- 1370 Battle at Rudau: Germany beats Lithuania
- 1500 Battle of Hemmingstedt - German peasant army repels ducal army of Schleswig and Holstein
Victory in Battle
1510 Portuguese admiral Afonso de Albuquerque first conquers the city of Goa, entering it with little conflict
Agreement of Interest
1568 Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II agrees to pay tribute to the Ottoman Empire for peace
Election of Interest
1621 Myles Standish is elected as the first commander of the Plymouth Colony
- 1634 Puritan author William Prynne tried in Star Chamber for publishing "Histrio-masti", criticising the theatre
- 1670 France and Bavaria sign military assistance treaty
- 1691 Thomas Neale granted English patent for American postal service
- 1772 1st Partition of Poland signed in Vienna by Austria, Prussia and Russia
Historic Publication
1776 1st volume of Edward Gibbon's seminal work "The Decline and Fall of Roman Empire" published
Historic Event
1791 Charles Messier catalogs M83 (spiral galaxy in Hydra)
- 1795 Thomas Seddal harvests 8.3-kg potato from his garden in Chester, England
Thomas Jefferson Elected US President
1801 US House of Representatives breaks electoral college tie by electing Thomas Jefferson as President over Aaron Burr
- 1814 Battle of Mormant: French Imperial army defeat Russian Austrian forces (War of the Sixth Coalition)
Treaty of Ghent
1815 Treaty of Ghent ratified by the US Senate and signed by President James Madison ending War of 1812, over a month after it was signed in Europe
- 1818 Baron Karl von Drais de Sauerbrun patents "draisine" (early bicycle)
Historic Communication
1837 Charles Lyell makes his presidential address to the Geographical Society, London and announces that Richard Owen has concluded from Darwin's fossils that extinct species were related to current species in the same locality
The General, The Schoolgirl, And The Famous One-Word Despatch
1843 Battle of Miani: Bombay Army of the East India Company led by Charles Napier defeats a Baluch army of Talpur Emirs of Sindh led by Mir Nasir Khan Talpur. Leading to the capture of parts of Sindh, the company's first possession in modern-day Pakistan.
Music Premiere
1859 Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Un Ballo in maschera" premieres in Naples
- 1864 Confederate submarine HL Hunley sinks Union ship Housatonic - world' first successful submarine attack
- 1865 -18] Battle of Charleston, South Carolina
- 1865 Columbia in South Carolina burns down during the American Civil War
- 1867 Gyula Andressy becomes premier of Hungary
- 1876 Sardines first canned by Julius Wolff in Eastport, Maine
- 1878 1st telephone exchange in San Francisco opens with 18 phones
Assassination Attempt
1880 Alexander II of Russia survives an assassination attempt
- 1896 Muzzling Order on the London County Council enforced
Victory in Battle
1897 Emilio Aguinaldo and a group of katipuneros defeat Spanish forces led by General Camilo de Polavieja at the Battle of Zapote Bridge in Cavite
- 1897 National Organization of Mothers formed in American by Alice McLellan Birney and Phoebe Apperson Hearst (Parent Teacher Association)
- 1902 A general strike in Barcelona and nearby towns leads to government-troop reprisals that leave 40 dead
Music Premiere
1904 Giacomo Puccini's opera "Madama Butterfly" premieres at La Scala in Milan, Italy
Music History
1921 Arthur Honegger's chamber piece "Pastorale D'ete" premieres
NHL Record
1923 Ottawa left wing Cy Denneny passes Joe Malone as all-time NHL goal scoring leader; scores his 143rd career goal in Senators' 2-0 win over Montreal Canadiens
Sports History
1924 American swimmer Johnny Weissmuller sets 100m world freestyle record 57.4s at Miami, Florida
- 1926 Avalanche buries 75 in Sap Gulch, Bingham, Utah; 40 die
- 1927 Deems Taylor's opera "The King's Henchman", with libretto by Edna St. Vincent Millay, premieres at the Metropolitan Opera, NYC
- 1927 Toronto Maple Leafs beat the New York Americans, 4-1 in the team's first game since changing name from "St. Patricks"
