Historic Event
1519 Francisco Pizarro receives royal charter for the west coast of South America
- 1529 Francisco Pizarro appointed Governor of Peru
How 200 Conquistadors Conquered an Empire of 10 Million
1533 Francisco Pizarro orders the death of the last Sapa Inca Emperor, Atahualpa
Historic Event
1656 Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn declares he is insolvent
Historic Event
1755 Giacomo Casanova is arrested in Venice for affront to religion and common decency and imprisoned in the Doge's Palace
- 1757 Battle at Hastenbeck: French army beats Duke of Cumberland
Victory in Battle
1758 British battle fleet under general James Wolfe conquers Louisbourg
Historic Event
1775 US Continental Congress creates United States Post Office (U.S.P.O.) in Philadelphia under Benjamin Franklin
Constitution of the United States
1788 New York becomes 11th state to ratify US constitution
Historic Event
1822 Secret meeting of Simón Bolívar and Jose de San Martin
- 1826 Riots in Vilnius, Lithuania cause the death of many Jews
- 1832 HMS Beagle anchors in Montevideo
- 1835 1st sugar cane plantation started in Hawaii
- 1847 Moses Gerrish Farmer builds 1st miniature train for children to ride
- 1847 The Liberian Declaration of Independence is signed making Liberia a sovereign nation, independent from the American Colonization Society
- 1858 Baron Lionel de Rothschild becomes the 1st Jewish person elected to the British Parliament
- 1863 Battle of Salineville Ohio: Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 364 troops surrender to Union forces after a 17-day unauthorized raid through Indiana and Ohio
- 1864 -30] US Civil War: Union Brig. General Edward McCook leads unsuccessful cavalry raids at Lovejoy Station, Georgia
- 1864 -30] US Civil War: Union General George Stoneman leads unsuccessful raid in Macon, Georgia
- 1865 Patrick Francis Healy is 1st African American awarded PhD (from University of Leuven, Belgium)
- 1865 The capital of New Zealand moves from Auckland to Wellington
- 1866 Canoe Club opens in England
- 1878 In California, poet and American West outlaw calling himself "Black Bart" makes his last clean getaway when he steals a safe box from a Wells Fargo stagecoach. The empty box found later with a taunting poem inside.
- 1881 French marines occupy Tunisian harbor city Sfax
Music Premiere
1882 Richard Wagner's opera "Parsifal" premieres in Bayreuth, Germany
- 1887 1st Esperanto book published
- 1891 France annexes Tahiti.
- 1891 Henry James' "American" premieres in London
- 1896 Vitascope Hall, 1st permanent for-profit movie theatre, opens in New Orleans
- 1897 37.5 cm rainfall at Jewell, Maryland (state record)
- 1902 Australia beat England by 3 runs at Old Trafford
- 1903 Horatio Nelson Jackson, Sewall K. Crocker, and a bulldog named Bud complete 1st automobile trip across the United States; San Francisco to New York in a 2-cylinder Winton (63 days, 12 hours, and 30 minutes)
- 1908 United States Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte issues an order to immediately staff the Office of the Chief Examiner (later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation)
- 1914 12th Tour de France won by Philippe Thys of Belgium
- 1914 Britain attempts to organize a conference among major European powers to resolve dispute between Austria-Hungary and Serbia; France, Italy, and eventually Russia agree to participate. but Germany refuses
Historic Event
1914 First Lord of the Admiralty (British Minister of Navy) Winston Churchill orders British fleet to remain in state of readiness as threat of war in Europe grows
- 1914 Irish Volunteers unload a shipment of 1,500 rifles and 45,000 rounds of ammunition arrive from Germany aboard Erskine Childers' yacht the Asgard; British troops fire on jeering crowd on Bachelors Walk, Dublin, killing three citizens
- 1915 International School for Wijsbegeerte forms
- 1916 The US Protests the 'Blacklist' issued by the British forbidding trade with some 30 US firms
Historic Event
1917 J. Edgar Hoover gets job in US Department of Justice
- 1918 Race riot in Philadelphia (3 whites & 1 black killed)
- 1926 National Bar Association incorporates
- 1926 Philippines government asks USA for a plebiscite on independence
- 1928 In only his second and final defense of his world heavyweight boxing title, Gene Tunney scores an 11-round TKO win over Tom Heeney at Yankee Stadium, NYC
- 1928 Yanks score 11 runs in 12th beating Tigers 12-1
- 1931 25th Tour de France won by Antonin Magne of France
Sports History
1931 International Lawn Tennis Challenge, Paris, France: Henri Cochet beats Fred Perry 6-4, 1-6, 9-7, 6-3 to give France 3-2 win over Great Britain and 5th straight title
- 1931 LPGA Western Open Women's Golf, Midlothian CC: June Beebe beats Mrs. Melvin Jones, 3 & 2 for golf's only major title
Baseball Record
1933 Joe DiMaggio ends 61 game hitting streak in Pacific Coast League
- 1936 The Axis Powers decide to intervene in the Spanish Civil War.
