- 1267 Vienna's church orders all Jews to wear distinctive clothing
- 1278 Jews in England are imprisoned on charges of coin clipping and counterfeiting
Scottish Recognize Edward I
1291 Scottish nobles recognize authority of English King Edward I
- 1427 Jews are expelled from Bern, Switzerland
Amerigo Vespucci Departs
1497 Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci leaves for his first voyage to the New World (disputed)
Columbus Discovers Caymans
1503 Christopher Columbus is the first European to discover the Cayman Islands, names them Las Tortugas after its sea turtles
- 1525 Church reformer John Pistorius is captured in The Hague
- 1559 Scottish Protestants under John Knox uprise against queen mother Mary
Capture of Salvador Da Bahia
1624 Dutch admirals Jacob Willekens and Piet Heyn conquer Salvador da Bahia, the capital of Brazil and a Portuguese stronghold
- 1643 Essex County, Massachusetts is founded, which contains the town of Salem in which the notorious witch-trials will occur in 1692
- 1652 John Johnson, a free African-Virginian, is granted 550 acres in Northampton, Virginia by his father
- 1655 Jamaica captured by the English
- 1676 Bacon's Rebellion begins, frontiersmen vs Virginia government
Harrison's Naval Longitude Clock
1765 British Longitude Act awards clockmaker John Harrison £10,000 for the invention of a naval longitude clock [1]
John Wilkes Imprisoned
1768 English radical John Wilkes imprisoned for writing an article for "The North Briton" severely criticizing King George III. This action provokes rioting in London.
- 1775 American Revolution: Green Mountain Boys capture Fort Ticonderoga, New York
- 1775 Second Continental Congress convenes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, issuing paper currency for the first time
George Washington Named Supreme Commander
1775 Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia names George Washington Supreme Commander
- 1787 British Parliament impeaches Warren Hastings, Governor-General of Bengal
- 1796 French government arrest 10 utopists
Battle of Lodi Bridge
1796 Napoleon defeats Austria in Battle of Lodi Bridge
- 1796 Riot after disagreement of patriotic demand in Amsterdam
- 1797 1st US Navy ship, the "United States," is launched
- 1801 First Barbary War: The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States of America (first US foreign war)
- 1816 British steamship "Defiance" arrives at Rotterdam harbor
- 1823 1st steamboat to navigate the Mississippi River arrives at Fort Snelling
- 1824 The National Gallery in London opens to the public in its temporary home in a townhouse on Pall Mall
- 1837 Panic of 1837: New York City banks fail and unemployment reaches record levels
- 1847 Madison Square Park opens to the public in Manhattan, transforming the former potter's field, parade ground, and House of Refuge for juvenile delinquents into a public green space
- 1849 Astor Place Riot: Backers of American actor and working class hero Edwin Forrest attempt to disrupt British actor William McReady's performance at Astor Place Opera House in NYC; Military troops supporting police shoot at the crowd, killing between 22 and 31 [1]
1857 Indian Mutiny against rule by the British East India Company begins with the revolt of the Sepoy soldiers in Meerut
- 1861 Union troops march on state militia in St Louis, Missouri
- 1862 Battle of Plum Run Bend, Tennessee
- 1864 Battles at Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia
- 1864 Skirmish at Ny River, Virginia
Jefferson Davis Captured
1865 Confederate President Jefferson Davis captured by Union troops at Irwinsville Georgia (US Civil War)
- 1865 Major General Sam Jones, the Confederate military leader in Florida, South Carolina and South Georgia, surrenders to Union forces
- 1866 American Equal Rights Association forms at the Eleventh National Woman's Rights Convention in New York City
1869 The Golden Spike is driven, completing the first US Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory Summit, Utah, connecting the Central Pacific Railroad with the Union Pacific
- 1870 Jem Mace defends his heavyweight crown against Irish champ Joe Coburn; the match lasts 1 hour and 17 minutes, and neither is struck by a punch
- 1871 Peace of Frankfurt-am-Main concluded between France & Germany ends Franco-Prussian war
1st Woman Nominated for US President
1872 Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated for the US presidency by the Equal Rights Party at Apollo Hall, NYC
- 1876 Centennial Fair opens in Philadelphia
1st White House Telephone
1877 US President Rutherford B. Hayes has the first White House telephone installed in the telegraph room
- 1879 Meteor falls near Estherville, Iowa
- 1881 Lighthouse on Ameland begins operation
- 1883 First appendectomy performed in North America by Abraham Groves in Canada
- 1893 Imperial Institute in London opens
- 1894 Hong Kong government declares port is infected with the plague. The outbreak will go on to kill 20,489 over 29 years.
