- 1205 Battle of Adrianople: Bulgarians and Cumans under Tsar Kaloyan of Bulgaria ambush and defeat the Latin Emperor of Constantinople, Baldwin I
- 1250 Kublai is acclaimed the Great Khan by a Mongol Great Council
Pope Denies Synagogue
1250 Pope Innocent IV refuses Jews of Cordova, Spain their request to build a synagogue
Anglo-Portuguese Alliance
1385 At war with Castile, John I of Portugal instructs his ambassadors to negotiate an alliance with Richard II of England and to raise loans to pay his troops
- 1450 Battle of Formigny: French defeat the English decisively in the Hundred Years' War, paving the way for the capture of English strongholds in Normandy
Columbus Meets Isabella and Ferdinand
1493 Christopher Columbus is received by the Spanish monarchs Isabella I and Ferdinand II in Barcelona upon his return from the New World. Columbus presents kidnapped Taínos indigenous people, plants and items collected from the Caribbean.
- 1502 Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres, new Governor of the Indies, lands in Hispaniola, replacing Christopher Columbus
- 1528 Pánfilo the Narváez, Spanish conquistador arrives in Florida with 350 men to a hostile reception from native indians
Personal Union of Portugal and Spain
1581 Portuguese assembly the Cortes of Tomar recognizes Philip II of Spain as King of Portugal after a succession crisis
- 1594 Flemish painter Pieter Stevens is appointed as the royal painter of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II in Prague
Grotius' Great Escape
1621 Hugo Grotius arrives in France after escaping prison in a book chest
- 1632 Battle of Rain: Swedish forces under Gustavus Adolphus defeat Count Tilly of the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War
- 1654 The Commonwealth of England and the United Netherlands sign a peace treaty ending the First Anglo-Dutch War
Battle of Dharmat
1658 Battle of Dharmat won by future Moghul emperor Aurangzeb, who defeats his brother and designated heir Dara Shikoh
France Declares War on Spain
1689 French King Louis XIV declares war on Spain
King Charles XII
1697 Charles XII succeeds his father, Charles XI, as King of Sweden
- 1715 Pocotaligo Massacre of four South Carolina representatives triggers the start of the Yamasee War in colonial South Carolina
- 1716 Great Northern War: Prussian troops occupy Swedish controlled German port of Wismar
St Matthew Passion
1729 Johann Sebastian Bach's "St Matthew Passion" premieres at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, Electorate of Saxony, Holy Roman Empire
A Dictionary of the English Language
1755 Samuel Johnson's "A Dictionary of the English Language" is published in London
- 1776 Duchess of Kingston is found guilty of bigamy
- 1783 American Revolution: the Continental Congress ratified preliminary articles of peace, ending the seven-year-long war with Great Britain.
- 1788 Britain, Netherlands & Prussia sign peace treaty
- 1793 Bank of England issues first £5 note
Wordworth's Daffodils
1802 William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy see a "long belt" of daffodils, inspiring the former to pen "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud".
- 1817 The American Asylum, now known as the American School for the Deaf (ASD), is the first permanent US school for the deaf, founded by Rev. Thomas Gallaudet, Dr. Mason Cogswell, and teacher Laurent Clerc in West Hartford, Connecticut
- 1848 77 enslaved people attempt to escape the United States onboard The Pearl in Washington, D.C., in the largest nonviolent escape attempt in US history
- 1850 City of San Francisco incorporated
- 1851 Earl G Andressy sentenced to death in Hungary
- 1853 Dutch Protestant church petition King William III against re-establishment of Roman Catholic bishops in the Netherlands, he does so anyway
- 1858 Battle of Azimghur, Mexicans defeat Spanish loyalists
Federal Army Mobilized
1861 Federal army of 75,000 volunteers is mobilized by President Abraham Lincoln at the start of the American Civil War
Dickinson Writes to Higginson
1862 American poet Emily Dickinson first corresponds with author and future literary mentor Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a relationship that lasts the rest of her life
- 1864 General Steeles' Union troops occupies Camden, Arkansas
1865 Abraham Lincoln dies nine hours after he is shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending the play "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theatre in Washington
- 1865 Mobile, Alabama is captured by Union forces after a siege led by General Canby
- 1870 Last day US silver coins allow to circulate in Canada
- 1874 NY legislature passes compulsory education law
- 1877 World's first home telephone is installed in Somerville, Massachusetts at the house of Charles Williams Jr. [1]
- 1878 Harley Procter introduces Ivory Soap
Boule de Suif
1880 Guy de Maupassant's short story masterpiece "Boule de Suif" (Dumpling) is first published in the collection "Les Soirées de Médan"
General Electric Company
1892 General Electric Company formed by merger of Thomas Edison's General Electric Company with Thomson-Houston Electric Company, arranged by J. P. Morgan and incorporated in NY
- 1895 Josephine Blatt (US) makes hip-and-harness lift of 3564 lb (record)
- 1896 1st Modern Summer Olympic Games close at Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, Greece; USA wins gold medal count with 11 and Greece the total medal count with 46
- 1900 An early 50 mile race is won by an electric car in over 2 hrs
- 1900 Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) in Paris opens (till 12th Nov)
- 1901 1st British motorized burial
Leo XIII Deplores Hostility
1901 Pope Leo XIII issues an allocution deploring hostile actions against the Roman Catholic Church throughout Europe
- 1902 Pope Leo XIII encyclical "On Church in US"
- 1902 Rioting and arson continue in Russia with peasants plundering estates to find food.