- 1937 End of the Battle of Brunete in the Spanish Civil War.
- 1938 1st radio broadcast of "Young Widder Brown" on NBC
- 1939 Yankee catcher Bill Dickey hits 3 consecutive HRs
- 1941 1st Dutch Austrians depart Hague
- 1941 US embargo on oil-export to Japan
- 1942 RC churches protest, Dutch bishops stand against spread of Judaism
- 1943 120°F (49°C), Tishmoningo, Oklahoma (state record)
- 1943 Otto Skorzeny's commando group arrives in Rome
- 1944 Japanese suicide attack on US lines in Guam
- 1944 Soviet troops arrive in Weichsel
- 1944 The first German V-2 rocket hits Great Britain (nicknamed "gasometer").
- 1944 US offensive at St-Lo/2nd Armour div occupies St Gilles
Election of Interest
1945 After Labour landslide in general election, Clement Attlee becomes British Prime Minister
Potsdam Declaration
1945 Declaration of Potsdam: US, Britain and China demand the unconditional surrender of Japan during WWII
- 1945 Japanese government disregards US ultimatum
Nuclear Bombing of Nagasaki
1945 Physicist Raemer Schreiber and Lieutenant Colonel Peer de Silva depart Kirtland Army Air Field to transport the plutonium core for the Fat Man bomb (bombing of Nagasaki) to the island of Tinian where the bomb is assembled
- 1945 US cruiser Indianapolis reaches Tinian with atom bomb
- 1945 Winston Churchill resigns as Britain's Prime Minister after election defeat
- 1946 Aloha Airlines began service from Honolulu International Airport
- 1947 46th Men's French Championships: Jozsef Asboth beats Eric Sturgess (8-6, 7-5, 6-4)
Sports History
1947 46th Women's French Championships: Patricia Todd beats Doris Hart (6-3, 3-6, 6-4)
Historic Event
1947 President Truman signs National Security Act (1947), establishing Department of Defense, CIA, National Security Council and Joint Chiefs of Staff
- 1947 US President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act which establishes the Central Intelligence Agency
- 1948 1st black host of a network show-CBS' Bob Howard Show
Sports History
1948 Leo Durocher returns to Ebbets Field as manager of New York Giants
- 1948 President Harry Truman issues Executive Order No. 9981 to desegregate the US armed forces, directing "equality of treatment and opportunity" in the military
- 1949 WCPO TV channel 9 in Cincinnati, OH (CBS) begins broadcasting
- 1950 Dodgers' Jim Russell is 1st to switch-hits HRs twice in a game
- 1950 KNIL (Royal Dutch East Indies Army) unites
- 1951 Netherlands ends state of war with Germany
- 1952 King Farouk I of Egypt abdicates [Black Saturday]
Sports History
1952 Mickey Mantle hits his 1st grand-slammer
- 1953 Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle orders an anti-polygamy law enforcement crackdown on residents of Short Creek, Arizona, which becomes known as the Short Creek Raid
- 1953 Cuban pirate radio station's 1st transmission at Santiago de Cuba
Historic Event
1953 Fidel Castro leads a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks, intended to spark a revolution in Cuba
PGA Championship
1955 PGA Championship Men's Golf, Meadowbrook CC: Doug Ford scores a 4 & 3 win over Cary Middlecoff in the Tuesday final; first of 2 majors (Masters 1957)
- 1955 Ted Allen throws a record 72 consecutive horseshoe ringers
Historic Event
1956 Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser announces plan to nationalize Suez Canal, initiating the "Suez Crisis"
- 1957 Carlos Castillo Armas, Dictator and President of Guatemala, is assassinated by a palace guard with leftist sympathies
- 1957 Mickey Mantle hits career HR # 200
- 1957 USSR launches 1st intercontinental multistage ballistic missile
- 1958 Army launches 4th US successful satellite, Explorer IV
- 1959 Chicago White Sox Larry Doby plays final MLB game; retires in 1962 after playing for the Chunichi Dragons in Japan
- 1960 Italian government of Fanfani forms
- 1962 Maria Oeljanov, 1st airship with nuclear missiles, arrives in Cuba
Baseball Record
1962 Milwaukee Brave Warren Spahn sets HR record of 31 by a pitcher
- 1963 Skopje, Yugoslavia, destroyed by earthquake, kills 1,000+
- 1963 The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development votes to admit Japan.