- 1902 Dutch soccer club FC Blauw-Wit (Blue-White) is formed in the Kinkerbuurt area of Amsterdam; merge with VV De Beursbengels in 2015
- 1902 Portugal goes bankrupt, but its parliament passes a bill converting its external debt. Contributing to Portugal's troubles is a recent revolt in its colony of Angola, put down on September 6
- 1906 Russian Duma (Parliament) meets for 1st time
- 1907 Paul Dukas' opera "Ariane et Barbe Bleue" premieres in Paris
- 1908 1st Mother's Day observed (Philadelphia)
- 1909 Winchester's Fred Toney no-hits Lexington for 17 inning
- 1910 1st aircraft air display held (Hendon, England)
- 1910 Halley's Comet makes its closest approach to Earth in 1910 pass
- 1910 The British House of Commons pass three major resolutions on political reform
- 1913 MLB New York Yankees commit 8 errors, but manage to defeat Detroit Tigers 10-9 in 10 innings
Gas Mask Invented
1915 Canadian physician Cluny Macpherson first presents his gas mask invention to the British War Office
- 1915 Zeppelin drops hundred of bombs on Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England
- 1916 Historic Shipport Museum opens in Amsterdam
- 1917 Atlantic ships get destroyer escorts to stop German attacks
- 1918 HMS Vindictive sunk to block entrance of Ostend Harbor
- 1919 Race riot in Charleston, South Carolina, 2 blacks killed
- 1921 Luigi Pirandello's "Sei Personaggi in Cerca d'Autore" premieres
- 1922 Dr Ivy Williams is 1st woman to be called to the English Bar
- 1922 The United States annexes the Kingman Reef in n the North Pacific Ocean
- 1922 WHB-AM in Kansas City MO begins radio transmissions
- 1925 To control demonstrations against foreigners, British troops in Shanghai fire into a crowd, leading to a boycott against British goods
- 1930 Clarrie Grimmett takes 10 for 37 v Yorkshire at Sheffield
- 1930 First US planetarium opens, the Adler Planetarium in Chicago
- 1931 Golf ball size hail falls in Burlington, New Jersey
- 1932 Government of Netherland declares "Wilhelmus" as the national anthem
- 1932 Senate chairman Albert Lebrun becomes President of France
- 1933 Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF) forms
- 1933 Nazis stage public book burnings in Germany
- 1933 Paraguay declares war on Bolivia
- 1933 Suriname worker's union leader A de Come banished to Netherlands
Azaña Elected President
1936 Manuel Azaña elected the second President of the Spanish Republic
- 1936 Nahas Pasja becomes premier of Egypt
- 1937 Busmen strike in London
- 1938 Banning speech on anti-fascism demonstration in Amsterdam
- 1940 Dutch-Indies Governor Van Starkenborch proclaims end to state of siege
- 1940 World War II: The first German bombs of the war fall on England at Chilham and Petham, in Kent
- 1940 WWII: Battle of France - Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), Germany invades Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) and northern France, with Panzer tanks crossing through the Ardennes Forest
Rudolf Hess's Escape
1941 Adolf Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess escapes to Britain to open secret negotiations with the Allies, parachuting into Scotland
- 1941 British House of Commons and Holborn Theatre in London damaged during German air raid
- 1942 World War II: The Thai Phayap Army invades the Shan States during the Burma Campaign
- 1944 Chinese offensive in West-Yunnan
- 1944 Smith v Allwright (excluding Blacks from primary voting) is illegal
- 1945 Allies capture Rangoon from the Japanese
- 1945 Soviet troops occupied Prague
Sports History
1946 MLB Boston Red Sox win 15th straight, beating New York Yankees 5-4; Joe DiMaggio hits grand slam to account for Yankees offense
- 1948 1st attack by Egyptian irregular forces at Kfar Darom Israel
- 1948 Winston Churchill visits The Hague, Netherlands
- 1950 1st Netherlands-US telex sent
- 1951 Z Alexander Looby elected to Nashville City Council
1952 5th Cannes Film Festival: "The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice" directed by Orson Welles and "Two Cents Worth of Hope" directed by Renato Castellani jointly awarded the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film
