responsibility
- 2019 British indie-rock duo "Her's" - English guitarist-singer Stephen Fitzpatrick (24) and Norwegian bassist Audun Laading (25), and American manager Trevor Engelbrektson (37) killed in car crash in Arizona
- 2019 Facebook bans white nationalism and white supremacy following criticism that Christchurch terrorist able to live-stream his attack
Event of Interest
2019 Former president of the Gambia Yahya Jammeh stole almost 1 billion from his country before his exile in 2017 according to a corruption report
Event of Interest
2019 Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces the country is now a "space power" after successfully shooting down a satellite from space in a ballistic missile test
- 2019 UK Prime Minister Theresa May promises to stand down if parliament accepts her Brexit plan
Event of Interest
2019 US Special Council Robert Mueller writes a letter to US Attorney William Barr regarding Barr's summary of the Mueller Report stating Barr's letter "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance" of the findings. "There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations."
Event of Interest
2020 $2.2 trillion stimulus package, largest in US history, signed into law by President Donald Trump saying "I never signed anything with a 'T' on it"
2020 UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announces he has contracted COVID-19 but will continue to lead the country "thanks to the wizardry of modern technology" while in self-isolation
- 2021 114 people including children killed in one day by armed forces in Myanmar, with more than 420 killed since protests began against the military coup [1]
- 2021 Iran and China sign major agreement guaranteeing Chinese investment of $400 billion and Iranian oil supply in return in Tehran [1]
- 2021 Militants attack the town of Palma, northern Mozambique, killing dozens in an escalation of violence in the area
- 2022 China announces Shanghai will be locked down in two stages over nine days affecting 25 million people to carry out COVID-19 testing [1]
Event of Interest
2022 Duke and Duchess of Cambridge end an eight-day tour of Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas that highlighted issues of decolonization and calls for slave reparations [1]
- 2022 El Salvador's parliament declares a state of emergency after 62 gang killings in one day [1]
- 2023 At least 40 people are killed and 28 injured in a fire at a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juárez on the Mexican US border, amid large numbers of migrants gathering on the Mexican border [1]
- 2023 Convicted rapist fakes his own death by pretending to set himself alight (in reality kills someone else) to escape from prison in South Africa, sparking large manhunt [1]
- 2023 Female shooter kills three children and three adults at private Christian school Convent Elementary, in Nashville, Tennessee, before being shot and killed - 19th US school shooting in three months [1]
- 2023 Germany experiences one of its largest strikes in decades, bringing public transport comes to an almost complete halt, amid calls for higher wages [1]
- 2023 Humza Yousaf elected leader of Scottish SNP party as first ethnic minority leader of a devolved government and first Muslim to lead a major UK party
Netanyahu Pauses Judicial Reform
2023 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announces pause of key part of controversial plans to overhaul the justice system after massive protests and the country's largest trade union goes on strike [1]
- 2023 Possibility of bases on the Moon becomes greater after 300 billion tonnes of water, stored in glass beads on the Moon's surface, are identified in lunar soil samples collected by China’s Chang’e-5 [1]
- 2023 World's oldest tartan is confirmed to be up to 500 years old after testing on material found 40 years earlier in a Glen Affric bog by experts at National Museums Scotland [1]
- 2024 Harvard University says it will remove a 19th century book binding of human skin, originally taken without consent from a deceased French mental patient [1]
- 2024 New analysis confirms climate change is slowing the rotation of Earth due to melting ice caps and will probably delay the next leap second by three years [1]
- 2025 European space telescope Gaia is shut down after a decade of charting the Milky Way and collecting data on nearly two billion stars and other celestial objects [1]
- 2025 Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces a major restructure of the US Department of Health, including laying off 33 % of its workforce, about 10,000 employees [1]
- 2026 Former rapper Balen Shah is sworn in as Nepal's 40th Prime Minister after a landslide victory in the country's first election since youth protests in 2025 [1]
- 2134 32nd predicted perihelion passage of Halley's Comet
