- 296 St Gaius ends his reign as Catholic Pope
- 536 St. Agapetus I ends his reign as Catholic Pope
- 1056 Supernova Crab nebula last seen by the naked eye
- 1073 Pope Alexander II buried and Cardinal Hildebrand is chosen as Pope Gregory VII
- 1145 19th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet
- 1164 Raynald of Dassel names Guido di Crema as anti-pope Paschalis III
- 1370 Building begins on the Bastille fortress in Paris
- 1453 Ottoman Turks transport their first ships overland into the Golden Horn, bypassing the chain barrier protecting Constantinople
1509 Henry VIII, 2nd Tudor king of England ascends to the throne at age 17, after the death of his father, Henry VII
France Declares War
1521 French King Francis I declares war against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the Habsburg Empire
- 1526 First slave revolt in North America occurs at San Miguel de Gualdape, a Spanish settlement now part of South Carolina
- 1529 Treaty of Saragosa: Spain and Portugal divide eastern hemisphere
- 1601 First expedition of the English East India Company to the Spice Islands of the Moluccas departs Torbay
- 1608 Dutch trading ship arrives at the kingdom of Loango (modern Congo) to acquire ivory, their king requests audience with VOC official Pieter van den Broecke [1]
Richard Cromwell Disbands Parliament
1659 Lord Protector Richard Cromwell disbands English parliament
- 1674 Netherlands and Münster sign peace treaty
- 1676 Battle of Etna - Netherlands and Spain vs France, M de Ruyter fatally wounded
1692 Edward Bishop is jailed for proposing flogging as a cure for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts
- 1712 Last sighting of the Dutch ship Zuytdorp as it leaves the Cape of Good Hope carrying a cargo of silver with 200 crew and passengers; the wreck is discovered in 1927 north of Perth, Western Australia [1]
- 1721 HMS Seahorse, infected with smallpox, arrives in Boston Harbor, causing the first outbreak in two decades; half of the population contracts it, resulting in 850 deaths [1]
- 1722 19 VOC "komplotteurs" in Batavia executed
- 1728 Pierre de Marivaux's play "Le Triomphe de Plutus" premieres in Paris
- 1745 Austria & Bavaria sign Peace Treaty of Füssen, ending Bavaria's participation (on the French side) in the War of the Austrian Succession
- 1769 Madame du Barry becomes French King Louis XV's "official" mistress
- 1793 President Washington attends the opening of Ricketts's, the first circus in the US
Rossini's Early Performance
1804 Gioachino Rossini performs as a singer in Imola, Italy, aged only 12 years old
Battle of Eckmühl
1809 Battle of Eckmühl: Napoleon's French and Bavarian force defeats the Austrians under the Archduke Charles at Eggmühl, Bavaria. Gives Napoleon the strategic initiative for the rest of the War of the Fifth Coalition.
- 1817 Curaçao prohibits the use of white paint due to intense sunlight
- 1823 Baltic Club (Exchange) forms in London
- 1823 British inventor Robert John Tyers patents an in-line roller skate he calls the "Volito" with a single row of five wooden wheels, a wooden sole, and a curved iron bar at the front as a rudimentary brake [1]
- 1838 English steamship "Sirius" docks in NYC after crossing the Atlantic, providing the first transatlantic steam passenger service
- 1848 Captain James Fitzjames and 105 surviving crew depart their ice-trapped ships for safety in Arctic Canada; all later perish as part of John Franklin's doomed Northwest Passage expedition [1]
- 1864 US mints 2-cent coin, first appearance of "In God We Trust"
- 1871 All German Jews emancipated after the German Constitution adopted by its last state Bavaria
- 1876 First official National League baseball game is played; Boston Red Caps beat Philadelphia Athletics, 6-5 at the Jefferson Street Grounds, Philadelphia
- 1876 Philadelphia native Tim McGinley of the Boston Red Caps scores baseball National League's 1st run, in Philadelphia
