- 553 Second Council of Constantinople (5th ecumenical council) opens
Coronation of Kublai Khan
1260 Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire
- 1430 Jews are expelled from Speyer, Germany
Columbus Sights Jamaica
1494 On his second voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus sights Jamaica and lands at Discovery Bay
- 1640 English Short Parliament rises
- 1665 Dutch politician Nicolaas Witsen visits the politically powerful Patriarch Nikon, head of the Russian Orthodox church in Moscow
- 1726 French ballerina Marie-Anne de Cupis de Camargo, aged 16, makes her debut at Paris Opera Ballets in "Les Caractères de la Danse"
- 1760 Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers, is the last aristocrat hung at Tyburn, for the murder of his steward - held up then as evidence of the rule of law [1]
- 1762 Russia and Prussia sign the Treaty of Saint Petersburg, ending the Seven Years' War
- 1764 Smolny Institute forms in St Petersburg for noble girls
Estates General
1789 French Estates General meets for the first time since 1614 at Versailles, summoned by King Louis XVI
Delambre Measures a Metre
1792 Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre commissioned to measure the meridian between Dunkerque to Rodez to calculate accurate length of the metre
- 1795 Great Britain passes a tax on hair powder - a fee of 1 guinea a year, leading to a decline in its use
- 1809 Citizenship is denied to Jews of Aargau Canton, Switzerland
- 1809 Mary Kies is the first woman too be issued a US patent for weaving straw
- 1814 British attack Fort Ontario, Oswego, New York
- 1816 American Bible Society organized in New York
- 1835 King Leopold I of Belgium opens Brussels-Mechelen railway
The Hero as Divinity
1840 Thomas Carlyle begins his famous lecture series "The Hero as Divinity," later collected in his book "On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History"
- 1842 City-wide fire burns for over 100 hours in Hamburg, Germany
- 1854 British Commodore James Plumridge attacks Finnish settlements in Gulf of Bothnia, killing civilans and destroying British-owned goods.
- 1855 New York State Commission on Emigration assumes lease of Castle Garden (now known as Castle Clinton), at the lower tip of Manhattan, to be used for immigration [1]
- 1861 Alexandria, Virginia - Confederate troops abandon the city
- 1862 Battle at Williamsburg, Virginia, is inconclusive
- 1862 Battle of Puebla: Poorly equipped Mexican army led by General Ignacio Zaragoza defeats a larger, elite French force in Puebla, Mexico: celebrated annually as Cinco de Mayo
- 1863 Irish boxer Joe Coburn KOs American Mike McCoole in the 67th round in his first defense of Heavyweight C'ship of America in Charlestown, Maryland
- 1864 Battle between Confederate and Union ships at the mouth of the Roanoke River
- 1864 Battle of Wilderness, Virginia (Germanna Ford, Wilderness Tavern)
- 1864 Campaign in Northern Georgia - Chattanooga to Atlanta
- 1864 Five days of fighting begin at Rocky Face Ridge during the Atlanta Campaign
- 1865 First US train robbery occurs at North Bend, Ohio
- 1870 The British and Foreign Society for Improving the Embossed Literature of the Blind adopts Braille as best format for blind people
- 1874 Dutch Second Chamber passes child labor law
Sitting Bull Heads for Canada
1877 Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles
- 1881 Anti-Jewish rioting in Kyiv, Ukraine
- 1886 The Bay View Tragedy occurs, as militia fires upon a crowd of protesters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin killing seven.
