- 1558 Calais, last English possession in France, retaken by France
Galileo Discovers Jupiter’s Moons
1610 Galileo Galilei discovers the first three moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa & Ganymede
Event of Interest
1611 Trial of Hungarian aristocrat Elizabeth Báthory for killing and torturing hundreds of young women, later sentenced to house arrest for the rest of her life
Event of Interest
1618 Francis Bacon becomes Lord Chancellor of England
Event of Interest
1698 Russian Tsar Peter the Great departs Netherlands for England
- 1714 Typewriter patented by Englishman Henry Mill (built years later)
- 1782 1st US commercial bank, Bank of North America, opens in Philadelphia
- 1784 1st US seed business established by David Landreth, Philadelphia
- 1785 1st balloon flight across English Channel by Jean Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries
- 1790 French Revolution: A major riot breaks out in Versailles as people demand lower bread prices
- 1797 First official use of the modern Italian flag (the Tricolor) by the Cispadane Republic
- 1817 2nd Bank of US opens in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- 1822 1st printing in Hawaii of a ceremonial broadside for King Kamehameha II by Elisha Loomis
- 1822 Liberia colonized by the American Colonization Society
- 1830 1st US Railroad Station opens in Baltimore
- 1835 HMS Beagle anchors off Chonos Archipelago
Music History
1842 Gioachino Rossini's cantata "Stabat Mater" premieres in Paris
- 1861 Florida troops takeover Fort Marion at St Augustine (US Civil War)
Romney Campaign
1862 Romney Campaign: Stonewall Jackson march towards Romney, West Virginia
- 1868 Arkansas constitutional convention meets in Little Rock
- 1868 Mississippi constitutional convention meets in Jackson
- 1890 African American inventor William Purvis receives a patent for the fountain pen
- 1892 Mine explosion kills 100 in Krebs, Oklahoma; blacks trying to help rescue white survivors, driven away with guns
- 1893 Hermann Sudermanns' play "Heimat" premieres in Berlin
Film & TV History
1894 William K.L. Dickson captures "Fred Ott's Sneeze" as a motion picture at Thomas Edison's Black Mariah Studio, West Orange, New Jersey [1]
- 1896 Fannie Farmer publishes her first cookbook "The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book"
Music Premiere
1897 Teatro Amazonas in Manaus, Brazil, holds its first performance with tenor Enrico Caruso performing
- 1899 Walter Camp publishes his 1st All-American football team in Collier's
Music Premiere
1903 Vincent d'Indy's opera "L'etranger" premieres in Brussels
Theater Premiere
1907 Clyde Fitch's play "The Truth" premieres in NYC
- 1908 England beat Australia by one wicket at the MCG
- 1910 Stanley Cup, Dey's Arena, Ottawa, ON: Ottawa Senators beat Galt (ON), 3-1 for a 2-0 sweep of challenge series
- 1911 Dutch Scouts Organization established in Amsterdam
- 1913 William M. Burton patents a process to "crack" petroleum
- 1915 World War I: Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm approves strategic bombing of Britain, but forbids bombing London, fearing his relatives in the royal family might be killed
Event of Interest
1916 In response to pressure from President Woodrow Wilson, Germany notifies the US State Department that it will abide by strict international rules of maritime warfare
Anglo-Irish Treaty
1922 The Anglo-Irish Treaty is ratified by Dail Eireann by a 64-57 vote
- 1923 Baltimore Sun warns of the Ku Klux Klan
Event of Interest
1929 Croatian nationalist movement, Ustaša founded by Ante Pavelić in exile in Italy
- 1929 French inventor Robert Bureau launches the 1st radiosonde - a battery-powered telemetry instrument carried into the atmosphere to measure various parameters and transmit them by radio to a ground receiver
- 1930 Edwin Justus Mayer's "Children of Darkness" premieres in NYC
- 1930 Marguerite Perey discovers francium (Fr), the last naturally occurring element to be found
- 1931 Guy Menzies flies the first solo non-stop trans-Tasman flight (from Australia to New Zealand) in 11 hours and 45 minutes, crash-landing on New Zealand's west coast.
