- 308 Marcellus I begins his reign as Catholic Pope, serving until his death in 309
- 669 Greek scholar and new Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore of Tarsus arrives in Canterbury with North African abbot Hadrian
- 927 Battle of the Bosnian Highlands: Simeon I of Bulgaria is defeated by King Tomislav of Croatia
- 1120 Richard III of Capua is anointed as prince two weeks before his untimely death
King John
1199 John crowned King of England after the death of his brother Richard I
- 1281 Guy of Dampierre, Count of Flanders, takes financial responsibility for Bruges
- 1529 30 Jews of Posing, Hungary, charged with blood ritual, burned at stake
- 1644 Battle of Shanhai Pass: Li Zicheng's army defeated by combined Ming and Manchu force
- 1660 Denmark and Sweden sign the Treaty of Copenhagen, ending the Second Northern War
- 1679 Habeas Corpus Act passes in England, strengthening a person's right to challenge unlawful arrest and imprisonment
- 1689 Anthonie Heinsius succeeds G. Fagel as Grand Pensionary of Holland
1692 William Phips, Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony authorizes a special Court of Oyer and Terminer ("to hear and determine"), to administer Salem witch trials [1]
Saint Petersburg Founded
1703 Saint Petersburg (Leningrad) is founded by Russian Tsar Peter the Great
- 1738 Turkish troops occupy Orsova and Ochakov in eastern Europe
- 1796 James S. McLean granted a US patent for his improvements to the piano
- 1798 The Battle of Oulart Hill takes place in Wexford, Ireland, large rebel force kills local militia
- 1813 Americans capture Fort George, Canada
1849 Opening of the Great Hall at Euston station in London
- 1850 Mormon Temple in Nauvoo, Illinois, destroyed by tornado
- 1854 Marine Telegraph from Fort Point to San Francisco completed
- 1856 Doctor William Palmer (the Rugeley Poisoner) found guilty of poisoning in Stafford, England
- 1862 Battle of Hanover Court House, Virginia (Slash Church, Peake's Station)
- 1863 US Civil War: Confederate gunboat CSS Chattahoochee steam boiler explosion kills 19 crew members on the Apalachicola River, near Blountstown, Florida
- 1863 US Civil War: Siege of Port Hudson in Louisiana by Union forces begins; lasts 48 days, longest American military siege
- 1864 Skirmish at Salem Church (Haw's Shop), Virginia
Priam's Treasure
1873 Heinrich Schliemann discovers "Priam's Treasure" a cache of gold and other objects in Hisarlik (Troy) in Anatolia
- 1893 Audath Yisroel forms at Kattowitz (Katowice) Poland
- 1895 British inventor Birt Acres patents film camera/projector
- 1896 Bay District Race Track in San Francisco closes
- 1896 Tornado hit St Louis, killing 255, leaving thousands homeless
- 1898 Arthur Pinero's "Trelawney of the Wells" premieres in London
- 1900 Lord Roberts' army fights the Vaal in South Africa
Beurs van Berlages
1903 Queen Wilhelmina opens the new Amsterdam stock exchange Beurs van Berlages, designed by influential architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage
- 1904 NY Giants first baseman Dan McGann collects MLB record 5 stolen bases in 3-1 win over the Brooklyn Superbas at the Polo Grounds in NYC; record broken in 1991 by Otis Nixon
1905 Japanese fleet destroys the Russian East Sea fleet in the Battle of Tsushima, the only decisive clash between modern steel battleships in history
- 1906 Premiere of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 6 takes place in Essen, Germany
- 1907 Bubonic Plague breaks out in San Francisco
- 1908 Maulana Hakeem Noor-ud-Din iss elected the first Khalifa of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
- 1910 Reform of Prussian three-class voting system fails
- 1916 Groundbreaking begins on Hugh J. Grant Circle, a park in the Bronx, named for the youngest mayor of New York City (1899-92)
Wilson Supports League of Nations
1916 President Woodrow Wilson addresses the League to Enforce Peace, founded in 1915, and gives public support to the idea of a league of nations
- 1918 Third Battle of Aisne: German offensive overcomes British forces (WWI)
- 1919 First transatlantic flight ends after an 11-day journey by a US Navy flying boat
- 1920 Tatar ASSR forms in Russian SFSR
- 1927 Japanese military intervenes in Chinese civil war in Shantung to protect Japanese residents there
Masaryk Re-elected President
1927 Tomáš Masaryk (77) is elected President of Czechoslovakia, for the second time
- 1930 Richard Drew invents masking tape
Chrysler Building Opens
1930 The 1,046-foot (319-meter) Chrysler Building in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opens to the public
- 1931 First full-scale wind tunnel for testing airplanes at Langley Field, Virginia
- 1931 Swiss Auguste Piccard and Paul Kipfer make the first flight into the stratosphere by balloon from Augsburg, Germany
- 1933 Austrian communist party banned