Carnegie Hall Opens
1891 Music Hall (now Carnegie Hall) opens in New York City, with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as guest conductor of the New York Music Society Orchestra
1893 Panic of 1893 causes a large crash on the NY Stock Exchange
- 1900 "The Billboard" magazine changes to a weekly publication
Young Pitches the 1st Perfect Game
1904 Cy Young pitches the first perfect game in "modern" baseball as the Boston Americans beat Philadelphia Athletics, 3-0
- 1905 Robert S. Abbott publishes 1st issue of newspaper "Chicago Defender"
1908 US Great White Fleet arrives in San Francisco
- 1912 Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda begins publishing (4/22 OS)
- 1915 German U-20 captures and sinks Britsih schooner Earl of Lathom
- 1916 US Marines invade Dominican Republic, stay until 1924
1st African-American Military Pilot
1917 Eugene Bullard gains his pilot's license from Aéro-Club de France and becomes the 1st African-American military pilot (French Air Service)
- 1917 St Louis Browns pitcher Ernie Koob no-hits Chicago White Sox, 1-0 at Sportsman's Park III
- 1920 German-Latvian peace treaty signed
- 1920 Italian migrant anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti charged with murder of a paymaster at a US shoe factory in Massachusetts, both are later executed
- 1920 Polish troops occupy Kiev
Communist Labor Party Banned
1920 US President Woodrow Wilson outlaws the Communist Labor Party
- 1921 First ranger for Cleveland Metroparks is hired
- 1921 Miniature newspaper is published (Brighton Gazette 10 x 13 cm)
Chanel No. 5 Released
1921 Perfume Chanel No. 5 is released by fashion designer Coco Chanel
- 1922 After sharing the Polo Grounds with the New York Giants for 10 years construction begins on Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, NYC
- 1924 Unions terminate Twentse textile strike in the Netherlands
- 1925 Afrikaans is established as an official language in South Africa
Scopes Arrested for Teaching Evolution
1925 Dayton teacher John T. Scopes arrested for teaching evolution in Tennessee
- 1925 Detroit center fielder Ty Cobb goes 6 for 6 with 4 runs, 5 RBI and 16 TBs in Tigers' 14-8 win over the Browns at Sportsman's Park III, St. Louis
- 1925 Yankee Everett Scott is benched, ending his 1,307-game playing streak
- 1926 Sinclair Lewis refuses the Pulitzer Prize for a Novel for "Arrowsmith"
Shostakovich's 1st Symphony
1927 Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1 premieres in Berlin, Germany; written when he was only 19 years old
Johnson's Pioneering Flight
1930 Amy Johnson takes off from Croydon Aerodrome in South London on the first solo flight by a woman from England to Australia
- 1932 Japan and China sign the Shanghai Ceasefire Agreement, making Shanghai a demilitarized zone
- 1936 Edward Ravenscroft patents a screw-on bottle cap with a pouring lip
- 1936 Italian troops occupy Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
- 1938 MLB Philadelphia Phillies Harold Kelleher pitcher faces 16 batters in 6th, as Cubs score 12 runs, both marks are NL records off one hurler in a single inning
- 1940 Norwegian government-in-exile forms in London
- 1941 2 Fokker employees flee Nazi occupied Netherlands to England
Haile Selassie Returns
1941 Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie returns triumphantly to Addis Ababa
- 1941 Pulitzer Prize for Drama is awarded to Robert E. Sherwood for "There shall be no night"
- 1942 British assault on Diego Suarez, Madagascar
- 1942 US begins rationing sugar during WW II
- 1943 US Postmaster General Frank C. Walker invents Postal Zone System
Gandhi Freed
1944 Mahatma Gandhi is again released from prison by British authorities in India
- 1944 Soviet offensive against Sebastopol, Crimea
- 1945 Dutch Prime Minister Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy announces to the nation on Radio Orange that they are liberated
- 1945 Mauthausen Concentration camp in Austria liberated by US forces from 41st Reconnaissance Squadron
- 1945 Netherlands and Denmark liberated from Nazi control
- 1945 Uprising against occupying SS troops in Prague
Dönitz Orders Ceasefire
1945 World War II: Admiral Karl Dönitz, leader of Germany after Hitler's death, orders all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to their bases
- 1947 Mississippi Valley flooding kills 16 and causes $850M in damage
- 1947 Pulitzer prize awarded to Robert Penn Warren for his novel "All the King's Men"
- 1948 First squadron of jet aircraft boards a carrier
- 1949 Detroit Tigers second baseman Charlie Gehringer is elected in the Baseball Hall of Fame
- 1949 KGO TV channel 7 in San Francisco, California (ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1949 Statute of Council of Europe drawn up
- 1952 "Lucy Does a TV Commercial" (also known as "Vitameatavegamin") episode of "I Love Lucy" premieres, garnering 68% of US television viewers