- 1932 1st game played at Orchard Lake Curling Club, Mich
- 1933 1st edition of People & Fatherland published in Netherlands
- 1933 Revival of Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle's musical "Shuffle Along" closes at Mansfield Theater, NYC, after 17 performances
- 1934 "Flash Gordon" comic strip created and drawn by Alex Raymond debuts
Agreement of Interest
1935 French Foreign minister Pierre Laval and Benito Mussolini sign the Franco-Italian Agreement
- 1935 Zoe Akins' "Old Maid" premieres in NYC
- 1936 Tennis champs Helen Moody & Howard Kinsley volley 2,001 times (1h18m)
- 1939 US worker's union leader Tom Mooney freed (jailed since 1916)
- 1940 Winter War: The Finish 9th Division defeats the Soviet forces on the Raate-Suomussalmi road despite being significantly outnumbered
Event of Interest
1941 Chinese Kuomintang forces under orders from Chiang Kai-shek open fire on the surrounded Communist New Fourth Army at Maolin, Anhui Province, killing or capturing 7,000 troops
Event of Interest
1945 Lord Haw-Haw (William Joyce) reports total German victory in the Ardennes
- 1945 The last surface engagement between Allies and Japanese in the Pacific campaign, World War II
- 1946 Cambodia becomes autonomous state inside French Union
- 1947 Australia v England at MCG drawn in 6 days, 1st cricket draw in Australia since 1882
- 1948 Thomas Mantell, a pilot for the Kentucky Air National Guard, crashes while pursuing a supposed UFO
Event of Interest
1948 US President Harry Truman raises taxes for the Marshall Plan to assist in rebuilding Europe after WWII [1]
- 1949 1st photo of genes taken at University of Southern California by Pease & Baker
- 1950 "Happy as Larry" closes at Coronet Theater NYC after 3 performances
- 1950 Hank Snow's 1st appearance on "Grand Ole Opry"
- 1950 Mental health wing of Mercy Hospital burns, kills 41 in Davenport, Iowa
- 1953 US President Harry Truman announces American development of the hydrogen bomb
- 1954 Georgetown-IBM experiment, 1st public demonstration of a machine translation system, is held at IBM's head office in New York
Boxing Title Fight
1955 20 year-old future world heavyweight boxing champion Floyd Patterson scores a 5th-round TKO of Willie Troy in a non-title super middleweight bout at New York’s Madison Square Garden
Music History
1955 Marian Anderson becomes the 1st African American to perform with the New York Metropolitan Opera, singing the role of Ulrica in Giuseppe Verdi's "Un ballo in maschera"
- 1955 WCIQ TV channel 7 in Mt Cheaha, AL (PBS) begins broadcasting
- 1956 Indian batsman Vinoo Mankad scores 231 v NZ, 413 opening stand with Roy
- 1957 Algerian militant and National Liberation Front member Djamila Bouhired sets off a bomb in an Algiers cafe killing 11 civilians, precipitating the Battle of Algiers
Historic Invention
1958 Gibson Guitars receives US patent for their 'Flying V' electric guitar model; eventually used by Albert Collins, Jimi Hendrix, Marc Bolan of T-Rex, Dave Davies of the Kinks, and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top
- 1958 USSR reduces army to 300,000
Event of Interest
1959 American gangster Meyer Lansky flees Cuba for the Bahamas due to the Cuban Revolution and rise of Fidel Castro
Event of Interest
1959 US recognizes Fidel Castro's Cuban government
Sports History
1963 The rift between Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell and head coach Paul Brown reaches a boiling point, and Brown is fired
Woodstock Music and Art Fair
1970 Farmers sue Max Yasgur for $35,000 in damages caused by "Woodstock Festival"
- 1971 -40°F (-40°C) in Hawley Lake, Arizona (state record)
- 1972 Discovery of the first black hole Cygnus X-1 in the constellation Cygnus reported in a paper in "Nature" by Louise Webster and Paul Murdin [1]
- 1972 Iberian Airlines 'plane crashes into 800ft peak on island of Ibiza, 104 die
- 1972 Lewis F. Powell Jr. becomes a US Supreme Court Justice
- 1972 Los Angeles Lakers defeat the Atlanta Hawks, 134-90 for their 33rd straight win, the longest winning streak in major professional sports
- 1972 William Hubbs Rehnquist sworn in as US Supreme Court Justice
- 1973 "Purlie" closes at Billy Rose Theater NYC after 14 performances
- 1973 American poet James Merrill wins Bollingen Prize
- 1973 British Darts Organisation founded in North London
- 1973 Johnny Watkins bowls six overs 0-21 v Pakistan Never again
- 1973 Mark Essex's mass shooting comes to an end after he is shot by police more than 200 times on the roof of New Orlean's Holiday Inn hotel. He killed nine people, including five policeman.