- 1928 American brothers, Jennison and John Heaton fight out the top placings in the cresta (now known as skeleton) at the St. Moritz Winter Olympics; Jennison takes the gold by 1.0s
- 1928 Johan Grøttumsbråten leads a Norwegian sweep of the medals in the 18k cross country at the St. Moritz Winter Olympics; he also wins the Nordic combined gold the following day
- 1930 French government of André Tardieu falls for the first time
- 1931 Hockey's Hershey Bears (now with AHL) 1st game
Music Premiere
1932 Irving Berlin's musical "Face the Music" premieres in NYC
- 1933 First issue of American news magazine "Newsweek" is published
- 1933 US Senate accepts Blaine Act: ending prohibition
- 1934 1st high school auto driving course offered (State College, Penn)
- 1936 -58°F (-50°C), McIntosh, South Dakota (state record)
- 1936 S. N. Behrman's play "End of Summer" premieres in NYC
- 1936 The world's first superhero, The Phantom, a cartoon strip by Lee Falk, makes his first appearance in comics
- 1938 1st public experimental demonstration of Baird color TV (London)
- 1939 Katwijk soccer team forms in the Netherlands
- 1940 Altmark Incident: Crew of the British destroyer "Cossack" board German "Altmark" in Jøssingfjord, Norway, releasing 299 British prisoners after hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets and the last recorded Royal Naval action with cutlass
Historic Event
1943 Adolf Hitler visits field marshal Erich von Manstein's headquarters in Zaporozje, Ukraine and stays until the 19th
Historic Event
1943 Dow Chemical and Corning Glass Works form a joint venture to explore and produce silicon materials, based off of the work of James Franklin Hyde
- 1943 Dutch churches protest at Seyss-Inquart against persecution of Jews
Historic Event
1943 Major General Omar Bradley flies to Washington, D.C.
Sports History
1943 NY Yankee Joe DiMaggio enlists into the US army
Battle of Eniwetok
1944 Battle of Eniwetok begins with US forces landing on Canna and Camelia islets in the Pacific
- 1944 Operation Hailstone: US begins night bombing of Truk island in the Pacific
- 1946 Humanistic Covenant forms in Amsterdam
- 1947 Dutch RC bishops publish manifest against "godless communism"
- 1947 Voice of America begins broadcasting to USSR
- 1949 Chaim Weitzman elected 1st president of Israel
- 1949 Ice Pairs Championship at Paris won by Andrea Kekesy and Ede Kiraly of Hungary
- 1949 Ladies' Figure Skating Champions in Paris won by Alena Vrzanova of CZE
- 1949 Men's Figure Skating Championship in Paris won by Richard Button of the USA
- 1950 Two Long Island Rail Road trains collide head-on, killing 32 near Rockville Centre, Long Island, New York
Sports History
1951 Detroit right wing Gordie Howe scores his 100th career NHL goal and adds an assist in a 2-1 Red Wings' victory away to the Montreal Canadiens
- 1952 Montreal Canadiens center Elmer Lach picks up his 354th career assist in a 3-2 loss at the NY Rangers to become NHL's all-time assists leader; passes Bill Cowley's mark
- 1952 Trude Jochum-Beiser of Austria wins the downhill gold medal at the Oslo Winter Olympics; second career gold medal after taking out the combined event at St. Moritz (1948)
- 1953 DSB soccer team forms in Eindhoven (now PSV Eindhoven), Netherlands
- 1954 WAST (now WNYT) TV channel 13 in Albany-Troy, NY (NBC) 1st broadcast
- 1955 American golfer Mike Souchak sets PGA 72-hole record of 257 (not broken until 2001)
- 1955 Ice Dance Championship at Vienna Austria won by J Westwood/Demmy GRB
- 1955 Ice Pairs Championship at Vienna won by Frances Dafoe and Norris Bowden of Canada
- 1955 KTVF TV channel 11 in Fairbanks, AK (CBS/ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1955 Ladies Figure Skating Championship in Vienna won by Tenley Albright US
- 1956 Ice Dance Championship at Garmisch won by Pamela Weight/P Thomas GRB
- 1956 Ice Pairs Championship at Garmisch won by Schwarz & Oppelt of AUT
- 1956 Ladies' Figure Skating Championship in Garmisch won by Carol Heiss USA
- 1956 Men's Figure Skating Championship in Garmisch won by H A Jenkins USA
- 1957 A fire at a home for the elderly in Warrenton, Missouri kills 72 people.