- 1933 Century of Progress Exposition opens in Chicago
- 1933 Federal Securities Act signed
Heidegger's Address
1933 Martin Heidegger gives his inaugural rectoral address on “The Self-Assertion of the German University”, taken by some take as supporting the Nazi regime
- 1933 Trailing 11-3, MLB New York Yankees score 12 runs in 8th to beat Chicago White Sox 15-11
- 1933 Walt Disney's short film "3 Little Pigs" is released (Academy Award Best Animated film 1934)
National Recovery Act
1935 Supreme Court declares FDR's National Recovery Act unconstitutional
- 1936 First flight of Irish airline Aer Lingus, a six-seater de Havilland DH.84 Dragon biplane between Baldonnel Airfield in Clondalkin, County Dublin and Bristol (Whitchurch) Airport, England
- 1936 RMS Queen Mary leaves Southampton for NY on maiden voyage
- 1937 Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco opens to pedestrians
- 1937 New York Giants pitcher Carl Hubbell wins his MLB record 24th consecutive game in a 3-2 win over the Cincinnati Reds at Crosley Field; streak starts July 17, 1936
1940 British and Allied forces begin the evacuation of Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo) during World War II
- 1940 World War II: In the Le Paradis massacre, 97 soldiers from a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are shot after surrendering to German troops
- 1941 FDR declares state of emergency after a German U-boat sinks the American flagged SS Robin Moor
- 1941 German battleship Bismarck sunk by British naval force
Heydrich Assassination
1942 Czech rebels attempt assassination of Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich by grenade in Prague during Operation Anthropoid; he dies a week later from an infection while recovering from his injuries. Adolf Hitler orders 10,000 Czechs murdered in revenge, leading to the annihilation of the village of Lidice in June
- 1942 Dorie Miller awarded navy cross for deeds at Pearl Harbor
- 1942 Italian army begin siege of French western Fort Bir Hachim
- 1943 French resistance under Jean Moulin meets secretly in Paris
- 1944 Allies land on Biak, Indonesia (operation Horlicks)
- 1944 Japanese advance in Hangkhou, China
- 1944 Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist play "Huis Clos" (No Exit) premieres in Paris
- 1948 Arab League of Jordan forces blow up Hurvat Rabbi Yehudah he-Hasid synagogue in Jerusalem, after 2 days of threats
- 1948 Hank Greenberg buys an interest in the Cleveland Indians baseball team
- 1949 Martin Canine, cartoon character, spoofs Martin Kane
- 1949 MLB Cleveland Indians start 12-17, owner Bill Veeck arranges a "Second Opening Day"
- 1950 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to Wallace Stevens
Dalai Lama Surrenders
1951 Chinese Communists force Dalai Lama to surrender his army to Beijing
- 1952 European Defense Community forms
- 1953 Dutch social democratic/Dutch Liberal Party win municipal elections
- 1955 "The Red Buttons Show", last airs on NBC-TV
- 1955 Boston Red Sox first baseman Norm Zauchin accumulates 10 RBIs in 16-0 win over Washington Senators
- 1956 French raid in Algiers
- 1956 US performs nuclear test at Enewetak Atoll (atmospheric tests)
- 1957 Toronto's CHUM-AM, (1050 kHz) becomes Canada's first radio station to broadcast only top 40 Rock n' Roll music format
1958 Ernest Green becomes the 1st African-American to graduate from Little Rock's Central High School
- 1958 Maiden flight of the F-4 Phantom II
- 1958 Vanguard SLV-1 launched for Earth orbit (failed)
- 1960 Baltimore manager Paul Richards devises oversized catcher's mitt, used by Baltimore Oriole Clint Courtney
- 1960 Military coup overthrows democratic government of Turkey
- 1961 1st black light is sold
Long Jump Record
1961 American Ralph Boston sets the long jump world record at 27 ft 1/2 in
- 1961 Fiorentina of Italy wins the first European Cup Winners' Cup against Glasgow Rangers 4-2 in Florence (second leg)
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
1963 Columbia Records releases "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan", the second studio album by folk singer Bob Dylan; it contains his songs "Blowin' in the Wind", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right", and serves as his critical and commercial breakthrough
Kenya General Election
1963 Jomo Kenyatta is elected as the first Prime Minister of Kenya
- 1966 55th German F-104 Starfighter crashes
- 1966 Six French fighter jets crash over Spain
- 1967 Australians vote in favor of a constitutional referendum granting the Australian government the power to make laws to benefit Indigenous Australians and count them in the national census
- 1967 British folk-jazz fusion group Pentangle gives debut performance at the Royal Festival Hall, London, England
George Halas Retires
1968 George Halas retires from coaching, finishing with 318 regular-season wins and 6 NFL titles