- 1952 Pulitzer prize awarded to Herman Wouk for his novel "The Caine Mutiny"
Stroessner Seizes Paraguay
1954 General Alfredo Stroessner leads a military coup in Paraguay, overthrowing the government of President Federico Chávez
- 1955 Indian parliament accepts Hindu divorce
- 1955 US performs nuclear test at Nevada test Site
- 1955 West Germany is granted full sovereignty by its three occupying powers
- 1956 Broekster Boys soccer team forms in Damwoude
- 1956 Jim Bailey (US) runs mile a record 3:58.6 in LA, California
- 1956 The first World Judo Championships are held in Tokyo
- 1957 Adolf Schärf (67) is elected President of Austria
- 1958 KNME TV channel 5 in Albuquerque, NM (PBS) begins broadcasting
- 1958 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction awarded to James Agee for "Death in the Family"
- 1958 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands
1st American in Space
1961 Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space aboard Freedom 7
West Side Story
1962 "West Side Story" soundtrack album goes #1 and stays #1 for 54 weeks, more than 20 weeks longer than any other album
- 1964 Separatists riot in Quebec
- 1965 First large-scale US Army ground units arrive in South Vietnam
- 1966 Stanley Cup Final, Olympia Stadium, Detroit, MI: Montreal Canadiens earn back-to-back titles; beat Detroit Red Wings, 3-2 in OT for a 4-2 series victory
- 1967 The Kinks release "Waterloo Sunset" as a single; peaks at #2 on the British charts
- 1969 Milwaukee Bucks sign #1 NBA Draft pick, star UCLA center Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)
- 1970 US performs nuclear test at Nevada test Site
- 1971 Race riot in Brownsville section of Brooklyn (NYC)
- 1972 Alitalia DC-8 crashes west of Palermo Sicily; killing 115
There Goes Rhymin' Simon
1973 Columbia Records releases "There Goes Rhymin' Simon", the third solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Paul Simon; it features songs "Loves Me Like a Rock", "Kodachrome", and "American Tune"
- 1975 A's release pinch runner Herb Washington, who played 104 games without batting, pitching, or fielding. He did steal 30 bases and score 33 runs.
- 1975 Pulitzer prize awarded to Michael Shaara for historical novel "Killer Angels"
- 1976 Train collision at Schiedam, Netherlands, kills 24
- 1978 MLB Cincinnati Reds Pete Rose becomes 14th player to get 3,000 hits
- 1979 Masterpiece Radio Theater begins broadcasting
- 1979 Voyager 1 flies by Jupiter
- 1980 Konstantinos Karamanlis is elected for the first time President of Greece
- 1980 Siege at Iranian Embassy in London ends when the SAS and police storm the building
- 1981 16th and final MLB pre-season Mayor's Trophy Game prior to inter-league play; NY Mets beat NY Yankees, 4-1 to hold 8-7-1 edge
Irish Hunger Strike
1981 After 66 days on hunger strike, 26-year-old Provisional IRA member and British MP Bobby Sands dies in Prison Maze. Nine more hunger strikers die in the next 3 months.
- 1983 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1986 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation announces Cleveland, Ohio chosen as the site of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum
- 1987 Congress begins Iran-Contra hearings
- 1987 Detroit Tigers are 11 games back in AL, but go on to win AL East
- 1987 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa Atoll
- 1988 Eugene A. Marino installed as 1st African American Catholic archbishop, in Atlanta, Georgia
- 1989 Mike Tyson gets a second speeding ticket for drag racing in Albany, New York
- 1990 ABC Masters Bowling Tournament won by Chris Warren
- 1991 A riot breaks out in the Mt. Pleasant section of Washington, D.C. after Salvadoran man is shot by police
- 1992 American country singer Tammy Wynette hospitalized with bile duct infection
- 1994 Labour beats Conservatives in British local elections
- 1994 North Yemen's air force bombs Aden in South Yemen
- 1995 Last basketball game at Boston Garden; Celtics eliminated from playoffs by Orlando Magic, 95-92
- 1997 Final episode of the TV sitcom "Married... with Children" airs on Fox
- 1997 Iridium-1 launches successfully aboard a Delta II rocket, beginning deployment of the first-generation Iridium satellite communications constellation
- 2000 Conjunction of Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon
President Chirac Re-Elected
2002 Jacques Chirac wins the French Presidential election for a second term defeating Jean-Marie Le Pen leader of the far-right National Front
Blair Wins Third Term
2005 Tony Blair's Labour Party wins a third consecutive term in the UK general election, expelled Labour MP George Galloway is reelected as MP for Bethnal Green and Bow for the Respect Party
- 2006 The government of Sudan signs an accord with the Sudan Liberation Army
- 2007 Pilot error causes Kenya Airways Flight KQ 507 to crash immediately after takeoff from Douala International Airport in Cameroon