- 1902 Russian minister of interior and head of secret police, Sipyengin, is assassinated by the 'Terror Brigade' of the Socialist Revolutionaries
- 1906 The Armenian organization AGBU is established.
- 1911 Jack Lawrence Theater (Playhouse) opens at 137 W 48th St NYC
Johnson's Strike Out Record
1911 Walter Johnson pitches a record tying 4 strike outs in an inning
1912 RMS Titanic sinks at 2:20 AM off Newfoundland as the band plays on, with the loss of between 1,490 and 1,635 lives
- 1915 Manuel de Falla's ballet "El Amor Brujo" premieres in Madrid
France reveals Secret Peace Overtures
1918 The Sixtus Affair: French Minister Georges Clémenceau publishes secret documents showing Austrian Emperor Karl made overtures of peace to France
- 1920 New Canadian small cent coin is released
- 1920 Sacco & Vanzetti Trial: paymaster shot and killed along with his guard
- 1921 Black Friday in Britain: leaders of transport and rail unions announce a decision not to call for strike action in support of coal miners, breaking the "Triple Alliance" of trade unions in the country
- 1922 The legendary Poodle Dog Restaurant closes in San Francisco
- 1923 1st sound on film public performance shown at Rialto Theater (NYC)
- 1923 Insulin becomes generally available for diabetics
- 1924 Flemish-Walloon riots in Louvain, Belgium, 1 dead
- 1924 Rand McNally publishes its first road atlas.
- 1924 WHO-AM in Des Moines Iowa begins radio transmissions
- 1925 NHL's NY Americans (formerly Hamilton Tigers) 1st game, lose 3-1
- 1926 Sesquicentennial Stadium opens in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; renamed Philadelphia Municipal Stadium, later renamed JFK Stadium (demolished 1992); played host to Tunney-Demspy fight (1926); 41 Army-Navy football games; professional football; and many concerts, including the US portion of Live-Aid (1985)
- 1927 Switzerland & USSR agree to diplomatic relations
Babe Ruth's 60 HR Record
1927 Yankees slugger Babe Ruth hits #1 of MLB record season 60 HRs; tees off on A's Howard Ehmke in 1st inning of New York's 6-3 win over Philadelphia
- 1928 Alioto's on Fisherman's Wharf (San Francisco) forms
- 1931 First backward walk across America begins
- 1936 Irish government authorizes establishment of Aer Lingus (Aerloingeas) as the national airline of the Republic of Ireland
- 1937 Stanley Cup Final, Olympia Stadium, Detroit, MI: Detroit Red Wings beat New York Rangers, 3-0 for a 3-2 series win; back-to-back titles for Red Wings
- 1938 Anti-Jewish riots break out in in Dąbrowa Tarnowska, Poland
- 1939 Albert Lebrun re-elected president of France
- 1940 British troops land at Narvik, Norway
- 1941 1st helicopter flight of 1 hr duration, Stratford, Ct
Malta the George Cross
1942 George VI awards George Cross to people of Malta
- 1943 Metropolitan Life Insurances issues a $225 million check to Chase
Burial of FDR
1945 34th US President FDR buried in grounds of his Hyde Park home, New York state
- 1945 British Army liberates Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen
Communium Interpretes Dolorum
1945 Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical "Communium Interpretes Dolorum"
Robinson 1st MLB African American
1947 Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to play in Major League Baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers
- 1947 Operations begin at Radio Netherlands World radio
- 1948 1st Jewish-Arab military battle, arabs defeated
- 1948 F. H. Thornton observes a flash of light in crater Plato on the Moon
- 1948 Indian territory of Himachal Pradesh created
- 1948 KCPX (now KTVX) TV channel 4 in Salt Lake City, UT (ABC) 1st broadcast
- 1949 Pope Pius XII publishes encyclical Redemptoris nostri
- 1951 Michael Gorsira is 1st person in charge of Curacao
- 1952 Archaeologist Albert Ruz discovers the tomb of Pakal, the greatest ruler of the Maya city of Palenque
- 1952 Franklin National Bank issues 1st bank credit card
- 1952 Stanley Cup Final, Olympia Stadium, Detroit, MI: Detroit Red Wings beat Montreal Canadiens, 3-0 for a 4-0 series sweep
- 1952 The maiden flight of the US Air Force B-52 Stratofortress prototype, designed and built by Boeing
- 1952 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1953 Malans National Party wins South African elections
- 1953 WHP TV channel 21 in Harrisburg, PA (CBS) begins broadcasting
- 1954 KARK TV channel 4 in Little Rock, AR (NBC) begins broadcasting
- 1954 Orioles 1st game in Baltimore beat White Sox 3-1
- 1954 WHO TV channel 13 in Des Moines, IA (NBC) begins broadcasting
- 1954 Yankees dedicate a plaque to Edward Barrow
Event of Interest
1955 Ray Kroc opens the first McDonald's Inc. fast food restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois
- 1955 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1957 KTVI TV channel 2 in Saint Louis, MO (ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1957 Saturday mail delivery restored in the US after Congress gives the Post Office $41 million
- 1958 1st baseball game in California, SF Giants beat LA Dodgers, 8-0
- 1960 American folk singer and musciologisr Guy Carawan sings "We Shall Overcome" to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Raleigh, North Carolina, popularizing the song as a protest anthem
- 1960 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), organizes at Shaw U
- 1962 US national debt above $300,000,000,000
- 1964 Chesapeake Bay Bridge opens (world's longest)
- 1965 NFL changes penalty flag from white to bright gold
Aftermath
1966 Decca Records releases "Aftermath," the fourth studio album by the Rolling Stones, in UK (6th in US)
- 1966 KHET TV channel 11 in Honolulu, Hawaii (PBS) begins broadcasting
Music History
1967 Nancy Sinatra and Frank Sinatra's duet single "Somethin' Stupid" begins a four-week run at #1
Sports History
1968 Houston Astros beat NY Mets, 1-0, in 24 innings at the Astrodome; starting pitchers Tom Seaver and Don Wilson pitch 10 and 9 innings respectively in game that lasts over 6 hours
Green Is Blues
1969 Hi Records releases "Green Is Blues", the second studio album by American soul singer-songwriter Al Green; his first pairing with producer Willie Mitchell led to a long-time collaboration and string of hits in the early 1970s
- 1969 North Korea shoots at US airplane above Japanese sea
- 1970 Libyan leader Gadaffi launches "Green Revolution"
- 1970 WMGZ TV channel 16 in Mayaguez, PR ([M]) begins broadcasting
- 1970 WPSJ TV channel 14 in Ponce, PR ([P]) begins broadcasting
- 1971 The Beatles win their only Academy Award as "Let It Be" earns Oscar or Best Original Song
- 1972 A member of the British Army is shot dead by the Official IRA in the Divis area of Belfast.