- 1968 Meeting of the Union Nationale des Étudiants de France (National Union of the Students of France) takes place. 30,000 to 50,000 people gather in the Stade Sebastien Charlety
- 1968 NL awards Montreal and San Diego major league franchises
Jerry Lewis Show Finale
1969 Jerry Lewis Show second run, last airs on NBC-TV
- 1969 Walt Disney World construction begins at Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida
- 1970 British expedition climbs south face of Annapurna I in the Himalayas in north-central Nepal, 10th highest mountain
- 1970 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
1971 24th Cannes Film Festival: "The Go-Between" directed by Joseph Losey wins the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film
Imagine
1971 John Lennon records the song "Imagine" at his Ascot Sound home studio at Tittenhurst Park, England
- 1972 Jimmy Castor Bunch's "Troglodyte (Cave Man)" hits #6
- 1973 American athlete Rick Wohlhuter runs world record 880 yards in 1:44.6
- 1974 Pirates Ken Brett no-hits Padres until 9th inning
- 1975 Stanley Cup Final, The Aud, Buffalo, NY: Philadelphia Flyers win back-to-back titles; shutting out Buffalo Sabres, 2-0 for a 4-2 series win; goaltender Bernie Parent wins 2nd consecutive Conn Smyth trophy as playoff MVP
- 1975 Worst motor vehicle disaster in UK; brakes fail on a bus full of elderly women and it plunges 17 feet off the road at Dibble's Bridge, Yorkshire, killing 33; a similar accident occurred there killing 11 in 1925
- 1977 30th Cannes Film Festival: "Padre Padrone" directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani wins the Palme d'Or
God Save the Queen
1977 The Sex Pistols release "God Save the Queen," sparking major controversy and leading to a ban on the song by the BBC
- 1980 South Korean police ends people's uprising; 2,000 killed
- 1980 The Gwangju Massacre: South Korean airborne and army troops retake city of Gwangju from civil militias, killing at least 207 possibly many more
- 1981 34th Cannes Film Festival: "Man of Iron" directed by Andrzej Wajda wins the Palme d'Or
1981 John Hinckley, Jr attempts suicide by overdosing on Tylenol pain relief medication
- 1981 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1982 New owners headed by John McMullen buy NHL's Colorado Rockies and move the team to the New Jersey Meadowlands under the new name NJ Devils
- 1983 Former EPA official Rita Lavelle indicted for contempt of Congress
- 1984 Beth Henley's "Miss Firecracker contest" premieres in NYC
- 1984 Manuela Maleeva of Bulgaria wins three singles tennis matches in one day at the Italian Open, defeating Virginia Ruzici, Carling Bassett, and Chris Evert in the final, 6-3, 6-3; she becomes only the seventh player to defeat Evert on clay
Inaugural Bands Parade
1985 Bands from across the US parade for President Reagan during his inauguration, filling the route with music, precision, and patriotic pageantry
- 1985 Britain agrees to return Hong Kong to China in 1997
- 1986 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa Atoll
- 1986 Norway Showcase groundbreaking
- 1986 President Reagan orders two Poseidon-class submarines to be dismantled
- 1987 Christian evangelists Jim and Tammy Bakker appear on "Nightline" after PTL scandal
- 1987 New York Yankees knuckleballer Phil Niekro is 3rd pitcher to make 700th start, joining Cy Young and Don Sutton
- 1988 Senate ratified a treaty eliminating medium-range nuclear missiles
- 1990 Radical Democratic Party holds 1st political meetings in Moscow
- 1991 Austrian Boeing 767-300 explodes at Bangkok, 223 die
- 1993 Baseball player Dale Murphy ends his career after 398 HRs
- 1993 Mafia bombs Uffizi Museum in Florence, killing 6
Arsenio Hall Signs Off
1994 Final broadcast of TV talk show "The Arsenio Hall Show"
- 1995 "La Haine", directed by Mathieu Kassovitz and starring Vincent Cassel, premieres at the Cannes Film Festival in France
- 1995 Actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition in Culpeper, Virginia
- 1997 First all-female team of 20 British women reaches the North Pole
- 1997 Judge finds Pamela Lee not guilty of breaking a contract
- 1997 Major league revenue sharing begins, NY Yankees pay out most $28M
NATO-Russia Founding Act
1997 Russian President Boris Yeltsin signs the NATO-Russia Founding Act, formalizing closer cooperation and reshaping post-Cold War relations
- 1998 Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the plot to bomb Oklahoma City
Milošević Indicted
1999 International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo
- 2000 Super Rugby Final, Canberra: Crusaders claim their 3rd consecutive title with a 20-19 win over the ACT Brumbies; flyhalf Andrew Mehrtens kicks 5 penalties for the winners
2006 "Pan's Labyrinth," a fantasy film set during the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, debuts at the Cannes Film Festival