- 1953 KCBD TV channel 11 in Lubbock, TX (NBC) begins broadcasting
- 1954 Bolshoi Ballet does not appear in Paris
- 1955 8th Cannes Film Festival: "Marty" directed by Delbert Mann wins Palme d'Or
1956 9th Cannes Film Festival: "The Silent World" directed by Jacques Cousteau and Louis Malle wins the Palme d'Or
- 1956 French government sends 50,000 reservists to Algeria
- 1956 KFSN TV channel 30 in Fresno, CA (ABC/CBS) begins broadcasting
- 1957 1st meeting of legislative of Cameroon
Music Premiere
1957 Dmitri Shostakovich's 2nd Piano concerto premieres, played by his son Maxim at his graduation concert at Moscow's conservatory
- 1959 Giants Jim Hearn allows 2 runs against Pirates, game is suspended, Hearn is released & charged with loss 2 months after his retirement
- 1959 Soviet forces arrive in Afghanistan
- 1960 US atomic submarine USS Triton completes first submerged circumnavigation of the globe
Music History
1961 Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Jonathan Miller comedy revue "Beyond the Fringe" opens at the Fortune Theatre in London's West End
- 1966 25°F lowest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland in May
- 1967 Foundation AZ soccer team forms in Alkmaar
Music History
1967 Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, and singer Mick Jagger arrested on drug charges, based on evidence gathered in a February police raid of Richards' mansion in West Wittering, England
- 1967 Stockholm Vietnam Tribunal declares US aggression in Vietnam and Cambodia
- 1967 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1968 Vietnam peace talks began in Paris between the US and North Vietnam
Event of Interest
1969 In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph, former Northern Ireland Prime Minister Terence O'Neill states: "If you give Roman Catholics a good job and a good house, they will live like Protestants, ... They will refuse to have 18 children"
- 1969 Pop band 'The Turtles" oerform at the White House; singer Mark Volman falls off of the stage 5 times
- 1969 US troops begin attack on Hill 937 ("Hamburger Hill"), Vietnam
Sports History
1970 Atlanta Braves' Hoyt Wilhelm pitches in his 1,000th game, losing to St. Louis Cardinals, 6-5
1970 Stanley Cup Final, Boston Garden, Boston, MA: Bobby Orr scores a famous OT winner as Boston beats the St. Louis Blues 4-3 for a 4-0 series sweep; Bruins win their first title since 1941
Film & TV History
1970 The Jackson 5 make their second visit to "The Ed Sullivan Show," performing “I Want You Back”, “ABC”, and "The Love You Save”
- 1971 US special delivery rates go from 45 cents to 60 cents
- 1972 An Irish Republican Army bomb starts a fire that destroys the Belfast Co-operative store
- 1972 Overloaded South Korean bus plunges into reservoir, killing 77
- 1972 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Film & TV History
1973 Bruce Lee collapses in Golden Harvest studios in Hong Kong and is rushed to Hong Kong Baptist Hospital where doctors diagnose him with cerebral edema
- 1973 Establishment of Frente Polisario in Mauritania
- 1973 Stanley Cup Final, Chicago Stadium, Chicago, IL: Yvan Cournoyer has a goal and 2 assists as Montreal Canadiens beat Chicago Blackhawks, 6-4 to take title, 4 games to 2
- 1975 Brian Oldfield of US put shot 75', an unofficial record
Radio Premiere
1976 Paul Harvey's daily syndicated program "The Rest of the Story" premieres on the ABC Radio Networks, continuing until his death in 2009
- 1979 Federated States of Micronesia becomes self-governing
- 1979 John McMullen becomes CEO of Houston Astros
- 1979 Vivekananda (Sri Lanka) completes nonstop cycle ride of 187 hrs, 28 min, around Vihara Maha Devi Park, Colombo, Sri Lanka [From May 2]
- 1981 Montreal Expo Charlie Lee no-hits SF Giants, 4-0
Radio History
1982 WABC radio (NYC) plays its last record - John Lennon's "Imagine" - and switches to all-talk format
- 1983 Lee Chin Yong performs 170 continuous chin-ups in Seoul
- 1984 International Court of Justice rules on US blockade of Nicaragua
- 1985 Challenger transports back to Kennedy Space Center via Kelly AFB
- 1986 "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco hits #1 on UK pop chart