- 1972 A member of the Official Irish Republican Army is shot dead by British soldiers at Joy Street in the Markets area of Belfast close to his home
- 1974 President Diori Hamani is deposed in a military coup in Niger
- 1975 Gabon amends constitution
- 1976 Yankee stadium reopens after extensive renovation, Yankees beat Minnesota Twins after trailing 4-0
- 1977 1st baseball game at Montreal's Olympic Stadium
- 1978 43 die as 2 express trains collide head-on south of Bologna, Italy
- 1978 Great Britain performs nuclear test
- 1979 Magnitude 6.9 earthquake strikes the Montenegro and Albanian coast, killing 136 people
- 1981 Janet Cooke says her Pulitzer award-winning story about an 8-year-old heroin addict is a lie, Washington Post relinquishes Pulitzer Prize on fabricated story
- 1982 Apollo Computer announces the DN400, DN420, and landscape display
- 1983 Tokyo Disneyland opens
- 1984 Extremist Sikhs plunder 40 stations in Punjab India
- 1984 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1985 Challenger moves to launch pad for 51-B missing
- 1986 US air raids Libya, responding to La Belle disco, Berlin bombing
- 1986 US aircraft attacks five terrorist and military targets in Libya
- 1986 US launches Operation El Dorado Canyon against Libya
- 1987 Alfred Uhry's stage drama "Driving Miss Daisy", starring Morgan Freeman and Dana Ivey opens Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons Studio Theatre, later transferring to the John Houseman Theatre; runs for 1,195 performances
- 1988 Meteorite explode above Indonesia
- 1989 Hillsborough disaster: 96 people are crushed to death and 766 are injured at Hillsborough Football Stadium in Sheffield, England, during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest
- 1989 Students in Beijing pro-democracy protests
- 1989 Sue Marchiano wins 3rd World Cup female marathon (2:30:48)
- 1989 Then largest lottery in North America ($69M) drawn in Illinois
- 1990 Greenidge & Haynes make 298 opening stand (v England), combination best
- 1990 Sketch comedy TV series "In Living Color" premieres on FOX TV
- 1991 Dutch checker Ton Sijbrands improves world record blind checker games (15 wins)
- 1991 East-Europe Bank forms in London
- 1991 Europe foreign ministers lift most remaining sanctions against South Africa
- 1991 Former child actor Adam Rich (Eight Is Enough) charged with burglary
- 1991 New York State raises maximum unemployment benefits to $280 per week
- 1991 Sacramento Kings set NBA record, losing 35th consecutive game on road
- 1992 Billionaire Leona Helmsley is sent to jail for tax evasion
TV Show Appearance
1992 Jay Leno's final appearance as permanent guest host of The Tonight Show
- 1992 Lincoln Hospital in Bronx. New York loses its accreditation
- 1992 National Assembly of Vietnam adopts the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Sports History
1992 NY Islander coach Al Arbour sets a record for coaching the most NHL games at 1,438
- 1992 United Nations Security Council imposes sanctions against Libya
- 1994 Indians loses 1st game at Jacobs Field, KC wins 2-1
Music History
1994 Jazz singer Tony Bennett records a session for "MTV's Unplugged" series at Sony Studios, NYC, featuring the Ralph Sharon trio, and guest appearances by Elvis Costello, and k.d.lang; album release wins 2 Grammy Awards
- 1994 WMMS-FM's Jeff & Flash, & entire station staff, are fired
Music History
1995 Dave Matthews Band make their 'Saturday Night Live' debut, performing "What Would You Say" and "Ants Marching"
- 1997 America Online (AOL) begins service in Japan
- 1997 Baseball honors Jackie Robinson by retiring #42 for all teams
- 1997 Fire sweeps through a campsite of Muslims making the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, killing 217 to 300 people and injuring 1,300
- 1997 Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Charlotte, North Carolina on WXRC 95.7 FM
Event of Interest
2000 Giant Sequoia National Monument proclamation signed by President Bill Clinton in California, preserving one-third of all giant sequoia groves, the world's largest tree [1]
- 2000 NFL Draft: Penn State defensive end Courtney Brown first pick by Cleveland Browns
- 2001 The Tradition Senior Men's Golf, GC at Desert Mountain: Doug Tewell wins his second & final Champions Tour major by 9 strokes from Mike McCullough
- 2002 Air China Boeing 767-200, flight CA129, crashes into a hillside during heavy rain and fog near Busan, South Korea, killing 128 people
- 2009 Even though official government sources state that Argentina's GDP will actually grow this year, private consulting firms state that Argentine economy has actually been in recession since October 2008
