456 Saint Patrick returns to Ireland as a missionary bishop
- 823 Pope Peschalis I crowns Lotharius I as co-emperor of France
- 1058 Bishop Giovanni "Minchus" ["the thin"] elected as Anti-Pope Benedict X
Battle of the Ice
1242 Battle on the Ice: Russian Prince of Novgorod Alexander Nevsky defeats the Teutonic Knights on the frozen Lake Peipus between Estonia and Russia
James I Returns to Scotland
1424 Scottish King James I returns to Scotland after 18 years of detention at the English court
- 1566 Three hundred nobles in the Habsburg Netherlands submit the Compromise of Nobles petition to Margaret of Parma against the Inquisition and the enforcement of the placards against heresy
- 1585 Clemens Crabeels becomes bishop of 's-Hertogenbosch
- 1609 Daimyo (Lord) of the Satsuma Domain in southern Kyūshū, Japan, completes his successful invasion of the Ryūkyū Kingdom in Okinawa
- 1614 Second parliament of King James I begins session, no bills pass and lasts only 2 months and 2 days, thus its name the Addled Parliament
1621 Mayflower sails from Plymouth, Massachusetts on a return trip to England
- 1648 Spanish troops and feudal barons strike down people's uprising in Naples
1722 Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen is the first European to discover Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui, in the southeastern Pacific Ocean
- 1739 France and Prussia form an alliance against Austria over partitioning parts of the duchies of Jülich and Berg
- 1751 Adolf Frederik of Holstein-Gottorp crowns himself King of Sweden
- 1762 British take Grenada, West Indies, from the French
Sugar Tax Passed
1764 British Parliament passes the Sugar Tax on the American colonies, introduced by Prime Minister George Grenville
- 1768 First US Chamber of Commerce forms in NYC
1st Presidential Veto
1792 George Washington exercises first presidential veto to strike down a Congressional bill to increase the number of seats for northern states in the House of Representatives
Beethoven's 2nd Symphony
1803 1st performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's 2nd Symphony in D, conducted by the composer, in Vienna
- 1804 High Possil Meteorite: The first recorded meteorite in Scotland falls in Possil
- 1806 Isaac Quintard patents apple cider
- 1812 British storm Badajoz fortress in Extremadura, Spain, held by French & Spanish
- 1814 Netherlands Bank issues its 1st banknotes
1815 Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies, has its first violent eruption after several centuries of dormancy
Battle of Maipú
1818 Battle of Maipú: Chile's independence movement, led by Bernardo O'Higgins and José de San Martín, wins a decisive victory over Spain, leaving 2,000 Spaniards and 1,000 Chilean patriots dead
- 1847 First civic public park, Birkenhead Park, designed by Joseph Paxton, opens in Birkenhead, England
- 1861 Federals abandon Ft Quitman, Texas
- 1862 Siege of Yorktown, fought in York County and Newport News, Virginia ends (Yorktown campaign), inconclusive result (US Civil War)
- 1865 Battle at Amelia Springs, Jetersville Virginia (Appomattox Campaign)
- 1874 Johann Strauss Jr's opera "Die Fledermaus" premieres in Vienna
- 1879 Chile declares war on Bolivia and Peru, starting the War of the Pacific
- 1881 Transvaal regains independence under British suzerainty
Helen Keller's Lesson
1887 Anne Sullivan teaches "water" to blind and deaf six-year-old Helen Keller by holding one of her hands under a dripping water pump and spelling out “w-a-t-e-r” in Keller’s palm. Keller goes on to learn how to read, write, speak, and graduate from college
- 1893 Cleveland passes Park Act (forerunner of Metroparks)
- 1894 11 strikers killed in riot at Connellsville, Penn
Wilde v Queensberry
1895 Oscar Wilde loses libel case against Marquess of Queensberry, who accused him of homosexual practices
- 1897 The Greco-Turkish War, also called "Thirty Days' War", is declared between Greece and the Ottoman Empire.
- 1900 Attempted assassination of Edward Prince of Wales in Brussels, fails
- 1901 Under threats from the Ottoman Turkish Government, Bulgaria is forced to arrest the leaders of the Macedonian Committee
- 1902 In Glasgow, Scotland the Ibrox disaster occurs after a section of a grandstand collapses killing 25 and injuring 517
Pavane for A Dead Princess
1902 Maurice Ravel's "Pavane pour une infante defunte (Pavane for A Dead Princess)" premieres in Paris, performed by Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes
- 1904 The first international rugby league match is played between England and an Other Nationalities team (Welsh & Scottish players) in Central Park, Wigan, England.