Home Before Dark
2008 American/Columbia Records releases "Home Before Dark", the 27th studio album by Neil Diamond; tops charts in US, UK and NZ
- 2012 17 people are killed and 47 missing after a flash flood in Nepal
- 2012 Japan shuts down its nuclear reactors leaving the country without nuclear power for the first time since 1970
- 2013 10 people are killed in a church attack in Njilan, Nigeria
- 2013 5 people are killed after a limousine catches fire in Hayward, California
- 2014 China announces it will upgrade Ethiopia's infrastructure in an effort to improve a China-Africa strategic partnership
- 2014 World Snooker Championship, Crucible Theatre, Sheffield: Briton Mark Selby beats countryman Ronnie O'Sullivan 18-14, the first of 3 world titles
Traveller
2015 "Traveller" debut album by Chris Stapleton is released (Grammy Award Best Country Album, 2016; Billboard Album of the Year, 2016)
- 2015 Archaeornithura meemannae, the oldest known prehistoric bird, is discovered
- 2015 Scientists announce the discovery of the oldest & most distant galaxy known to man, EGS-zs8-1
- 2016 Fort McMurray wildfires: Canadian province of Alberta declares a state of emergency as evacuation of 80,000 people continues
Anna Wintour Knighted
2017 Anna Wintour, the editor of US Vogue, is made a dame by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace
This is America
2018 Childish Gambino [Donald Glover] releases the music video to new single "This is America" to wide acclaim
- 2018 Electric cigarette explodes killing a man in St. Petersburg, Florida, first death from a vaping product
- 2018 Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson suffers a brain hemorrhage and is hospitalized; he recovers
- 2019 At least 41 people die when a Russian Aeroflot plane catches fire after an emergency landing at Sheremetyevo Airport, Moscow
- 2019 King Vajiralongkorn is crowned King of Thailand, first monarch to be crowned in nearly seven decades during a three-day celebration in Bangkok
- 2019 Oil tanker explosion kills 55 in Niamey, Niger
- 2019 Violent clashes between Israel and Gaza militants over three days have left 4 Israelis and 23 Palestinians dead
- 2020 Global confirmed cases of COVID-19 reach 3.65 million, US cases pass 70,000 while the UK becomes the most affected in Europe with 29,427 known deaths
- 2020 São Luis, in Maranhão state becomes the first Brazilian city to enter lockdown because of COVID-19 as its health services struggle to cope
- 2021 A week of mass protests and demonstrations against government tax reform and poverty in Colombia leaves 24 dead
- 2021 Baltimore Orioles pitcher John Means no-hits Seattle Mariners, 6-0 at T-Mobile Park, Seattle
- 2021 Canada is the first country to authorize the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for 12-15 year olds
- 2021 Evidence of Africa's earliest known burial, that of a three-year-old boy in a cave in Kenya dating to about 78,000 years ago, is published [1]
- 2021 The possible eviction of Palestinian families from a Jerusalem neighborhood begins days of unrest in the city, injuring hundreds
2021 US President Joe Biden announces the US will support temporarily lifting patent protection on COVID-19 vaccines with the WHO
- 2022 Karine Jean-Pierre appointed White House Press Secretary to President Joe Biden, first Black and out LGBTQ person in the role [1]
- 2022 Sinn Féin, led by Michelle O'Neill, wins the most seats in Northern Ireland elections for the first time with 27 seats to Democratic Unionist Party's 25 [1]
- 2022 WHO study of excess deaths worldwide says 15 million more people have died than normal, far above the official COVID-19 death toll of 6 million [1]
- 2022 Zimbabwe in the midst of a severe economic crisis with unemployment at 90%, hyperinflation and a falling Zimbabwe dollar, according to economic experts [1]
Xi Visits Europe
2024 Chinese Premier Xi Jinping visits Europe for the first time in five years, arriving in France [1]
- 2024 Huge floods in Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul state reportedly kill 100 people with 100 still missing, some areas record 300 millimeters (11.8 inches) of rain [1]
- 2025 Met Gala, "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style," is hosted by Anna Wintour, Lewis Hamilton, Colman Domingo, A$AP Rocky, and Pharrell Williams [1] [2]
- 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is awarded to Percival Everett for his novel "James" [1]
- 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Music is awarded to Susie Ibarra her composition "Sky Islands" [1]
- 2025 Skype, the pioneering online video calling service established in 2003, is taken offline for good by Microsoft [1]
- 2025 The Vatican announces the Popemobile will be donated and converted into a mobile health clinic for wounded children in Gaza, Palestine [1]
