- 649 Theodore I's reign as Catholic Pope ends with his death
- 1027 Robert II of France names his son Henry I as junior King of the Franks
Battle of Lewes
1264 Battle of Lewes: Earl of Leicester Simon de Montfort the Younger defeats English King Henry III during the Second Barons' War
Charles the Affable
1483 Coronation of Charles VIII of France ("Charles the Affable")
Battle of Agnadello
1509 Battle of Agnadello, French forces under Louis XII defeat the Venetians in Northern Italy
- 1576 Dutch Council of State replaced by Council of Beroerten
- 1607 English colonists establish the 1st permanent English settlement in America at Jamestown. Unknown to them they have landed amidst the worst drought in 800 years.
- 1608 The Protestant Union is founded in Auhausen
Henry IV Assassinated
1610 Henry IV of France is assassinated by fanatical Catholic François Ravaillac who stabs him to death in the streets of Paris
- 1638 Admiral Adam Westerwolt conquers Batticaloa, Ceylon
- 1664 Turkish Grand Vizier Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed attacks 120,000 Donau soldiers
- 1702 England & Netherlands declare war on France & Spain
Great Northern War
1702 Great Northern War: Swedish troops under King Charles XII occupy Warsaw, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
- 1747 First Battle of Cape Finisterre: British fleet under Admiral George Anson defeats a French 30-ship convoy commanded by Admiral de la Jonquière off Cape Finisterre in northwest Spain
- 1767 British government disbands American import duty on tea
1787 Delegates gather in Philadelphia to draw up the Constitution of the United States
Jenner's Vaccine for Smallpox
1796 English country doctor Edward Jenner administers his revolutionary cowpox-based vaccine for smallpox in Berkeley, Gloucestershire
- 1811 Paraguay gains independence from Spain (National Day)
- 1842 Illustrated London News; the world's first illustrated weekly newspaper, begins publication
- 1845 Utrecht-Arnhem Railway opens
Patent for Condensed Milk
1853 Land surveyor, newspaper publisher and inventor Gail Borden patents his process for condensed milk
- 1857 Mindon is crowned as King of Burma at Mandalay Palace, Burma
- 1861 The Canellas meteorite, an 859-gram chondrite-type meteorite, strikes the earth near Barcelona, Spain
- 1862 Adolphe Nicole of Switzerland patents the chronograph
- 1863 American Civil War: The Battle of Jackson, Mississippi takes place
- 1868 Japanese Boshin War: end of the Battle of Utsunomiya Castle, former Shogunate forces withdraw northward to Aizu by way of Nikkō
- 1874 First admission charge at a football game, Harvard beats University of McGill (Montreal) 3-0
- 1878 Vaseline is granted a patent (U.S. Patent 127,568)
- 1879 The first group of 463 Indian indentured labourers arrive in Fiji aboard the Leonidas
- 1884 Anti-Monopoly Party forms in the US
- 1889 The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) is launched in London, England, led by Benjamin Waugh
- 1894 Fire in Boston bleachers spreads to 170 adjoining buildings
- 1896 Lowest US temperature in May recorded (-10°F /-23°C at Climax, Colorado)
Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty
1897 Great Britain signs treaty with Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II settling border issues with British Somaliland
- 1897 Oldest continuously operating movie theater in the world, the State Theatre first opens in Washington, Iowa (Guinness World Records)
- 1906 Flagpole at the White Sox ballpark breaks during pennant-raising
- 1907 Sweden adopts universal suffrage for elections to its lower house and proportional representation for both houses
- 1908 First passenger flight in an airplane
- 1910 Canada authorizes issuing of silver dollar coins
- 1913 Frans Hals museum opens in Haarlem, Netherlands
Johnson Ends Scoreless Streak
1913 Washington Senator Walter Johnson ends MLB record scoreless streak at 56 innings
- 1914 Chic Jim Scott no-hits Cleve, gives up 2 hits in 10th & loses 1-0
- 1918 Sunday baseball is made legal in Washington, D.C.