- 1973 WNPB TV channel 13 in Marquette, MI (PBS) begins broadcasting
- 1974 Gasoline rationed in Netherlands
- 1975 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to AR Ammons (Sphere)
- 1975 Gary Geld & Peter Udell's musical "Shenandoah" premieres in NYC for 1050 performances
- 1975 Led Zeppelin fans riot before Boston concert causing $30,000 damage
- 1978 Angola revises its constitution in include a state security law
- 1979 AFC Championship, Three Rivers Stadium, Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Steelers beat Houston Oilers, 34-5
- 1979 NFC Championship, LA Memorial Coliseum Dallas Cowboys beat Los Angeles Rams, 28-0
- 1979 Vietnamese forces capture Phnom Penh from Khmer Rouge
- 1980 Minnesota ends Philadelphia Flyers' NHL record 35 game unbeaten streak ends
Album Release
1980 Real Records releases "Pretenders", the debut album of The Pretenders, in UK
Event of Interest
1980 US President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation to bail out the Chrysler Corporation with a 1.5 billion dollar loan
NHL Record
1982 Islander's Bryan Trottier's 10th career hat trick
- 1982 TV series "Fame", based on the film of the same name, starring Debbie Allen and an ensemble cast premieres on NBC TV
- 1983 Australia regain the Ashes with a 2-1 series win v England
Event of Interest
1983 President Reagan ends US arms embargo against Guatemala
Music Premiere
1985 Revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical "The King & I", still starring Yul Brynner opens at Broadway Theater, NYC; runs for 191 performances
- 1986 Netherlands Bank issues 250 guilder notes
- 1986 STS 61-C mission scrubbed at T -9m because of weather problems
- 1986 US President Reagan announces economic sanctions against Libya
- 1987 French airplanes harass Libyan positions in Duadi Doum
- 1989 Cleveland Cavaliers block 21 NY Knicks shots tying NBA regulation game record
- 1989 International Conference on Limitation of Chemical Weapons opens in Paris
- 1989 NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers then longest winning streak (11 games)
- 1990 Lynn Jennings runs world record indoor 5km indoor at 15:22.64
- 1990 Tower of Pisa closed to the public after leaning too far
- 1991 "Nia Peeples Party Machine" premieres on TV
Event of Interest
1991 Saddam Hussein prepares his troops for what he says will be a long violent war against the US
- 1992 AT&T releases video-telephone ($1,499)
Cricket History
1992 Last day of Test cricket for Pakistan's Imran Khan
Hall of Fame
1992 Tom Seaver & Rollie Fingers elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame
- 1993 Bosnian War: Bosnian Army launches a surprise attack on Kravica, a village in Srebrenica
- 1993 The Fourth Republic of Ghana is inaugurated with Jerry Rawlings as President
- 1994 Hopman Cup Tennis, Perth: Petr Korda defeats Bernd Karbacher of Germany 6-3, 6-3 for an unassailable 2-0 lead (ends 2-1) and the Czech Republic's first title
- 1994 South Africa beat Australia in the Sydney Test by 5 runs
- 1994 United Express commuter plane crashes in Ohio, killing 5
Sports History
1994 US female Figure Skating championship won by Tonya Harding
- 1995 "Passion" closes at Plymouth Theater NYC after 280 performances
Hopman Cup
1995 Hopman Cup Tennis, Perth: Boris Becker beats Andrei Medvedev of the Ukraine 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 for a 2-0 win, and Germany's second title
- 1995 Larry Brown posts his 500th career NBA coaching victory, following the Indiana Pacers' 88-83 road win at the Houston Rockets
Theatrical Finale
1995 Limited run of Patrick Stewart's one-man show "A Christmas Carol", based on Charles Dickens' novel, closes at Richard Rodgers Theater, NYC, after 18 performances
- 1996 "Fool Moon", starring Bill Irwin, closes at Ambassador Theater, NYC after 81 performances