Alice Sit-by-the-Fire
1905 J. M. Barrie's stage play "Alice Sit-by-the-Fire" premieres in London
- 1906 Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates towns in the Naples province, killing more than 100 people
- 1906 St Pius X encyclical "On the Mariavites or Mystic Priests of Poland"
- 1911 MCC tour match v Jamaica finishes in a tie
- 1911 Waldorf W Aster acquires Daily Observer
- 1915 French begin Woëvre-offensive
Willard vs Johnson
1915 Jess Willard KOs Jack Johnson after 26 rounds to win the heavyweight boxing title in front of 25,000 fans at Oriental Park Racetrack in Havana, Cuba
- 1916 French troops occupy Bois de Caillette
- 1919 Antwerp is officially declared the host city for the Games of the 7th Olympiad to be conducted in 1920; first post WWI Olympics
Eamon de Valera President
1919 Eamon de Valera becomes President of Dail Eireann, the Irish parliament
- 1919 Polish Army executes 35 young Jews
- 1922 KOB-AM in Albuquerque NM begins radio transmissions
- 1922 WDZ-AM in Decatur IL begins radio transmissions
Inflatable Tires
1923 Firestone Tire and Rubber Company starts producing inflatable tires
- 1925 Belgian Workers Party wins parliamentary election
Babe Ruth Collapses
1925 Yankees whip Dodgers in exhibition 16-9 but Babe Ruth collapses in NC due to an ulcer
- 1929 Lithuania signs Litvinov-pact
- 1930 England cricketers dismissed for then record 849 v West Indies in 4th Test in Kingston, Jamaica; Andy Sandham out for 325
1930 Mahatma Gandhi and thousands of followers reach the sea at Dandi and boil seawater to make illegal salt, marking the end of his famous 200 mile (300km) protest march against the widely hated British salt tax
- 1932 Dominion of Newfoundland: 10,000 rioters seize the Colonial Building leading to the end of self-government
- 1932 Dutch textile strike broken by trade unions
- 1934 Baseball superstar Babe Ruth agrees to do three 15-minute broadcasts a week over NBC for a fee of $39,000 for 13 weeks; $4,000 more than his NY Yankees playing contract
- 1935 Croatian Farmers Party wins Yugoslavian election
- 1936 Tupelo, Mississippi virtually annihilated by a tornado, 216 die
Gretchaninov's 5th Symphony
1939 Alexander Gretchaninov's 5th Symphony premieres at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia with Leopold Stowkowski conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra
- 1939 Membership of Hitler Youth becomes obligatory
- 1941 San Francisco Castro & Fillmore streetcars replaced by buses
1943 Chinese steward Poon Lim is found off the coast of Brazil by a Brazilian fishing family after being adrift for 133 days following the torpedoing of the British ship SS Benlomond by a German U-boat
- 1943 Mortsel, Belgium: Allies target Minerva car factory, used for repairing Luftwaffe planes for bombing raid; collateral damage from missed targets kills 936 civilians, Belgium's greatest loss of WWII
- 1944 World War II: 145 RAF Lancasters bomb German aircraft factory in Toulouse, France
- 1944 World War II: 270 inhabitants of the Greek town of Kleisoura are executed by the Germans
- 1945 World War II: Dutch city of Almelo is freed by the Second Canadian Corps
- 1948 WGN TV channel 9 in Chicago, IL (IND) begins broadcasting
- 1949 60 year old St Anthony's Hospital in Effingham, Illinois, catches fire, killing 77 people
- 1949 Fireside Theater debuts on US television.