- 1919 Pope Benedictus XV publishes encyclical In hac tanta
- 1920 Giants inform the Yankees that the lease allowing them to play in the Polo Grounds will not be renewed at the end of the 1920 season
- 1920 Washington Senator Walter Johnson wins his 300th game vs Detroit
- 1921 Florence Allen is the first female judge to sentence a man to death in Ohio
- 1927 "Ain't She Sweet?" by Ben Bernie hits #1 on the singles chart
- 1927 German ocean liner SS Cap Arcona is launched at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg
- 1927 The University of Chicago's local collegiate organization, Phi Sigma, becomes incorporated under Illinois law as Eta Sigma Phi, the National Honorary Classical Fraternity
- 1928 John McGraw is knocked down by a taxicab and suffers a broken leg
- 1930 US Congress designates Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico a National Park [1]
- 1931 Ådalen shootings: five people are killed in Ådalen, Sweden, as soldiers open fire on an unarmed trade union demonstration
- 1932 "We Want Beer!" parade in NY
- 1935 LA's Griffith Planetarium opens, 3rd in US
- 1935 Plebiscite in the Philippines ratifies independence agreement
The Adventures of Robin Hood
1938 "The Adventures of Robin Hood", directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, and starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland premieres
- 1938 England soccer team beats Nazi-Germany, 6-3
- 1939 Lina Medina of Peru becomes the world's youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five
- 1940 Admiral Johannes Furstner, Royal Dutch Navy, departs to England
Foxx's Huge Home Run
1940 Boston Red Sox Jimmie Foxx HR goes over the left field roof of Comiskey Park in Chicago
- 1940 British Local Defence Volunteers forms, an armed citizen militia designed to support the British Army during the Second World War. It is later renamed the Home Guard.
- 1940 German breakthrough at Sedan
- 1940 Lord Beaverbrook appointed British minister of aircraft production
- 1940 Nazis bomb Rotterdam (600-900 dead), Netherlands surrenders to Germany
- 1941 3,600 Parisian Jews arrested
- 1941 First massive German raid in Paris, French police arrest more than 3,600 Jews
- 1942 US Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) forms
Lincoln Portrait
1942 World premiere performance of Aaron Copland's "Lincoln Portrait" with: Andre Kostelanetz conducting the Cincinnati Symphony in Cincinnati, Ohio
- 1943 Australian Hospital Ship Centaur sinks off the coast of Queensland after being struck by torpedo fired by Japanese submarine; 268 of 332 medical personnel and civilian crew aboard die
- 1944 91 German bombers harass Bristol
- 1944 British troops occupy Kohima
Attempt to Assassinate Hitler
1944 General Rommel, Speidel & von Stulpnagel attempt to assassinate Hitler
- 1945 Kamikaze Zero strikes US aircraft carrier Enterprise
Highest Human Radiation Dose
1945 Physician Joseph G. Hamilton injects misdiagnosed cancer patient Albert Stevens (CAL-1) with 131 kBq (3.55 µCi) of plutonium without his knowledge. Stevens lives another 20 years, surviving the highest known accumulated radiation dose in any human
- 1945 US offensive on Okinawa, Sugar Loaf conquered
1948 David Ben-Gurion declares Israel independent from British administration, Golda Meir one of the signatories
- 1948 Israeli Radio Station Kol Yisrael's 1st broadcast
- 1948 Jordan's Arab League captures Atarot, north of Jerusalem
- 1948 US grants Israel de facto recognition
- 1948 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enewetak Atoll
- 1948 WBEN (now WIVB) TV channel 4 in Buffalo, NY (CBS) begins broadcasting
Cape Canaveral Test Range
1949 US President Harry Truman signs bill establishing a rocket test range at Cape Canaveral
- 1950 Pitts Johnny Hopp goes 6 for 6 including 2 HRs
- 1951 "The Ernie Kovacs Show", a television variety program debuts on NBC-TV
- 1954 Belgium shortens military conscription from 20 to 18 months
- 1955 US performs nuclear test at Pacific Ocean
- 1955 Warsaw Pact is signed by the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania
- 1960 USSR launch 1st (unmanned) space capsule
- 1960 Virgil Thomson's "Missa Pro Defunctis" premieres in Potsdam, New York
