Portsmouth
1194 King Richard I of England gives Portsmouth its first Royal Charter
- 1230 William de Braose, 10th Baron Abergavenny is hanged by Prince Llywelyn the Great
- 1335 Otto the Merry, Duke of Austria, becomes Duke of Carinthia
- 1345 "Quaden Maendach" in Ghent: fighting between fullers and weavers
Cabot Departs Bristol
1497 John Cabot's expedition departs Bristol searching for new lands across the Atlantic
- 1526 German evangelical monarchy joins the Schmalkaldic League
1536 Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, is arrested and taken to the Tower of London
Philip II Appoints Governors
1595 King Philip II names Albert Archduke of Austria and his nephew Governor of the Hapsburg Netherlands
- 1598 France and Spain sign the Peace of Vervins
- 1660 Battle of Long Sault begins between 17 French colonist militia, their Huron and Algonquin allies and a large Iroquois army (credited with saving settlement of Ville-Marie) [1]
- 1668 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the War of Devolution, a Franco-Spanish conflict in the Netherlands
Hudson's Bay Company
1670 King Charles II gives a royal charter to the Hudson's Bay Company
- 1672 John Maitland, administrator of Scotland for Charles II, made the Duke of Lauderdale and Earl of March
- 1703 Portugal signs a treaty with England to become a Great Covenant
- 1749 Austrian Empress Maria Theresa signs new economic state reforms to be administrated by her chief advisor Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz
The Coffee Shop
1750 Carlo Goldoni's comedy "La Botega di Caffè" (The Coffee Shop) premieres in Mantua
- 1776 France and Spain agreed to supply weapons to American rebels
Herschel Discovers a Binary Star
1780 William Herschel discovers the first binary star system, Xi Ursae Majoris
Pierre Charles L'Enfant Promoted
1783 Architect Pierre Charles L'Enfant is promoted by brevet to Major of Engineers in recognition of his service to American liberty
- 1808 Dos de Mayo uprising against French occupation begins in Madrid, Spain
- 1809 Dartmoor Prison in England opens to house French prisoners of war
- 1829 After anchoring nearby, Captain Charles Fremantle of HMS Challenger, declares the Swan River Colony in Australia
- 1833 Russian Tsar Nicolas I bans the public sale of serfs
- 1845 Argentinian Domingo Sarmiento publishes his anti-tyranny work "Facundo Civilización y Barbarie"
- 1853 Franconi's Hippodrome opens in New York City
Stonewall Jackson Wounded
1863 Confederate Army General Stonewall Jackson is wounded by his own men during attack in Chancellorsville, Virginia
- 1863 South defeats North in Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia
- 1866 Peruvian defenders fight off Spanish fleet at the Battle of Callao
- 1869 Opera and music hall Folies Bergère opens in Paris, France
- 1869 The Folies Trévise (later cabaret hall Folies Bergère) opens as an opera house in Paris, France
- 1876 Ross Barnes hits the first home run in the National League
- 1876 The April Uprising breaks out in Bulgaria
- 1878 US stops minting the 20-cent coin due to public confusion with the quarter
- 1885 "Good Housekeeping" magazine is first published in the US by Clark W. Bryan
- 1887 Gioachino Rossini's corpse transferred from Paris, France to thr Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, Kingdom of Italy
Celluloid Photographic Film
1887 Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film (used in Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope)
Treaty of Wichale
1889 Abyssinian Emperor Menelik II and Italy sign Treaty of Wichale
- 1890 Territory of Oklahoma created; exists until 1907
Jules Verne's Unpublished Work
1905 French newspapers publish lists of Jules Verne's unpublished work
Nicolas II Turns Conservative
1906 Tsar Nicolas II of Russia dismisses his moderate Prime Minister Witte and appoints Ivan Goremykin, a conservative bureaucrat
- 1907 Jules baron de Trooz forms Belgian government
- 1908 Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer register their popular song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" for copyright
The Flying Dutchman
1909 Pittsburgh Pirate Honus Wagner steals his way around bases in 1st inning against the Chicago Cubs
- 1911 French troops occupy Fès El Bali, Morocco