Election of Interest
1989 General Manuel Noriega's Panama government nullifies country's elections, which the opposition had won by a 3-1 margin
- 1990 French TGV-train hits record speed of 510.6 kph (317.3 mph)
Radio History
1990 Howard Stern holds a mock funeral for radio rival John DeBella, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to celebrate a ratings victory
Sports History
1991 Oakland A's Jose Canseco is seen leaving singer Madonna's apartment
- 1992 Bible Lands Museum opens in Jerusalem Israel
Hall of Fame
1993 Bill Walton is inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
- 1993 Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers opens Terminal West at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
- 1993 Fire in clothing factory at Bangkok kills 145
- 1993 Last TV appearance of Dutch television presenter Mies Bouwman
Event of Interest
1993 Paul Cézanne's painting "Still Life with Apples" sells for US$28,600,000 in NYC
Music Concert
1994 Barbra Streisand's begins 1st concert tour in 30 years, at the Capitol Centre in Landover, Maryland (after "warm-up" shows in Las Vegas and London)
- 1994 DGC Records releases "Weezer" (known as The Blue Album), the debut album of rock band Weezer
- 1995 Britain lifts a 23-year ban on ministerial talks with Sinn Féin
- 1995 In South Africa, 104 miners killed in an elevator accident
- 1996 Excel Communications, Inc. becomes the youngest company to join the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), trading under the symbol ECI
- 1996 Two US Marine helicopters collide during joint US and British war games
- 1997 Chicago Cubs turn baseballs 68th triple play (vs SF Giants)
Election of Interest
1998 Viktor Orbán elected Prime Minister of Hungary after his Fidesz party forms a centre-right coalition the Independent Smallholders Party and Hungarian Democratic Forum
- 2000 India's population reaches 1 billion, baby girl Aastha born at Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital chosen as symbolic billionth
- 2002 Anaheim Angels crush the Chicago White Sox 19-0. The Angels join the 1923 Indians, 1939 Yankees and 1950 Red Sox as the only teams to beat two opponents by 19 or more runs in the same season
- 2003 Tornado outbreak sequence takes place across the Great Plains and Eastern United States
- 2004 Kate Gosselin gives birth to sextuplets in Hershey, Pennsylvania
Laureus Awards
2004 Laureus World Sports Awards, Cultural Centre of Belém, Lisbon, Portugal: Sportsman: Michael Schumacher; Sportswoman: Annika Sörenstam; Team: England Men's National Rugby Union team
Event of Interest
2005 A hand grenade thrown by Vladimir Arutyunian lands about 65 feet (20 metres) from U.S. President George W. Bush while giving a speech to a crowd in Tbilisi, Georgia, it malfunctions and does not detonate
- 2006 Giogio Napolitano is elected President of Italy, first former communist to become President
Event of Interest
2008 Philippine court acquits Imelda Marcos in a 17-year-old case of 32 counts of illegal transfer of wealth totaling $863 million in Swiss bank accounts
- 2012 Peeter Vähi's "Antarctic Concerto" world première, with guitar soloist Rémi Boucher and the Glasperlenspiel Sinfonietta led by Andres Mustonen, at Nordea Concert Hall in Tallinn, Estonia
- 2012 The Red Cross suspends all humanitarian work in Pakistan after a worker was kidnapped and killed
- 2012 Two bombings in Damascus, Syria, kill 55 people and injure 370
Sports History
2013 Joe Sakic is hired by his former team, the Colorado Avalanche, as Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations
A
2013 Swedish pop singer Agnetha Faltskog releases a new album called "A"
- 2014 Kara Walker's artwork "The Subtlety" opens - an installation of a sphinx made of sugar at the Domino Sugar factory in Brooklyn, NY [1]
- 2014 The African National Congress wins the 2014 South African General Election
- 2016 Indian fertility clinic announces that a 70-year-old woman has successfully gave birth to a baby boy
- 2017 Apple becomes the first company to be worth more than $800 billion
Event of Interest