- 1884 Thomas Stevens leaves San Francisco on the first bicycle trip around the world, which takes him 2 years and 9 months
- 1889 A 1.9 million-acre tract of Indian Territory for white colonial settlement in Oklahoma officially starts at 12pm
- 1893 Francis Dhanis army occupies Kasongo
Kruger Again Transvaal President
1893 Paul Kruger elected President of Transvaal for the third time
- 1894 The very first Venice Biennale opens in Venice, Italy, as a biennial exhibition of Italian art [1]
- 1897 NYC Jewish newspaper "Forward" begins publishing (still active)
- 1898 1st Spanish–American War action sees the USS Nashville capture a Spanish ship
- 1898 Baltimore James Hughes no-hits Boston Braves 8-0
- 1898 Cincinnati Red Theodore Breitenstein no-hits Pirates 11-0
- 1898 Congress passes Volunteer Army Act calling for a Volunteer Cavalry
- 1903 American Power Boat Association forms
- 1903 NY Highlanders (Yankees) play their first MLB game, losing 3-1 before 11,950 spectators against the Washington Senators at American League Park
- 1905 Operations begin uniting the Conservatory of Nature Monument Amsterdam
- 1906 Intercalated Games opens in Athens
- 1906 New rule puts umpire in sole charge of all game balls
- 1908 Queensland beat NSW by 171 runs for their 1st cricket win at Gabba
- 1913 Montenegro troops march into Skoetari, North-Albania
Ruth's 1st Professional Game
1914 Babe Ruth's 1st professional game (as a pitcher) is a 6-hit 6-0 win
- 1915 First military use of poison gas occurs when Germany uses chlorine gas against the Allies along the Western Front at Ypres, France in World War I [1]
- 1915 NY Yankees don pinstripes & hat-in-the-ring logo for 1st time
- 1916 Chief of Staff of the Irish Volunteers Eóin MacNeill issues the Countermanding order in Dublin to try to stop what would become the Easter Rising
- 1916 Chinese troop transport ship Hsin-Yu and cruiser Hai-Yung collide in fog south of the Chusan Islands, killing about 1,000 people
- 1916 Karl Spindler scuttles the Aud near Daunt's Rock, to prevent its cargo of 20,000 rifles destined for Irish republicans falling into enemy hands
- 1922 South Ossetian Autonomous Region forms in Georgian SSR
- 1924 Hague Chambers of Commerce forms
- 1926 Persia, Turkey & Afghanistan sign treaties of security
- 1927 Roger Sessions' 1st Symphony in E premieres with Serge Koussevitzky conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra
- 1930 British troops battle pro-independence revolutionaries in the Jalalabad hills near Chittagong, Bengal province, British India, 80 troops and 12 revolutionaries killed
- 1930 US, Britain & Japan sign London Naval Treaty
- 1931 Egypt & Iraq sign peace treaty
- 1933 Dutch government forbids left wing radio address
Little Bohemia Lodge Raid
1934 US Division of Investigation (later the FBI) under Melvin Purvis botch an operation to capture the John Dillinger Gang at Little Bohemia Lodge, Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, with 2 dead and 4 injured
- 1937 NYC college students stage 4th annual peace strike
- 1940 Rear Admiral Joseph Taussig testifies before US Senate Naval Affairs Committee that war with Japan is inevitable
- 1943 German counterattack in North Tunisia
- 1943 RAF shoots down 14 German transport planes over Mediterranean Sea
- 1944 Allies land near Hollandia, New Guinea
1945 Battle of Berlin: Upon being informed that a planned counter-attack never happened, Adolf Hitler flies into a rage, denounces the German Army and concedes World War II is lost
- 1945 Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany is liberated by the Polish Army
Himmler's Secret Meeting
1945 SS chief Heinrich Himmler secretly meets with Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden, asking him to act as an intermediary for a surrender offer to the Western Allies. The Allies do not take the offer seriously.