- 1915 Bronx, New York City; Old Fordham Road renamed Landing Road
- 1916 In the Bronx, New York City: 2nd Ave & Bronx Terrace renamed Bronx Blvd; Seward Place renamed Sycamore Ave; Herald Ave renamed Dickinson Ave; Monroe & Selwyn Avenue named
- 1917 Cincinnati's Fred Toney and Chicago's Hippo Vaughn pitch a dual no-hitter; Vaughn gives up 2 hits and a run in the 10th, letting Cincinnati win 1-0
- 1918 General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware
- 1920 First baseball game of the Negro National League is played in Indianapolis
- 1921 Start of the Third anti-German uprising in Upper Silesia
- 1922 WBAP-AM begins broadcasting from Fort Worth, Texas
Johnson's 100th Shutout
1923 MLB Washington Senator Walter Johnson pitches his 100th shutout, beats New York Yankees 3-0
- 1924 Netherlands refuses to recognize the USSR
Craters of the Moon
1924 US President Calvin Coolidge proclaims ancient lava fields in Idaho as Craters of the Moon National Monument, in order to "preserve the unusual and weird volcanic formations." [1]
- 1925 Kezar Stadium opens in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park
- 1926 US military intervenes in Nicaragua
- 1927 International Economic Conference (52 countries including USSR) opens
- 1927 Pulitzer prize for a Novel awarded to Louis Bromfield for "Early Autumn"
- 1927 The US Supreme Court rules in "Buck v. Bell" that states may forcibly sterilize people deemed "unfit" under eugenic policies
- 1928 KPQ-AM in Wenatchee, Washington, begins radio transmissions
Billie Holiday Arrested
1929 Billie Holiday (14) and her mother are arrested for prostitution following a raid of a brothel in Harlem, New York City
- 1930 Des Moines (Western League) defeats Wichita 13-6 to open the first professional baseball game with permanently installed lights
Jack Benny's 1st Show
1932 American comedian Jack Benny's first radio show premieres on NBC Blue Network
Pulitzer Prize
1932 Pulitzer Prize for Literature awarded to novelist Pearl S. Buck for "The Good Earth," the first American woman to win
- 1934 Nazi Germany begins People's Court
A-Tisket, A-Tasket
1938 American singer Ella Fitzgerald records "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" with Chick Webb and His Orchestra
Pulitzer Prize
1938 Pulitzer Prize for Drama is awarded to Thornton Wilder for his play "Our Town"
Lou Gehrig's Ends his Streak
1939 New York Yankee Lou Gehrig ends 2,130 consecutive game streak when he sits out as the Yankees beat the Tigers 22-2 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit, Michigan [1]
- 1941 FCC approves regular scheduled commercial TV broadcasts to begin July 1
- 1941 MLB baseball player Ted Williams' batting average hits lowest point of the season at .308; finishes over .400
- 1941 Nazi occupied Netherlands lays off Jewish journalists
- 1942 Japanese troops occupy Mandalay, Burma
- 1943 German troops vacate Jefna, Tunisia
- 1944 WABD (WNEW, now WNYW) TV channel 5 in New York City (DUM/MET/FOX) begins broadcasting
- 1945 Allies occupy Wismar, Northern Germany
1945 Battle of Berlin ends as the Soviet army storms the capital, forcing German commander of the city, General Helmuth Weidling, to surrender
- 1945 Indian and British troops successfully occupy Rangoon, capital of Burma, after Japanese forces evacuate the city
- 1945 More than 1,000,000 German soldiers officially surrender to the Western Allies in Italy and Austria
- 1945 Yugoslav troops occupy Trieste, Italy
The Postman Always Rings Twice
1946 "The Postman Always Rings Twice," a film based on the novel by James M. Cain, directed by Tay Garnett and starring Lana Turner and John Garfield, is released
- 1946 The "Battle of Alcatraz" takes place, killing two guards and three inmates
Pulitzer Prize
1949 Arthur Miller wins a Pulitzer Prize for his play "Death of a Salesman"
- 1949 Bolivian government declares a state-of-siege
- 1950 Carlo Terron's comedy "Giuditta" premieres in Milan
- 1950 Dutch First Chamber accepts laws on immigration
- 1950 Dutch PM Malan recognizes South-Africa but not People's Republic of China
- 1952 First scheduled jet airliner passenger service begins with a British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) Comet from London to Johannesburg, carrying 36 passengers [1]
Water Music