- 2006 An earthquake strikes Java, Indonesia, at 5:53:58 AM local time, devastating Bantul and the city of Yogyakarta and killing over 6,600 people
- 2007 60th Cannes Film Festival: "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" directed by Cristian Mungiu wins the Palme d'Or
- 2009 South Africa enters the global recession; the first recession for South Africa in 17 years
- 2012 65th Cannes Film Festival: "Amour" directed by Michael Haneke wins the Palme d'Or
- 2012 A NATO airstrike in Afghanistan kills a family of eight, including six children
- 2012 Andrew Scott wins his first BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role of Moriarty in BBC's "Sherlock"
- 2013 75 people are killed and 200 are injured in a wave of bombings across Iraq
- 2013 The largest flag ever made at 5 tons with 44 miles of thread is unveiled in Romania
Lagarde Urges Bank Crackdown
2014 Director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, calls for "tougher regulation and tighter supervision" of the banking sector
- 2015 Golden State Warriors win the NBA Western Conference
- 2016 Three ships in three days sink while carrying immigrants across the Mediterranean, drowning over 700 people
- 2017 In Bangalore, India, white puffy toxic foam begins spilling out of Varthur Lake onto city streets
Conte Quits after Standoff
2018 Italian PM-designate Giuseppe Conte gives up attempt to form coalition government after President Sergio Matarella vetoes his choice of economy minister
- 2018 Oil workers for Brazilian state oil company Petrobrás join the truckers' national strike
BTS Tops the Billboard 200
2018 South Korean boy band BTS are the first K-pop group to top the US Billboard 200 with their album "Love Yourself: Tear"
Chancellor Kurz Ousted
2019 Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz removed from office after a no-confidence vote in parliament, Vice Chancellor Hartwig Löger appointed interim chancellor
- 2019 European Parliament elections result in centralist parties losing their majority with liberals, the Greens and nationalists picking up more votes
- 2019 World's rivers widely contaminated with antibiotics according to new global study of 711 sites
- 2020 America's COVID-19 death toll passes 100,000 (Johns Hopkins figures) equal to number of US servicemen and women killed in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan put together
- 2020 Locust swarms in western and central India worst since 1993 after spreading from Pakistan and Iran and due to extreme weather
- 2020 Spain begins 10 days of mourning for victims of COVID-19 with death toll just under 27,000
US Reevaluates HK Trade
2020 US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Hong Kong no longer has autonomy from China and does not merit a special trade relationship, in a note to Congress
Friends: The Reunion
2021 "Friends: The Reunion" premieres with the original cast 17 years after the TV sitcom series ended
- 2021 English playwright William Shakespeare is reported to have died after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine by Argentine news channel Canal 26 (case of mistaken identity, the Bard died in 1616)
France and the Rwandan Genocide
2021 French President Emmanuel Macron recognizes France's role in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide after a meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Kigali, Rwanda
Biden Calls for Ceasefire in Tigray
2021 US President Joe Biden calls for a ceasefire in the Tigray conflict, north Ethiopia, citing killings and "widespread sexual violence" as a weapon of war
Top Gun Maverick
2022 "Top Gun: Maverick," the sequel starring Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, and Jennifer Connelly, is released 36 years after the original film
- 2022 Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels' opera "Omar" premieres at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina (2023 Pulitzer Prize for Music winner)
- 2022 Ringo Starr's fifteenth All-Starr Band debuts in concert; members include: Steve Lukather, Edgar Winter, Colin Hay, Hamish Stuart, Gregg Bissonette, and Warren Ham
- 2023 76th Cannes Film Festival: French director Justine Triet's "Anatomy of a Fall" wins the Palme d'Or [1]
- 2023 Texas House of Representatives votes to impeach Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton - just the third official in Texan history [1]
Harris Delivers Commencement Address
2023 Vice President Kamala Harris becomes 1st woman to deliver commencement address at US Military Academy graduation ceremony in West Point, New York
- 2025 US National Park Service quietly removes all references to bisexual people from Stonewall National Monument, further erasing LGBTQ+ history following the removal of references to transgender and queer people in February [1]