- 1958 Comic strip "BC" 1st appears
- 1958 WETV (now WPBA) TV channel 30 in Atlanta, GA (PBS) begins broadcasting
- 1959 1st weather satellite launched, Vanguard 2, 9.8 kg
- 1962 Storm in Hamburg kills 265
- 1963 Japanese runner Toru Terasawa runs a world record marathon (2:15:15.8) at the Beppu Marathon on the island of Kyushu, Japan
- 1964 101st member elected to Baseball Hall of Fame, Chicago White Sox shortstop Luke Appling
- 1964 US House of Representatives accept Law on the civil rights
- 1964 US Supreme Court rules - 1 man 1 vote (Westberry v Sanders)
- 1964 WMEM TV channel 10 in Presque Isle, ME (PBS) begins broadcasting
- 1965 US Ranger 8 launched, will transmit 7,137 lunar pictures
Sports History
1965 US-Japan baseball relations suspended over Masanori Murakami dispute
- 1966 French satellite Diapason D-1A launch into Earth orbit
- 1967 Beatles release "Penny Lane" & "Strawberry Fields"
- 1967 Kosmos 140 (Soyuz Test) launches into Earth orbit
- 1968 Frenchman Jean Claude-Killy completes a clean sweep of the alpine skiing events at the Grenoble Winter Olympics when he wins the slalom; also takes out the downhill and giant slalom
- 1968 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Springfield, Massachusetts opens
- 1968 Norwegian cross country skier Ole Ellefsæter wins 50k event at the Grenoble Winter Olympics; 2nd gold medal of the Games (4 x 10k relay)
- 1968 Soviet Union wins its 3rd Olympic ice hockey gold medal in Grenoble; clinch title with final round, 5-0 win over Canada; Soviet LW Anatoli Firsov top scores with 16 points
- 1969 "Cloud Nine" 9th studio album by The Temptations is released (Grammy Award Best Rhythm & Blues Performance by a Duo or Group 1969, Billboard Album of the Year 1969)
Britain Joins the European Community
1972 British Parliament votes to join the European Common Market
Music Concert
1972 Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti receives record 17 curtain calls after his performance in "La fille du régiment" at New York's Metropolitan Opera
Volkswagen Beetle
1972 Sales of the Volkswagen Beetle model exceed those of Ford Model T
Historic Event
1972 US President Richard Nixon leaves Washington, D.C. for a groundbreaking trip to China
- 1973 Rodney Redmond scores 107 on debut v Pakistan, his only Test Cricket
Meeting of Interest
1973 US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger meets Chinese leader Mao Zedong, where the latter jokingly offers to send 10 million Chinese women to the United States
Daytona 500
1974 16th Daytona 500: Richard Petty first driver to win back-to-back titles at Daytona; his 5th Great American race
- 1974 49 die in stampede for seats at soccer match, Cairo, Egypt
- 1974 Robert K. Preston, a disgruntled U.S. Army private, buzzes the White House with a stolen helicopter.
Album Release
1975 A&M Records releases John Lennon's sixth studio album, "Rock 'n' Roll" album, cover songs of early rock numbers
- 1976 "Rockabye Hamlet" opens at Minskoff Theater NYC for 7 performances
- 1976 Macau adopts constitution (Organic Law of Macau)
- 1976 NZ scores their 1st innings win in Test Cricket, v India
Sports History
1976 Richard Hadlee takes 7-23 New Zealand v India, his 1st match-winning spell
World Record
1979 American speed skater Eric Heiden equals world record 1000m (1:14.99)
- 1979 China invades Vietnam, marking the start of the Sino-Vietnamese War
- 1980 22nd Daytona 500: Buddy Baker wins ahead of Bobby Allison and Neil Bonnett
- 1980 Derrynaflan Hoard of five priceless 8th/9th century liturgical vessels discovered with metal detectors on Derrynaflan Island, County Tipperary - one of Ireland's most exciting archaeological finds [1]
- 1980 Sapporo downhill silver medallist Annemarie Moser-Pröll of Austria goes one better with gold at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics
- 1980 Swedish cross-country skier Thomas Wassberg earns first of 4 career Olympic gold medals in the 15k at Lake Placid; wins by 0.01s from Finland's Juha Mieto; closest margin of victory ever in Olympic cross-country skiing
- 1981 Chrysler Corporation reports largest corporate losses in US history
- 1982 Commencement of Sri Lanka's 1st Test Cricket match, v England
- 1983 Bob Bourne fails on 8th Islander penalty shot
- 1983 Netherlands adopts constitution
- 1983 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1984 34th Berlin International Film Festival: "Love Streams" wins the Golden Bear