1952 John Cage's "Water Music" - for a solo pianist, using a piano, a radio, whistles, water containers, and a deck of cards - premieres in New York City
- 1953 Feisal II installed as King of Iraq
- 1953 Hussein I installed as King of Jordan
- 1953 KYTL (now KPNX) TV channel 12 in Mesa/Phoenix, Arizona AZ (NBC) begins broadcasting with a telethon to benefit United Cerebral Palsy
Baseball Record
1954 MLB St. Louis Cardinal Stan Musial hits 5 HRs in a doubleheader against the New York Giants at Busch Stadium
- 1955 India proposes making discrimination against Dalits, or "Untouchables," punishable
Pulitzer Prize
1955 Pulitzer Prize for Drama awarded to Tennessee Williams for his play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"
- 1955 WGBH TV channel 2 in Boston, Massachusetts (PBS) begins broadcasting
- 1956 US astronomer C. Mayer detects the first high-temperature microwave radiation from Venus
- 1956 US Methodist church disallows racial separation
A Moon for the Misbegotten
1957 Eugene O'Neill's stage drama "A Moon for the Misbegotten" premieres at the Bijou Theatre in NYC and runs for 68 performances
Costello Survives
1957 Gangster Frank Costello escapes an assassination attempt made by rival mobsters
The Curse of Frankenstein
1957 Hammer Film Productions releases its first color horror film, "The Curse of Frankenstein," starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee
- 1958 MLB New York Yankees threaten to broadcast games nationwide if NL goes ahead with plans to broadcast, games into NYC
- 1960 Allen Drury wins Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel "Advise and Consent"
- 1960 Harry Belafonte's second Carnegie Hall performance, in New York City
- 1960 US House of Representative investigating committee, looking into payola questions in broadcasting
- 1962 French paramilitary and terrorist organization the Secret Army organization (OAS) strikes in Algeria
- 1962 US conducts an atmospheric nuclear test near Christmas Island
- 1962 WMHT-TV channel 17 in Schenectady, Albany, and Troy, New York (PBS) begins broadcasting
Children's Crusade
1963 The Children's Crusade begins in Birmingham, Alabama, as more than 600 African American schoolchildren are arrested for marching against segregation, organized by James Bevel and the SCLC
- 1964 First ascent of Shishapangma, the world's 14th-highest mountain at 26,335 feet, by a 10-person Chinese team
- 1964 Maurice "Mad Dog" Vachon defeats Verne Gagne in Omaha, Nebraska, to win the AWA World Heavyweight Championship
- 1964 The Beatles' "The Beatles' Second Album" goes #1 and stays #1 for 5 weeks
Pulitzer Prize
1966 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography awarded to Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. for "A Thousand Days" about JFK's presidency
1967 Stanley Cup Final, Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, ON: Terry Sawchuk makes 40 saves as Toronto Maple Leafs beat Montreal Canadiens, 3-1 in Game 6 to take title, 4-2
- 1968 Israel Broadcasting Authority television Channel 1 begins broadcasting
- 1968 Price of gold reaches then record high ($39.35 per ounce) in London
Music Premiere
1968 Roger Sessions' 8th Symphony premieres in New York City with William Steinberg conducting the New York Philharmonic
- 1969 British ocean liner Queen Elizabeth II departs Southampton on its maiden voyage to New York
- 1970 KOAI (now KNAZ) TV channel 2 in Flagstaff, Arizona (NBC) begins broadcasting
- 1971 Gretchen Cryer and Nancy Ford's rock musical "The Last Sweet Days of Isaac" closes off-Broadway at the East Side Playhouse, NYC
- 1972 126 killed in an electrical fire in Sunshine Silver mine, Kellogg, Idaho
- 1972 General Vernon A. Walters, USA, becomes deputy director of CIA
- 1974 Six Catholic civilians killed and eighteen wounded when the UVF explode a bomb at Rose & Crown Bar on Ormeau Road, Belfast
- 1975 The Beatles' Apple Corps headquarters on Savile Row in London closes down
- 1978 1978 NFL Draft: Earl Campbell from University of Texas first pick by Houston Oilers
- 1979 -May 10] Vivekananda (Sri Lanka) begins nonstop ride, cycling 187 hrs, 28 min, around Vihara Maha Devi Park, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Quadrophenia