- 1950 Prague espionage trial against bishops & priests begins
- 1952 Henry Wittenberg wins his 8th AAU wrestling title
- 1953 WEYI TV channel 25 in Saginaw, MI (CBS) begins broadcasting
- 1956 Ceylon's Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP), led by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike wins the general elections in a landslide
- 1958 Ripple Rock, an underwater threat to navigation in the Seymour Narrows in Canada is destroyed in one of the largest ever non-nuclear controlled explosions
- 1961 Dutch governor Platteel installs New Guinea Council
- 1962 Herb Gardner's "Thousand Clowns" premieres in NYC
- 1962 Mgr J Daems appointed bishop of Antwerp
Armstrong's X-15 Rocket
1962 NASA's Neil Armstrong pilots the X-15 to a height of 54,600 meters
- 1962 St Bernard Tunnel finished-Swiss/Italians workers shake hands
- 1963 Susuga Malietoa Tanumafili II becomes chief of Western Samoa
- 1963 The Beatles receive their first silver disc for "Please Please Me"
- 1964 1st driverless trains run on London Underground
- 1965 Lava Lamp Day celebrated
- 1965 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1966 WTVX TV channel 34 in Ft Pierce-Vero Beach, FL (IND) 1st broadcast
- 1967 ATS II launched but fails to reach orbit
- 1967 Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys is indicted for draft evasion and later arrested by the FBI
Music Concert
1968 Concert by singer James Brown at Boston Garden arena is broadcast live on public television in the aftermath of Martin Luther King's assassination [1]
- 1969 Massive anti-Vietnam War demonstrations occur in many U.S. cities
- 1970 WSNS TV channel 44 in Chicago, IL (IND) begins broadcasting
- 1971 Chicago, an American '"rock band with horns," begins a six-night, eight-show sold-out run at Carnegie Hall, NYC; all shows are recorded and a live four-LP box set is compiled and released later in the year
- 1971 Fran Phipps is 1st woman to reach North Pole
- 1971 Mount Etna erupts in Sicily
Event of Interest
1971 Sri Lanka's communist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) launches insurrection against the United Front government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike
- 1971 US Lt William Calley sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering 22 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai Massacre
- 1971 WNJT TV channel 52 in Trenton, New Jersey (PBS) begins broadcasting
- 1972 Mets trade Ken Singleton to Expos for Rusty Staub
- 1972 The regular MLB season fails to open due to a player strike for the first time in history; 86 games are lost before the labor dispute settled
- 1973 NFL adopts jersey numbering system (ie QBs, 1-19)
- 1973 Pioneer 11 launched to Jupiter
- 1975 Soviet Soyuz 18A launch aborted short of orbit; cosmonauts return safely
Event of Interest
1976 Thousands gather in Tiananmen Square to commemorate former leader Zhou Enlai and ask for more openness in government [1]
Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land
1976 Tom Stoppard's play "Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land" premieres in London
- 1977 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1981 Philadelphia Flyers amass a record 2,621 penalty minutes
- 1982 43-year-old St. Louis reliever Jim Kaat pitches 1 inning for the Cardinals in a season-opening, 14-3 rout of Houston; sets a MLB record for pitchers by playing in his 24th consecutive season
- 1982 British Royal Navy aircraft carriers Invincible and Hermes, with escort vessels, depart Portsmouth, England for the Falkland Islands in response to the Argentine invasion
- 1982 Lord Carrington, British Foreign Secretary resigns for his failure to foresee the invasion of the Falkland Islands
- 1983 France throws out 47 Soviet diplomats
Sports History
1983 NY Met Tom Seaver's sets record 14th NL Opening Day assignment
- 1986 Record for a throw-and-return boomerang toss is set at 121 meters
- 1986 US soldier & Turkish woman killed in West Berlin disco bombing
- 1987 Fox TV network premieres "Married... with Children" and "The Tracey Ullman Show"
Sports History
1989 Los Angeles Dodger Orel Hershiser's consecutive scoreless streak of 59 innings ends
1st TV Show in Dolby Stereo
1989 NBC's "Late Night with David Letterman" becomes the first network TV show broadcast in Dolby Stereo
- 1989 Poland grants legal status to trade union Solidarność (Solidarity)
- 1990 NY Rangers beat NY Islanders 2-1 in 1st game of preliminary
Film & TV History
1990 Paul Newman wins a court victory over Julius Gold, to keep giving all profits from Newman foods to charity
- 1991 Detroit Pistons Joe Dumaars ends NBA free throw streak of 62 games
Historic Publication
1991 Kitty Kelley publishes an unauthorized biography of former US First Lady Nancy Reagan
- 1991 Southeast Airlines Embracer 120 crashes in Georgia, killing 23
- 1991 Space Shuttle STS 37 (Atlantis 8) launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida
- 1991 US begins air drops to Kurd refugees in Northern Iraq
- 1992 Game 2 of Mayor Challenge - NY Yankees sweep NY Mets 6-5 at Shea
Event of Interest
1992 Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori suspends the constitution and dissolves Congress
- 1992 Serbian troops begin besieging Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, which would become the longest siege in modern warfare
- 1992 Several hundred-thousand abortion rights demonstrators march in Washington, D.C.