- 1984 Biathletes Eirik Kvalfoss of Norway and West German Peter Angerer finish 2nd & 3rd respectively in the relay at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics; both have complete sets of medals from biathlon events at the Games
- 1985 1st class postage rises from 20 cents to 22 cents
- 1985 1st day/night game at the MCG, Australia v England
Daytona 500
1985 27th Daytona 500: After taking pole at then-record speed of 205.114 mph Bill Elliott dominates race leading 136 of 200 laps
- 1985 3rd person to receive an artificial heart (Murray Haydon)
- 1985 Dutch speed skater Hein Vergeer becomes World Allround champion
Sports History
1985 Panamanian jockey Laffit Pincay Jr.is third to ride 6,000 winners; wins aboard Doria's Delight in the 5th race at Santa Anita Park
- 1986 1st Francophone Summit convenes at Versailles
- 1986 Howard Stern radio show returns to NYC morning radio (WXRK 92.3 FM)
- 1986 Johnson & Johnson announces it will no longer sell capsule drugs
- 1986 Libyan bombers attack N'djamena Airport in Chad
Historic Event
1987 Don Mattingly wins highest salary arbitration ($1,975,000 per year)
Sports History
1989 Former baseball player and manager Leo Durocher injured in a car crash
- 1989 Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia & Libya form common market
- 1989 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1991 33rd Daytona 500: Ernie Irvan, driving for Morgan-McClure Motorsports coasts to win after challengers crash on finals laps
- 1991 US male Figure Skating championship won by Todd Eldredge
- 1993 Haitian ferry boat capsize in storm, 800-2,000 die
- 1993 Hartford right wing Pat Verbeek scores his 300th career NHL goal and adds his 300th career assist in a 5-3 Whalers' home loss to the Buffalo Sabres
- 1993 Mark Foster swims world record 50m free style (21.60 sec)
- 1995 11th US Soap Opera Digest Awards - "Days of Our Lives" wins
- 1995 Colin Fergusson found guilty of killing 6 people on the Long Island Rail Road in NY
- 1995 Federal judge allows lawsuit claiming US tobacco makers knew nicotine was addictive & manipulated its levels to keep customers hooked
Sports History
1995 Tiger Manager Sparky Anderson takes unpaid leave due to baseball strike
- 1996 1st full ODI for the Netherlands, v NZ, cricket World Cup Nolan Clarke makes ODI debut for Netherlands at age 47
Sports History
1996 Garry Kasparov defeats Deep Blue 4-2 in chess
- 1997 Weekly Standard shows evidence Larry Flint sexually abused his daughter
- 1998 Larry Wayne Harris & Bill Levitt arrested for possession of anthrax
- 1998 NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft overtakes Pioneer 10 to become the farthest object from earth in space
- 1998 US Naval Academy cadet Diane Zamora, 20, convicted of capital murder
- 1998 USA Women's Ice Hockey Team beats Canada and wins the first Olympic Gold medal
- 2002 44th Daytona 500: Ward Burton's win first for Dodge since Richard Petty's victory in the 1974 race
- 2002 Westlife go to No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'World Of Our Own.' The Irish boy band's 10th UK No.1 single.
- 2003 The London Congestion Charge scheme begins in London, England
Music Single
2004 "If I Ain't Got You" single released by Alicia Keys (Grammy Award Best Female R&B Vocal Performance 2005, Billboard Song of the Year 2004)
NBA All-Star Game
2008 57th NBA All-Star Game, New Orleans Arena, New Orleans, LA: East beats West, 134-128; MVP: LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers, F
- 2008 Kosovo declares independence from Serbia
- 2012 43rd NAACP Image Awards: "The Help" wins Outstanding Motion Picture
- 2012 Approximately 70 ancient Olympic artifacts are stolen from the Archaeological Museum of Greece
- 2012 The President of Germany, Christian Wulff, resigns over a corruption scandal
- 2013 37 people are killed and 130 are injured in a series of Baghdad car bombings
- 2013 5 people are killed and 11 are injured after a gas explosion destroyed an apartment complex in Frenštát pod Radhoštěm, Czech Republic
- 2013 62nd NBA All-Star Game, Toyota Centre, Houston, TX: West beats East, 143-138; MVP: Chris Paul, LA Clippers, G
- 2013 Jess Cameron with 75 and Elise Perry 3-27 lead Australia to 114 run win over West Indies in the Women's Cricket World Cup Final in Bombay, India
- 2013 President Rafael Correa wins the Ecuadorian general election in a landslide victory
Television Premiere
2014 "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" premieres on NBC