- 1996 16th United Negro College Fund raises $12,600,000
Musical Finale
1996 Musical featuring works of George and Ira Gershwin "Crazy For You" closes at Shubert Theater, NYC, after 1622 performances, winning 3 Tony Awards
Election of Interest
1997 Newt Gingrich narrowly re-elected speaker of the US House of Representatives
Event of Interest
1998 Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky signs affidavit denying she had an affair with President Bill Clinton
Sports History
1998 Los Angeles Lakers center Shaquille O'Neal blocks 3 shots in a 114-102 win over Milwaukee to bring his career total to 1,002
- 1999 NBA Board of Governors unanimously ratifies a new 6-year collective bargaining agreement between the league and the National Basketball Players Association
Impeachment Trial of Bill Clinton
1999 President Bill Clinton's Impeachment trial begins in the US Senate after the House voted to impeach him for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky
- 2000 Former UK Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken released from prison after 9 months of a 18-month sentence
People's Choice Awards
2001 27th People's Choice Awards: Mel Gibson & Julia Roberts win (Dramatic Motion Picture) and Drew Carey & Jennifer Aniston win (TV)
- 2007 Danish TV drama "The Killing" created by Søren Sveistrup and starring Sofie Gråbøl premieres on DR1
Sports History
2007 Phil Jackson wins his 900th game as a head coach, becoming the fastest coach to reach 900 career wins
- 2008 13th Critics' Choice Movie Awards: "No Country for Old Men" wins Best Film
People's Choice Awards
2009 35th People's Choice Awards: Will Smith & Reese Witherspoon win (Movie Star) and Hugh Laurie & Christina Applegate win (TV)
- 2010 Muslim gunmen in Egypt kill nine people after opening fire on a crowd of Coptic Christians
Film Release
2011 "The King's Speech", starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and Helena Bonham Carter, is released in the UK
- 2012 Hopman Cup Tennis, Perth: Tomáš Berdych beats Frenchman Richard Gasquet 7-6, 6-4 for an unassailable 2-0 lead; 2nd title for Czech Republic
- 2012 Hot air balloon crashes in Carterton, New Zealand, killing 11
Ballon d'Or
2013 FIFA Ballon d'Or: Barcelona forward Lionel Messi wins award for a record 4th consecutive year; US forward Abby Wambach wins women's award
- 2014 Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina wins re-election in Bangladesh general election
People's Choice Awards
2015 41st People's Choice Awards: Robert Downey & Jennifer Lawrence win (movie star), Patrick Dempsey, Ellen Pomero (TV dramatic)
- 2015 A car bomb explodes in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, killing 38 people and injuring more than 63
Event of Interest
2015 Terrorist attack on the offices of satirical newspaper "Charlie Hebdo" in Paris kills 12 (including Jean Cabut and Stéphane Charbonnier), injures 11
- 2017 Hopman Cup Tennis, Perth: French pair Kristina Mladenovic & Richard Gasquet beat Americans Coco Vandeweghe & Jack Sock 4-1, 4-3 to clinch 2-1 win; 2nd French title
Golden Globes
2018 75th Golden Globes: "Ladybird", "The Handmaid's Tale", Elisabeth Moss, Sterling K. Brown among the winners, Oprah Winfrey accepts Lifetime award with powerful speech
- 2018 It snows in the Sahara desert - 15 inches reported in Aïn Séfra, Northwest Algeria
- 2018 Sydney, Australia has its hottest day for 80 years as Penrith reaches 47.3 degrees
- 2019 Amazon overtakes Microsoft to become the world's most valuable listed company for the first time, worth $797 billion
- 2019 Attempted coup in Gabon fails after rebel soldiers overtake national radio station in Libreville
- 2019 College Football, National Championship, Levi's Stadium, Santa Clara: #2 Clemson beats #1 Alabama, 44-16