- 1963 US Syncom 2, 1st geosynchronous communications satellite, launched
- 1964 Teamsters President and US union leader Jimmy Hoffa convicted of fraud and conspiracy
- 1964 Train from Povoa de Varzin, Portugal derails near Oporto, 94 die
- 1965 Republic of Maldives gains independence from Britain (National Day)
- 1966 Lord Gardiner issues the Practice Statement in the House of Lords stating that the House is not bound to follow its own previous precedent
- 1966 WRLH TV channel 31 in Lebanon, NH (NBC) begins broadcasting
- 1967 Twins beat Yanks 3-2 in 18
- 1969 Sharon Sites Adams, 39, becomes 1st lady to solo sail the Pacific
Baseball Record
1970 Reds catcher Johnny Bench, playing for the day in the outfield, goes 4 for 5 with 7 RBIs including 3 consecutive HRs off St. Louis Cardinals Steve Carlton in 12-5 win at Riverfront Stadium, Cincinnati
Music Premiere
1973 Peter Shaffer's musical "Equus" premieres in London
- 1974 France performs nuclear Test at Mururoa atoll
- 1974 USSR's Soyuz fails to dock with Salyut 3
- 1975 Soyuz 18B returns to Earth
- 1977 The 'Committee of 10' formed by prominent Soweto residents, issues a programme for the election of a new community board to have total autonomy in Soweto, South Africa
- 1977 USSR performs underground nuclear Test
- 1978 11th San Diego Comic-Con International opens at El Cortez Hotel
- 1978 France performs nuclear Test at Mururoa atoll
- 1978 Johnny Bench hits his 300th career home run
- 1979 Estimated 109 cm (43") of rain falls in Alvin, Texas (national record)
- 1979 Pioneer 11 transmits images of Saturn and its rings
- 1981 2 climbers fall 550 m down cliff near Angel Falls, Venezuela
US Women's Golf Open
1981 US Open Women's Golf, La Grange CC: Pat Bradley shoots final round 66 (−6) to finish 1 stroke ahead of runner-up Beth Daniel; second of Bradley's 6 major titles
- 1982 Canada's Anik D1 Comsat launched by US Delta rocket
Film & TV History
1982 Indian film star Amitabh Bachchan is seriously injured filming a fight scene for the movie "Coolie"
- 1982 Karen Dianne Baldwin, 18, of Canada, crowned 31st Miss Universe
- 1983 Challenger moves to Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (Florida), for mating for STS-8
- 1983 Jarmila Kratochvilova of Czech sets 800m woman's record (1:53.28)
- 1983 Light flashes seen on Jupiter moon Io
- 1983 US threatens action to preserve navigation in Persian Gulf
Sports History
1984 Bowie Kuhn announces pitcher Vida Blue is suspended for the rest of 1984 due to cocaine conviction
Baseball Record
1988 Mike Schmidt sets NL record appearing in 2,155 games at 3rd base, as Phillies & NY Mets end that game at 2:13 AM
- 1990 General Hospital records its 7,000th episode
- 1990 US beats Soviet Union 17-0 in baseball at Goodwill Games
Historic Event
1990 US President George H. W. Bush signs Americans With Disabilities Act
- 1991 CFL assumes ownership of Ottawa Rough Riders
- 1991 Expo's Mark Gardner no hits Dodgers for 9 innings, but loses in 10th
- 1991 Paul Reubens (Pee-wee Herman) is arrested in Florida, for exposing himself at an adult movie theater
- 1992 "Man of La Mancha" closes at Marquis Theater NYC after 108 performances
- 1992 Britain honours her dead in the Falklands War
Baseball Record
1992 Nolan Ryan strikes out his 100th batter for the 23rd consecutive season
Sports History
1992 Tour de France: Miguel Induráin of Spain defends his title by 4' 35" from Italian Claudio Chiappucci; Laurent Jalabert points winner
- 1992 US Open Women's Golf, Oakmont CC: Patty Sheehan wins an 18-hole Monday playoff over runner-up Juli Inkster, 72 to 74