- 2010 Volcanic ash from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland leads to the closure of airspace over most of Europe
- 2011 "Black Friday" for online poker in the US: indictment United States v. Scheinberg shuts down sites, accusing companies of fraud and money laundering
- 2012 400 Islamist Militants escape from a Pakistan prison after an insurgent attack
- 2012 China loosens monetary policy and allows the Yuan to fluctuate up to 1% against the US dollar
Music Concert
2012 Hologram of late rapper Tupac features on stage with Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre at Coachella music festival
Girls
2012 TV comedy drama "Girls" created by and starring Lena Dunham premieres on HBO
- 2012 US Secret Service inappropriate conduct scandal begins with at least 11 people implicated
- 2013 33 people are killed and 163 are injured in a wave of bombings across Iraq
Laureus Awards
2015 Laureus World Sports Awards, Shanghai Grand Theatre, Shanghai, China: Sportsman: Novak Đoković; Sportswoman: Genzebe Dibaba; Team: German Men's National Football team
- 2017 Suicide car bomb targets buses carrying Syrian evacuees at Rashidin, 126 killed including 70 children
- 2018 126.2 cm (49.69") of rainfall in a day, Waipā Garden (Kauai). Hawaii (state record, breaking previous record of 1956)
- 2019 3 days after winning Hobey Baker Award as top college hockey player, Cale Makar becomes first defenseman to score in NHL debut during the playoffs in Colorado's 6-2 Game 3 win over Calgary
Pulitzer Prize
2019 Aretha Franklin posthumously receives the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation honor, first individual woman to win it since 1930
- 2019 Los Angeles Clippers overcome an NBA record 31-point deficit to score an improbable 135-131 Game 2 playoff victory over the Golden State Warriors in Oakland; shooting guard Lou Williams 36 points
- 2019 Measles cases jump 300% in first three months of 2019, according to World Health Organization, largest rise in Africa (700%) with 800 deaths in Madagascar
2019 Paris cathedral Notre Dame catches fire, toppling its spire and destroying its roof
- 2020 Revised death count for New York taking into account assumed COVID-19 deaths makes the city's per-capita death rate higher than Italy at 10,367 at this date
Election of Interest
2020 South Korea is 1st country to hold a general election under COVID-19, President Moon Jae-in's ruling Democratic party wins in a landslide
- 2020 US's deadliest day during COVID-19 pandemic with 2,752 deaths reported
- 2021 "The failed response in Brazil has caused a humanitarian catastrophe" reports Dr. Christos Christou, president of Doctors Without Borders, as country records a quarter of world's COVID-19 deaths in last week [1]
- 2021 A shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, Indiana, leaves eight dead and five injured
- 2021 Court in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, sentences former warlord Amadé Ouérémi to a life sentence for massacres by his militia after the 2010 election
- 2021 India record over 200,000 (200,739) daily new cases of COVID-19 for the first time with 1,038 deaths amid massive second wave
Music Concert
2022 Coachella Valley music festival returns after a two-year hiatus with Harry Styles the headlining act on opening night in front of 100,000 [1]
- 2023 Germany ends its use of nuclear power, closing its last three nuclear power plants - Emsland, Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim to focus on renewable energy [1]
- 2023 Indian Atiq Ahmed, former lawmaker and convicted criminal, assassinated live on TV along with his brother Ashraf in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, while under police guard [1]
- 2024 AI systems now so advanced they nearly match or exceed humans in reading comprehension, image classification and competition-level mathematics, according to major new report [1]
Trump Stands Trial
2024 Donald Trump becomes the first former US President to stand trial on criminal charges as his hush money case begins in New York [1]
- 2024 Former political staffer Bruce Lehrmann loses his high profile defamation case against an Australian TV network, the court finds he did rape Brittany Higgins in 2019 at parliament [1]
- 2024 Sudan is on the edge of collapse warn aid agencies, on the one-year anniversary of a conflict that has displaced over 8.6 million people, including 2 million who fled to neighbouring countries [1]
- 2025 148 passengers die after a motorized wooden boat catches fire and capsizes in the Congo River near the town of Mbandaka [1]
- 2025 Sandstorm puts at least 3,700 people in hospitals with breathing difficulties, and two airports suspend flights due to poor visibility in central and southern Iraq [1]