- 1945 Stanley Cup Final, Olympia Stadium, Detroit, MI: Toronto Maple Leafs beat Detroit Red Wings, 2-1 for a 4-3 series win; Leafs lead series 3-0, but Wings recover to 3-3 to force a decider
- 1946 Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) is founded in East Germany via a merger of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD)
- 1948 WTVR TV channel 6 in Richmond, VA (CBS) begins broadcasting
- 1952 First atomic explosion shown on network news from the Nevada Test Site
- 1954 Achiel van Acker forms Belgian government
- 1954 NBA adopts 24-second shot clock and six-team foul rule
- 1954 US Senate Army-McCarthy televised hearings begin
- 1954 USSR joins UNESCO
- 1955 KC Athletic's 1st game, beat Tigers 6-2
- 1957 All NL baseball teams integrate, John Irwin Kennedy becomes the 1st Black player for the Philadelphia Phillies
- 1959 Chicago White Sox beat KC Athletics 20-6, in 1 inning Sox score 11 runs on 1 hit, 10 walks, & 3 errors
Baseball Record
1959 Yankee Whitey Ford strikes out 15, beating Senators, 1-0 in 14 innings
- 1961 Uprising of French parachutist of General Salan and Challe in Algeria
- 1962 NY Mets tie an NL record by losing 9 straight to start the season
- 1962 Pirates tie then record of 10 straight wins to start season
- 1962 Stanley Cup Final, Chicago Stadium, Chicago, IL: Dick Duff scores the winner as Toronto Maple Leafs beat Chicago Blackhawks, 2-1 for a 4-2 series victory
- 1964 World's Fair at Flushing Meadow, Corona Park, NY opens
- 1966 Atlanta Braves win their 1st game, beating NY Mets 8-4
- 1966 The Troggs second single "Wild Thing" released; tops the charts in July
- 1966 USSR performs underground nuclear test
- 1967 Martial Law goes into effect in Greece
Joe Frazier KOs Dave Zyglewick
1969 American Joe Frazier KOs American Dave Zyglewick in 1st round to retain heavyweight boxing title, in Houston, Texas
- 1969 Bernadette Devlin, the youngest woman ever to be elected to Westminster, makes a controversial maiden speech in the House of Commons concerning the situation in Northern Ireland
- 1969 First human eye transplant is performed
1st Single-Handed Circumnavigation
1969 Robin Knox-Johnston ends 312 days of non-stop sailing to become the 1st person to perform a single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of the globe
- 1970 First Earth Day celebrated, founded by Gaylord Nelson
- 1970 NY Met Jerry Grote sets record of 20 put outs by a catcher
Baseball Record
1970 NY Met Tom Seaver strikes out last 10 Padres, for a total of 19
- 1970 Senators beat Yankees 2-1 in 18 innings
- 1971 Soyuz 10 launches as the world's first mission to the first-ever space station (the Salyut 1) however the docking was unsuccessful and the cosmonauts returned to Earth
- 1972 An 11-year-old boy killed by a rubber bullet fired by the British Army in Belfast; he was the first to die from a rubber bullet impact
- 1972 NASA Apollo 16 astronauts John Young and Charles Duke ride the Lunar Rover on the Moon
1st US Female Nightly News Anchor
1976 Barbara Walters becomes the first female US nightly network news anchor (ABC News)
Event of Interest
1978 Firestone World Bowling Tournament of Champions won by Earl Anthony
- 1979 Keyboardist Brent Mydland plays his first concert as a member of the Grateful Dead at the Spartan Stadium, San Jose, California
Rolling Stones Benefit Concerts
1979 The Rolling Stones play two benefit concerts for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, in Oshawa, Ontario; performance part of guitarist Keith Richards’ heroin conviction sentence
- 1981 10,000 copper workers in Chile strike
- 1981 Almost 1 million West German metalworkers go on strike
- 1981 More than $3.3 million is stolen from the First National Bank of Arizona in Tucson in one of the largest US bank robberies in history
- 1981 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1982 Atlanta Braves lose after winning 1st 13 games of season
- 1983 Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1983 Soyuz T-8 returns to Earth
- 1983 Start of 1st Sri Lanka-Australia Test Cricket match (at Kandy)
1983 Stern magazine announces at a press conference the discovery of 60 volumes of personal diaries written by Adolf Hitler, which turn out to be a hoax
- 1986 Consumer Price Index drops .04% for 2nd month in a row
- 1986 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1987 Sri Lanka Air Force bomb Tamil, 100s killed
- 1988 NJ Devil Patrik Sundstrom sets NHL playoff record of 8 pts in a playoff game (hat trick & 5 assists) in 10-4 rout over the Capitals
- 1988 Women are allowed to compete in Little 500 bicycle race (Indiana)
- 1990 Lebanon release US hostage Robert Polhill after 39 months
- 1990 NFL Draft: University of Illinois quarterback Jeff George first pick by Indianapolis Colts
- 1991 Earthquake strikes Costa Rica & Panama, kills 95
- 1991 Frank Thomas is 1st White Sox to homer at new Comiskey Park
i486SX Released
1991 Intel releases the lower-cost i486SX microprocessor
Carson Announces Retirement
1991 Johnny Carson announces he will retire next year from "The Tonight Show"
- 1991 Shalom America (Jewish cable network) is launched in Brooklyn & Queens
- 1992 6.1 earthquake under the Little San Bernadino Mountains, near Joshua Tree, California
- 1992 Gas explodes in sewer, kills 200 in Guadalajara, Mexico
- 1992 Plane crash at Perris Valley Airport California, kills 16 parachutists
- 1993 Candid Camera creator Allen Funt suffers a stroke at 78
- 1993 Holocaust Memorial Museum dedicated in Washington, D.C.