- 1993 Boeing 737-500 crashes in South Korea, 66 killed
- 1993 The first of four photos of Mars is taken by the Mars Observer, just under a month before the spacecraft failed in flight
- 1994 Cambodia's Red Khmer surprise attack on train, kills 13
- 1994 Turkish air force bombs Kurds, struggle in Iraq, 70 killed
- 1998 US Senior Open Men's Golf, Riviera CC: Hale Irwin wins by 1 stroke ahead of Vicente Fernández of Argentina
- 1999 Fighting ceases between India and Pakistan in the Kargil War, Kashmir, after two months of fighting
- 2005 Mumbai, India receives 99.5cm of rain (39.17 inches) within 24 hours, bringing the city to a halt for over 2 days
- 2005 Samir Geagea, the Lebanese Forces (LF) leader, is released after spending 11 years in a solitary confinement. His release came after the end of the Syrian occupation to Lebanon.
- 2005 Space Shuttle program: STS-114 Mission - Launch of Discovery, NASA's first scheduled flight mission after the Columbia Disaster in 2003
- 2007 40th San Diego Comic-Con International opens at San Diego Convention Center
- 2009 96th Tour de France won by Alberto Contador of Spain
- 2009 British Senior Open Men's Golf, Sunningdale: American Loren Roberts wins his second Open Senior title in a playoff with Mark McNulty and Fred Funk
- 2012 At least 200 people are killed in a day of violence in Syria
- 2012 Insurgent attack kills 19 people and destroys a helicopter at Baqubah, Iraq
- 2012 North Korea is hit by Tropical Storm Khanun, killing 88 people and leaving 60,000 people homeless
- 2013 57 people are killed in a market bombing in Parachinar, Pakistan
- 2014 Taghrooda wins the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes
- 2014 The Chinese government suspends a Shanghai meat dealer and makes arrests after the company sold out-of-date meat to fast food chains, including McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken
- 2014 While Israel reject long-term ceasefire that does not include destroying the Hamas tunnels, they agree to 12 hour ceasefire; Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip now exceeds 1000
Sports History
2015 102nd Tour de France won by Chris Froome of Great Britain
Golf Tournament
2015 British Senior Open Men's Golf, Sunningdale: American Marco Dawson wins by 1 shot from Bernhard Langer of Germany
- 2017 3 live king cobras reported found inside potato chip cans by customs officials in Los Angeles
- 2017 Great Britain announces it will ban gasoline and diesel cars by 2040
Historic Event
2017 US President Donald Trump announces policy to ban transgender people from the military, overturning Obama era changes
- 2018 Authorities in Stung Treng province, Cambodia, evacuate 25,000 below collapsed Laos dam as waters rise
- 2018 Facebook has the single worst day of any public company on the stock market - losing 19% or $119 billion market value
Historic Publication
2018 Observation of a black hole by The Very Large Telescope in Chile proves Albert Einstein's prediction of "gravitational redshift", published in "Journal Astronomy & Astrophysics"
- 2018 Over 700 immigrant children still separated from their parents in the US as court-imposed deadline to reunite them passes
Music Concert
2018 Sir Paul McCartney performs a "secret" gig at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, where the Beatles began
- 2019 Australian cricket captain Meg Lanning records T20 International world record individual score of 133 off 63 balls in 93-run win against England at Chelmsford; Southern Stars clinch Women's Ashes