- 1961 Bus with 1st group of Freedom Riders bombed & burned in Alabama
Milovan Djilas Sentenced
1962 Ex-president of Yugoslavia Milovan Djilas sentenced to 5 years in jail
- 1962 Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan elected second President of India
- 1962 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island
- 1963 Kuwait is 111th member of the United Nations
- 1964 17th Cannes Film Festival: "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" directed by Jacques Demy wins the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film
- 1965 2nd Chinese atom bomb explodes
- 1965 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1966 "A Lover's Concerto" novelty single by Mrs Miller hits #95
- 1966 1st reported monitoring of pirate radio station WBBH (NJ)
Sports History
1967 NY Yankee Mickey Mantle hits career HR #500 off Baltimore Orioles' Stu Miller
- 1968 Beatles announce formation of Apple Corp
- 1969 Abortion & contraception legalized in Canada
- 1969 Last Chevrolet Corvair built
Presidential Convention
1970 Harry Blackmun (61), nominated by Richard Nixon, earns seat on US Supreme Court after confirmation by US Senate, 94-0; serves until 1994
- 1970 Militant leftist Red Army Faction leader Andreas Baader freed from prison after serving 2 years in West Berlin
- 1970 NYC local newspaper "Our Town" begins publishing
- 1972 24th Emmy Awards: "All in the Family", Carrol O'Conner & Jean Stapleton win
- 1972 A 13-year old Catholic girl is shot dead by Loyalist paramilitaries in Ballymurphy, Belfast
Baseball Record
1972 In Willie Mays' 1st game as New York Met, his homer beats San Francisco Giants, 5-4 (his former team of over 20 years), at Shea Stadium, New York
- 1973 French film "Day for Night" written and directed by François Truffaut, starring Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Pierre Léaud premieres at Cannes (Academy Award Best Foreign Language Film)
- 1973 Price of gold hits record $102.50 an ounce in London
- 1973 Skylab launched, 1st Space Station
- 1973 US Supreme court approves equal rights to females in military
- 1974 Underground America Day is 1st observed to honor the 6,000 Americans that make their homes in the Earth
- 1975 Cult feminist film "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" written and directed by Chantal Ackerman and starring Delphine Seyrig premieres at Cannes
- 1975 French press reports massive deportation from Cambodia
- 1975 US forces raid Cambodian island of Koh Tang to free Mayaguez ship
- 1975 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1976 Lowell Thomas ends 46 years as radio network reporter
- 1976 Oil tanker Urqui Ola explodes off Spanish coast
- 1977 English football international Bobby Moore retires
- 1977 KC Royals Jim Colborn no-hits Texas Rangers, 6-0
- 1977 Netherlands State Delta Kappa Gamma Society forms
- 1977 Stanley Cup Final, Boston Garden, Boston, MA: Jacques Lemaire scores twice as Montreal Canadiens edge Boston Bruins, 2-1 in OT for a 4 game sweep and back-to-back titles
- 1978 First round of the presidential elections in Upper Volta
- 1979 "Kids Are All Right" rockumentary film featuring The Who premieres at the Cannes Film Festival
Stalker
1979 "Stalker", Russian film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, starring Alexander Kaidanovsky and Anatoli Solonitsyn, is released
- 1980 Bucky Dent hits an inside park HR, Royals walk 14 Yanks including 5 with bases loaded, Yanks win 16-3
- 1980 Department of Health & Human Services begins operation
- 1981 NASA launches space vehicle S-192
- 1982 Guinea adopts constitution
- 1983 "She Blinded Me with Science" by Thomas Dolby hits #5
World Record
1983 Rosa Mota runs female world record 20k (1:06:55.5)
Historic Publication
1986 Netherlands Institute for War Documentation publishes Anne Frank's complete diary
- 1986 Pride of Baltimore lost at sea.
- 1987 "Little Shop of Horrors" is released in Germany
- 1987 Colt revolver (Peacemaker) of 1873 sells for $242,000
- 1988 Carrollton bus collision: a drunk driver going the wrong way on Interstate 71 near Carrollton, Kentucky, United States hits a converted school bus carrying a church youth group. The crash and ensuing fire kill 27.