- 1993 Seattle Mariner Chris Basio no-hits Boston Red Sox
- 1993 Web browser Mosaic version 1.0 is released
- 1994 7,000 Tutsi are slaughtered by Hutus in the stadium at Kibuye, Rwanda
Figure Skating History
1994 American figure skater Tonya Harding sues ex-husband Jeff Gillooly for $42,500
- 1994 Børge Ousland is the first person on a solo and unsupported journey to reach the North Pole
- 1994 Schelto Patijn appointed Mayor of Amsterdam
- 1994 World's largest lollipop, weighing 3,011 pounds, made by BonBon, a candy factory in Home-Olstrup, Denmark; record later broken
- 1995 General Tire World Bowling Tournament of Champions won by Mike Aulby
Foreman vs Schulz
1995 George Foreman beats Axel Schulz in 12 for heavyweight boxing title in Las Vegas, Nevada
- 1995 NFL Draft: Penn State running back Ki-Jana Carter first pick by Cincinnati Bengals
- 1997 Haouch Khemisti massacre near Bougara in Algeria, an armed group kills 93 villagers for refusing to provide food and supplies
- 1997 Japanese embassy hostage crisis ends in Lima, Peru
- 1998 Disney's Animal Kingdom opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida
- 1999 Luis Garavito [The Beast, Tribilín], Colombian serial killer described as "the world's worst serial killer" (138-300+ victims) apprehended
- 2000 In a pre-dawn raid, federal agents seize six-year-old Elián González from his relatives' home in Miami, Florida
- 2000 The Big Number Change takes place in the United Kingdom
- 2004 Two fuel trains collide in Ryongchon, North Korea, destroying 1,850 houses and killing a large but unknown number of people
- 2006 Four Canadian soldiers are killed 75 kilometers north of Kandahar, Afghanistan by a roadside bomb planted by Taliban militants, the worst single day combat loss for the Canadian army since the Korean War
- 2006 Nepalese security forces open fire on pro-democracy protesters demonstrating against King Gyanendra, injuring hundreds. The protesters secure the restoration of parliament and a federal state
- 2010 NFL Draft: Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford first pick by St. Louis Rams
- 2012 30-year-old woman collapses and dies during London Marathon
Premiere of Veep
2012 TV political comedy "Veep" created by Armando Iannucci, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Anna Chlumsky premieres on HBO
- 2013 6 people are killed in a shooting rampage in Belgorod, Russia
- 2013 Manchester United defeat Aston Villa to claim the 2012/2013 English Premier League
- 2014 David Moyes is sacked as manager of Manchester United
- 2016 Paris Agreement on climate change is signed in New York, binding 195 nations to limit the increase in the global average temperature to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C
- 2018 Bus crash in North Korea kills 36, with most Chinese tourists
- 2018 Gunman opens fire at a Waffle House in Nashville, Tennessee, killing four before James Shaw Jr. wrestled the rifle from the gunman's hands
Footballer of the Year
2018 Liverpool's Egyptian soccer forward Mohamed Salah is named Professional Footballers' Association Player of the Year
- 2018 Saudi-led coalition airstrike kills more than 20 at a wedding in northwestern Yemen
- 2020 Sudan bans female genital mutilation and makes it a criminal offense
- 2021 India sets a world record for daily COVID-19 cases recording 314,835 new cases with 2,104 deaths
Leaders Summit on Climate
2021 US President Joe Biden pledges to cut US carbon emissions by 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030 at a virtual climate summit
Editor Sacked for AI Interview
2023 Editor of German magazine "Die Aktuelle" sacked after running a so-called interview generated by AI with FI racing driver Michael Schumacher [1]
- 2023 Foreign countries begin evacuating their citizens out of Khartoum, Sudan's capital, as fighting continues to escalate, with WHO and UN saying over 400 people killed and 200,000 fled the country [1]
- 2023 Record outbreak of dengue fever in northwest Argentina kills over 40 people and infects more than 60,000 [1]
- 2024 Britain's Parliament approves a controversial bill to send asylum seekers to Rwanda [1]
- 2024 Widespread flooding across southern China forces the evacuation of 110,000 people with warning of a "once in a century" flood on the Bei River [1]
- 2025 At least 5,000 residents are evacuated as wildfire burns across 12,500 acres in Pine Barrens, New Jersey [1]
- 2025 Earth Day: National Geographic releases a new documentary, "Secrets of the Penguins," featuring the first drone footage in the world of penguin chicks jumping off a 50-foot cliff to take their first swim [1]
- 2025 Gunmen kill at least 26 mostly Indian tourists and injure a dozen others in Pahalgam, Kashmir; militant group known as The Resistance Front claim responsibility through social media