2017 US President Donald Trump shares classified information about ISIS plot with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office
2017 USGS releases a report saying that some glaciers in Montana have receded by 85% in the last 50 years
- 2018 China announces plans for the world's largest weather-control mechanism, rain-inducing machines for the Tibetan Plateau (area the size of Alaska)
- 2018 Israel fires missiles at 70 Iranian targets inside Syria after Iran fires missiles into the Golan Heights, with claims Israel struck first in attack on Baath
Event of Interest
2018 Mahathir Mohamad is sworn in as the seventh Prime Minister of Malaysia, the world's oldest leader at 92
Event of Interest
2018 New record auction price for a Latin American artwork of $9.76 million for Diego Rivera's "The Rivals"
Music History
2018 R. Kelly's songs removed from Spotify playlists after sexual abuse allegations
Sports History
2018 Rafael Nadal breaks John McEnroe's record for successive set wins on a single surface (49 on carpet) with 6-3, 6-4 win over Diego Schwartzman at the Madrid Open (clay)
Music History
2019 Rihanna announces her new upmarket fashion label Fenty with world's largest luxury group LVMH, their first black female designer
- 2019 Taxi service Uber becomes a public company opening on the New York Stock Exchange
- 2019 US begins raising tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese imports to 25% after trade talks fail
- 2019 YouTube dispute between beauty vloggers James Charles and Tati Westbrook viewed more than 40 million times
- 2020 Global confirmed cases of COVID-19 rise above 4 million with death toll above 270,000, according to Johns Hopkins
- 2021 Chinese safari park in Fuyang forced to apologize for not informing the public that three leopards had escaped April 19 and been roaming nearby neighborhoods
Event of Interest
2021 Kazungula road and rail bridge 1km long opens over the Zambezi River linking Botswana and Zambia, with a curve so it doesn't encroach on Zimbabwe (Robert Mugabe opposed it)
- 2021 US FDA authorizes the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for 12-to-15-year-olds
- 2021 Violence escalates between Palestinians and Israelis after Israeli officers enter Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, rockets then fired from Gaza and airstrikes from Israel kill at least 31
- 2021 World Health Organization classifies the Indian COVID-19 variant B.1.617 as a variant of global concern
- 2022 Apple ends production of its iPod music player after 21 years
Event of Interest
2022 For the first time Prince Charles delivers the Queen's Speech at the state opening of the UK parliament
- 2022 LA Angels pitcher Reid Detmers no-hits Tampa Bay Rays, 12-0 at Angel Stadium of Anaheim
Agreement of Interest
2022 Tom Brady agrees to record 10-year, $375m deal to be Fox Sports’ lead analyst when he decides to finally retire; surpasses $303m the quarterback earned in salary during his NFL career
- 2022 US reports highest rate of gun-related deaths in 24 years in 2020, according to the CDC, with firearm homicides increasing 35% to 6.1 deaths per 100,000 people nationwide [1]
Renaissance World Tour
2023 Beyoncé begins her Renaissance World tour in Stockholm, Sweden, her first solo tour in seven years [1]
- 2023 Boston Red Sox reliever Kenley Jansen becomes seventh MLB pitcher to earn 400 career saves, in 5-2 victory over Braves in Atlanta
- 2023 First children born in the UK with DNA from three people, using mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT) - in attempt to prevent baby from inheriting mitochondrial DNA mutations [1]
- 2023 First draft of a human ‘pangenome’ published, with DNA from 47 people, including from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe in effort to capture entirety of human genetic variation, "like going from black-and-white television to 1080p” [1]
- 2023 Heaviest fighting in months between Israel and Palestinian militants as both sides launch air attacks, leaving over 20 dead in Gaza [1]
- 2025 Soviet-era failed Venus probe, Kosmos 482, re-enters Earth's atmosphere, crash-landing into the Indian Ocean [1]