- 1988 Jose Oquendo is the first non-pitcher in 20 years to get a decision in a baseball game as he and the St. Louis Cardinals lose to the Braves 7-5 in 19 innings
- 1989 1st Tour de Trump bicycle race run (Atlanta)
- 1989 Demonstration for democratic reforms in Beijing's Tiananmen square
- 1989 Final TV episode of "Family Ties" airs on NBC with a 36 million audience
Sports History
1989 Minnesota Twin Kirby Puckett becomes 1st player to hit 6 doubles across two consecutive games since St. Louis Cardinal Red Schoendienst in 1948
- 1989 Moonlighting, TV Crime Drama last airs on ABC
- 1990 Dow Jones Industrial Average hits a record 2,821.53
- 1991 42 die in a train collision in Japan
- 1991 Robert Gates is nominated for the position of Director of Central Intelligence
Event of Interest
1991 Winnie Mandela is sentenced to six years and is freed pending appeal for complicity in the kidnapping and beating of four youths, one of whom dies
- 1991 World's Largest Burrito created at 1,126 lbs
- 1992 WIBC Bowling Queens won by Cindy Coburn-Carroll
Film & TV History
1993 The 1,000th episode of "The Arsenio Hall Show" airs, featuring a retrospective
Sports History
1994 Dave Winfield passes Frank Robinson for 12th on RBI list with 1,617
- 1995 At 43 years and 162 days, Manchester City goalkeeper John Burridge becomes the oldest player to appear in an EPL match in a 3-2 home defeat to Queens Park Rangers
Baseball Record
1995 Eddie Murray of Indians hits his 463rd career home run (ties for 18th)
Sports History
1996 New York Yankees' controversial pitcher Dwight Gooden no-hits Seattle Mariners, 2-0 at Yankee Stadium
Sports History
1997 Baseball's Executive Council suspends NY Yankees owner George Steinbrenner for his suing other team owners
Television Finale
1998 Seinfeld's final two-part episode "The Finale" airs on NBC-TV to 76.3 million viewers, with commercials priced at $2 million for 30 seconds
- 2000 "Yi Yi" Taiwanese film by Edward Yang debuts at Cannes
- 2004 The Constitutional Court of South Korea overturns the impeachment of President Roh Moo-hyun
- 2005 Former USS America (CV-66), a decommissioned supercarrier of the US Navy, deliberately sunk in the Atlantic Ocean after four weeks of live-fire exercises. Largest ship ever to be disposed of as a target in a military exercise.
Beatification
2005 Pope Benedict XVI observes his first beatification, elevating Blessed Marianne of Molokai on the road to canonization into sainthood
Event of Interest
2006 René Préval sworn in as President of Haiti for the second time
- 2010 The 51,700 seat Aviva Stadium is officially opened on the site of the famous old Lansdowne Road Stadium in Dublin by Irish Prime Minister, Brian Cowan
- 2012 1,500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons agree to end mass hunger strike
- 2012 Stanford University scientists develop a prototype bionic eye
- 2013 Brazil becomes the 15th country to legalize same-sex marriage
Inferno
2013 Dan Brown's fourth novel starring Robert Langdon (The Da Vinci Code), titled "Inferno", is released and instantly becomes a bestseller
Sports History
2016 Gabriel Medina becomes the first surfer ever to land the move "Backflip" in competition
- 2018 Boulder City Council in Colorado votes to ban assault weapons
- 2018 Chinese mountain climber and double amputee Xia Boyu reaches the summit of Mt Everest
- 2018 Indian politician Shashi Tharoor is charged by police with driving his wife to commit suicide
Film & TV History
2018 Melania Trump, wife of US President Donald Trump, is treated in hospital for a benign kidney condition
- 2018 Successful memory transfer in snails achieved by scientists from University of California published in journal "eNeuro"
- 2018 United States moves its Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem
- 2018 US Supreme Court strikes down federal law banning sports gambling in most states
- 2019 Huge protests closes schools in Kashmir after the rape of a three-year-old girl
- 2019 San Francisco is the first city to vote to ban use of facial recognition
- 2019 Steve Bullock, US Governor of Montana announces his run for Presidential office
- 2019 Wikipedia confirms China has banned all versions of its site
- 2020 Former pandemic agency head Rick Bright testifies to a US House Committee "without better planning, 2020 could be the darkest winter in modern history"
- 2020 Global death toll from COVID-19 passes 300,000 with 4.4 million confirmed infections
- 2022 18-year-old gunman kills 10 people and wounds three at a Tops supermarket in east Buffalo, New York, in a racially motivating attack [1]
Event of Interest
2022 Octavia E. Butler receives the first-ever Infinity Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, an award given to those who have died before they could be considered for a Grand Master award
- 2022 Surrealist artist Man Ray's photograph "Le Violon d'Ingres" sells for $12.4 million, making it the most expensive ever sold at auction [1]
- 2022 US records one million COVID-19 deaths, with The White House ordering flags to fly at half mast through the weekend [1]
- 2023 Cyclone Mocha makes landfall on Rakhine coast, Myanmar, near southern border of Bangladesh with at least 400 killed. Second strongest storm on record in the North Indian Ocean. [1]
- 2023 Thai General Election: Military-backed government loses out to other parties with the Move Forward Party securing 36% of the vote [1]
- 2024 Google unveils new generative AI features at its annual conference, forcing users to view AI Overviews at the top of search results despite them being factually incorrect 60% of the time [1] [2] [3]