- 1992 Thai General Suchinda Kraprayoon installed as Prime Minister
- 1993 73,293 see the NY Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians, 9-1 in the season opener at Cleveland Stadium
- 1993 A win and a loss for MLB expansion teams in their debut games; Florida Marlins beat LA Dodgers, 6-3 in Miami; the Colorado Rockies lose to Mets, 3-0 in NYC
- 1994 Miami Heat beat NY Knicks ending 15 game NBA winning streak
- 1995 Pages of Codex Argenteus (the Silver Bible), the oldest text in the Gothic language (5th century), are stolen from Uppsala University Library, Sweden, in broad daylight; recovered a month later
- 1996 John Bobbitt is put under house arrest in Las Vegas for 120 days
- 1997 Galileo, 3rd Ganymede Flyby (Orbit 7)
Film & TV History
1997 Steve Irwin's "The Crocodile Hunter" debuts first season
- 1998 The Arizona Diamondbacks record their first win in team history with a 3-2 victory over the San Francisco Giants in Phoenix, AZ; ends second-worst start ever (0-5) by an expansion team
- 1998 The Tradition Senior Men's Golf, GC at Desert Mountain: Defending champion Gil Morgan wins by 2 strokes from Tom Wargo
1999 Two Libyans suspected of bringing down Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 are handed over for eventual trial in the Netherlands
- 2003 The Kansas City Royals become the first MLB team to begin the season 5-0 after losing 100 games the previous year, beating the Cleveland Indians, 2 - 1
- 2005 The Washington Nationals lose their inaugural season opener, 8-4 to the Philadelphia Phillies; first team to represent the nation's capital since the Washington Senators left after the 1971 season
- 2009 North Korea launches its controversial Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 rocket. The satellite passed over mainland Japan, which prompted an immediate reaction from the United Nations Security Council, as well as participating states of Six-party talks
- 2012 77-year old pensioner's suicide outside Greek parliament prompts further protests in Athens
- 2012 A three-run homer by J.P. Arencibia off Jairo Asencio gives the Toronto Blue Jays a 7-4 win over the Cleveland Indians; 16 inning game duration a MLB Opening Day record
- 2012 International internet group Anonymous hack several Chinese bureaus in opposition to censorship
- 2012 Severe storms in Argentina kill 14 people
- 2013 60 people are killed in Nigeria after a bus collides with an oil tanker
- 2013 Baltimore outfielder Chris Davis becomes 4th player to homer in first 4 games of a MLB season; 8th-inning grand slam propels Orioles to a 9-5 win over the Twins; his RBI total of 16 a MLB record
- 2013 Japan’s Nikkei 225 reaches its highest level in five years
- 2014 Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire picks up the 1,000th win of his MLB career as the Twins score a 7 - 3 victory over the Cleveland Indians
- 2015 Rolling Stone Magazine retracts its "Rape on Campus" story about a gang rape at the University of Virginia after being discredited
One Dance
2016 "One Dance" single Released by Drake (Billboard Song of the Year 2016)
- 2016 Iceland's Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson resigns after the Panama Papers leak show a conflict of interest
- 2016 PayPal announces it is cancelling a $3.6 million investment in North Carolina after the state passes anti-gay legislation
- 2016 San Francisco becomes the first US city to mandate paid parental leave
Film & TV History
2017 Pepsi ad featuring Kendall Jenner pulled after criticized for trivializing demonstrations
- 2019 OKC guard Russell Westbrook becomes first player in NBA history to average a triple-double for the third consecutive season during the Thunder's 123-110 win at home over Detroit Pistons
Event of Interest
2020 British monarch Queen Elizabeth II makes an address to the nation “we will meet again”, for only the 5th time in her 66-year reign
2020 British Prime Minister Boris Johnson admitted to hospital suffering from COVID-19
- 2021 India records over 100,000 new daily COVID cases for the first time, more than half in the state of Maharashtra, which begins a new lockdown
- 2021 Italy scraps its 1914 film censorship law that could ban films on moral and religious grounds
- 2021 Tropical Cyclone Seroja causes floods and landslides in southeast Indonesia and East Timor, killing at least 113 people according to local authorities [1]
- 2022 Shanghai lockdown extended to cover the whole city as COVID-19 cases increase, as China remains one of the last to employ a "zero-Covid" system [1]
Event of Interest
2022 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urges UN Security Council to act against Russia, accusing Russian military of the worst war crimes since WWII, including execution, rape and torture of civilians [1]
- 2024 New York region hit by a 4.8 magnitude earthquake, with multiple aftershocks. One of the largest earthquakes for a century in the area. [1]
- 2024 Russian Orsk city dam bursts amid flooding on the Ural river prompting thousands to evacuate there, downstream and in border areas of Kazakhstan [1]
- 2025 Floods affecting half of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, are reported to have killed 33 people, amid claims the climate crisis is making flooding worse [1]
- 2025 Science's $3 million Breakthrough Prize awarded to scientists who led development of weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, Daniel Drucker, Joel Habener, Jens Juul Holst and Lotte Bjerre Knudsen [1]
- 2063 Earth's 1st contact with the extraterrestrial Vulcan species in the Star Trek universe