1979 Film "Quadrophenia" premieres in London, based on The Who's 1973 rock opera; starring Phil Daniels, the cast also includes musicians Sting and Toyah Wilcox
- 1980 Joseph Doherty and three other IRA members are arrested for murder
Music History
1980 Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in Wall (Part II)" is banned in South Africa
- 1980 US conducts a nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site
- 1981 Radio Shack rereleases the Model III TRSDOS 1.3 with two fixes
- 1982 Argentine cruiser General Belgrano is sunk by British submarine HMS Conqueror with the loss of more than 350 men during the Falklands War
- 1983 6.7 earthquake injures 487 in Coalinga, California
- 1984 MLB Cleveland Indians' infielder Andre Thornton ties record for most walks (6 in 16 innings)
Baseball Record
1984 New York Yankees Don Mattingly's single breaks up Chicago White Sox pitcher Lamarr Hoyt's perfect game bid, at Comiskey Park
- 1984 US performs underground nuclear test "Orkney" at Nevada Test Site, with an estimated 250 ton yield
- 1985 US performs underground nuclear test "Towanda" at Nevada Test Site, with an estimated 150 ton yield
- 1986 Transportation Expo 86 opens in Vancouver, British Columbia
Sports History
1987 NHL New York Islanders Mike Bossy plays his final game, a 5-1 playoff elimination game loss to Philadelphia Flyers at the Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- 1988 Baltimore Orioles sign a 15 year lease to remain in Baltimore and get a new park
Sports History
1988 MLB Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose is suspended for 30 days for pushing an umpire
Killin' Time
1989 "Killin' Time" debut album by Clint Black is released (Billboard Album of the Year, 1990)
- 1989 Hungary's reform government led by Miklós Németh cuts a hole in the electric wire fence between it and Austria beginning the fall of the Iron Curtain [1]
- 1990 South Africa and the African National Congress open talks to end apartheid
- 1991 Pope John Paul II issues the encyclical Centesimus annus (The Hundredth Year) on the hundredth anniversary of Rerum novarum
- 1992 Yugoslav Army seizes Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic
- 1994 A bus crashes into a tree at Gdańsk, Poland, killing 32 people
- 1994 American pathologist and euthanasia advocate Jack Kervokian found innocent on assisting suicides
- 1994 Michael Bolton found to have plagiarized Isley Bros "Love is Wonderful Thing"
- 1995 Montreal Expos bat out of order against New York Mets in the 6th inning
- 1995 Serbian missiles explode in the heart of Zagreb, killing six people
- 1997 Mercury Mail announces its one-millionth internet subscriber
Film & TV History
1997 Police arrest transsexual prostitute Atisone Seiuli with Eddie Murphy
- 1997 Republic of Texas security chief Robert Scheidt surrenders to authorities
- 1998 Battle of Hogwarts: Fictional battle that ended the Second Wizarding War with the death of Lord Voldemort at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
- 1999 Panamanian election: Mireya Moscoso becomes the first woman elected President of Panama
- 2000 Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of the Netherlands unveils the Man With Two Hats monument in Apeldoorn and another in Ottawa on May 11, 2000, symbolically linking the Netherlands and Canada for their assistance in World War II
Event of Interest
2000 President Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access is no longer restricted to the US military
- 2002 Marad massacre of eight Hindus near Palakkad in Kerala
- 2004 Yelwa massacre of more than 630 nomad Muslims by Christians in Nigeria
- 2008 Cyclone Nargis makes landfall in Myanmar, killing over 130,000 people and leaving millions homeless
- 2011 E. coli O104:H4 outbreak strikes Europe, mostly in Germany, leaving more than 30 people dead and many others sick
- 2011 Flavor Flav is arrested on four outstanding misdemeanor warrants for various driving offenses
Osama bin Laden Killed
2011 Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks and the FBI's most wanted man, is killed by US special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan
2012 A pastel version of "The Scream" by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch sells at auction for $119,922,500
Messi Sets Goal Scoring Record
2012 Barcelona football player Lionel Messi breaks the European goal-scoring record with 68 goals
- 2013 100 people are killed by the Syrian Army in a raid on al-Bayda, Baniyas
- 2013 14 members of the Sons of Iraq are killed in attacks in Fallujah, Iraq
- 2013 60 miners are killed after a gold mine collapses in Jebel Amir, North Darfur, Sudan
- 2013 Rhode Island becomes the tenth US state to legalize same-sex marriage
- 2014 Ukrainian forces launch a raid against pro-Russian forces, who respond by shooting down two helicopters
- 2015 Celtic wins the 2014–15 Scottish Premiership
- 2015 Toulon win the 2015 European Rugby Champions Cup final at Twickenham
- 2016 Leicester City wins the English Premier League title after starting the season at 5,000-1 odds
- 2016 World Snooker Championship, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield: Mark Selby of England beats China's Ding Junhui, 18-14 for his second world crown
Kanye West Criticized
2018 American singer Kanye West is widely criticized for saying "slavery is a choice" in an interview with TMZ
- 2018 Armenian opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan asks widespread protests to halt after ruling Republican party said it would support his bid to be Prime Minister
- 2018 Date for first humans or hominins in the Philippines pushed back ten-fold after report of site on Luzon with butchered rhinoceros 709,000 years ago
- 2018 E. coli outbreak linked to Romaine lettuce grown in Yuma, Arizona, reports the first fatality with 121 cases across 25 US states
- 2018 Indian city of Kanpur declared world's most polluted city by WHO with 14 other Indian cities in the top 20
- 2018 Iowa passes US's strictest abortion ban, based on a fetal heartbeat
- 2018 New research shows plants "talk" to each other through their roots and the soil in a study on corn published in the journal "PLOS ONE"
- 2018 Spanish Basque separatist group Eta announces it will be formally disbanding after 50 years
- 2019 A clean-up on Mt Everest has removed three metric tons (6,613 pounds) of rubbish and four bodies in just two weeks
- 2019 Drone delivers a kidney for transplant surgery in Baltimore, Maryland, for the first time
Facebook Bans Hate Speech
2019 Facebook bans Alex Jones (InfoWars), Milo Yiannopoulos (ex-Breitbart), Louis Farrakhan (Nation of Islam), Paul Nehlen and Laura Loomer for hate speech
Leonardo da Vinci Sketch
2019 Second known sketch of Leonardo da Vinci is revealed on the 500th anniversary of the artist's death from Queen Elizabeth's collection
Actors Immortalized in Cement
2019 The cast of "The Big Bang Theory" are the first TV actors to be immortalized in cement outside Hollywood's Chinese theater in Los Angeles
Pelosi Accuses Barr of Lying
2019 US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi accuses US Attorney General William Barr of lying to Congress over the Mueller Report
- 2020 Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, the Icelandic actor who played Ser Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane in Game of Thrones, sets a world deadlifting record by lifting 501kg (1,104lb)
- 2022 New Zealand reopens its borders to international visitors from more than 60 countries after being closed for two years during the pandemic [1]
- 2022 US Supreme Court draft opinion leaks suggesting Roe v. Wade about to be overturned published on news website Portico [1]
World Snooker Championship
2022 World Snooker Championship, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield: Englishman Ronnie O'Sullivan wins his record equalling 7th world title with an 18-13 win over countryman Judd Trump
- 2023 40-year-old US weight loss company Jenny Craig announces it will close after failing to secure further financial backing [1]
- 2023 First non-invasive mind reader developed by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin by combing functional magnetic resonance imaging with AI (results hit and miss so far) [1]
- 2023 Writers Guild of America votes to strike over pay and industry changes, halting television production [1]
- 2025 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 216 children in the US have died this flu season, the deadliest year since the 2009 swine flu pandemic [1]
- 2025 Gaza-bound humanitarian aid ship catches fire after a drone attack off the coast of Malta [1]
