1st Observation by Copernicus
1497 Nicolaus Copernicus' 1st recorded astronomical observation
Historic Expedition
1500 Pedro Álvares Cabral departs Lisbon, Portugal at the head of a 13 ship expedition to India that will also claim Brazil for Portugal
The Protestant Reformation
1522 Martin Luther begins preaching his "Invocavit Sermons" in the German city of Wittenberg, reminding citizens to trust God's word rather than violence and thus helping bring to a close the revolutionary stage of the Reformation
- 1551 Emperor Karel appoints son Philip as heir to the throne
- 1562 Kissing in public banned in Naples (punishable by death)
- 1566 David Rizzio, the private secretary to Mary I of Scotland, is murdered in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland
- 1617 Sweden & Russia sign Peace of Stolbowa
- 1640 Pierre Corneilles "Horace" premieres in Paris
- 1642 English Queen Henriette Maria arrives in Hellevoetsluis, Netherlands
Appointment of Interest
1689 Thomas Shadwell appointed second English Poet Laureate by William and Mary after John Dryden refuses to swear oaths of allegiance to the new monarchs
The Wealth of Nations
1776 Adam Smith publishes the influential economics book "The Wealth of Nations"
Event of Interest
1809 A group of conspirators break into Gripsholm Castle and imprison King Gustav IV Adolf and appoint Charles XIII in his place as Regent of Sweden
- 1820 -11) Philippines chases out foreigners; about 125 die
- 1822 Charles Graham of NY granted first US patent for artificial teeth
- 1834 French Foreign Legion is founded
- 1839 Prussian government limits work week for children to 51 hours
- 1841 US Supreme Court rules the kidnapped slaves from the Spanish schooner the Amistad are free
Music Premiere
1842 Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Nabucco" premieres in Milan
- 1844 Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Hernani" premieres in Venice
- 1849 Carl Nikolais opera "Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor" premieres
- 1856 Sigma Alpha Epsilon is founded in the Johnston Mansion House on the University of Alabama
- 1858 Albert Potts of Philadelphia patents the street mailbox
- 1860 1st Japanese ambassador arrives in San Francisco en route to Washington
- 1861 Us Confederate currency authorized - $50, $100, $500, $1,000
- 1862 USS Monitor and CSS Merrimack battle in Hampton Roads
- 1864 26th Grand National: George Stevens wins his 3rd GN aboard 10/1 Emblematic; winning mare's full sister Emblem the race winner the previous year
Commander of the Army Ulysses S. Grant
1864 Ulysses S. Grant is named Commanding General of the U.S. (Union) Army
- 1868 The opera "Hamlet" by Ambroise Thomas premieres in Paris
- 1870 32nd Grand National: George Stevens wins consecutive GN's aboard 7/2 favourite The Colonel; his 5th and final GN victory
- 1889 Battle at Gallabat (Metema): Mahdi's beat Abyssinian emperor John IV
- 1889 Kansas passes 1st general antitrust law in US
Great Blizzard of 1891
1891 Great Blizzard of 1891 begins in England and lasts until March 13; Kills 200 people and 6,000 animals
- 1895 Stanley Cup, Victoria Rink, Montreal, Quebec: Montreal Victorias clinches trophy as Montreal HC beats Queens University (Kingston, Ontario), 5-1
- 1897 Cleveland Indians fans start calling the team "Indians" (in 1915 becomes official)
- 1897 MLB Cleveland Spiders sign Louis Sockalexis, full-blooded Penobscot
Music Premiere
1897 Premiere of (parts of) Gustav Mahler's 3rd Symphony, in Berlin, Germany
- 1904 Brandon's Lester Patrick becomes 1st hockey defenseman to score a goal
- 1907 1st involuntary sterilization law enacted, Indiana
- 1907 Lady Gregory's "Rising of the Moon" premieres in Dublin
- 1908 Italian football club Inter Milan founded as Foot-Ball Club Internazionale
- 1914 Hendrikus Colijn appointed as director of Bataafsche Petroleum Co
Event of Interest
1914 US Senator Albert B. Fall demands the "Cubanization of Mexico"
Event of Interest
1922 Eugene O'Neill's "Hairy Ape" premieres in NYC
- 1922 KJR-AM in Seattle Washington begins radio transmissions
- 1923 Amsterdam taxi strike ends
Event of Interest
1923 Elmer Rice's "Adding Machine" premieres in NYC
- 1923 NHL Championship: Montreal Canadiens outscore Ottawa Senators, 3-2, in 2
- 1924 South Slavia aproves Italy's annexation of Fiume (Rijeka)
- 1925 Pink's War, the first RAF operation conducted independently of the Army or Navy, begins
- 1926 Bertha Landes elected 1st woman mayor of Seattle and 1st female mayor of any major US city
- 1929 Marcel Pagnol's play "Marius" premieres in Paris
Music Premiere
1930 Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's satirical opera "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny" premieres in Leipzig, Germany
Event of Interest
1932 Eamon De Valera becomes President of Ireland
- 1932 Former Chinese emperor Henry Pu-Yi installed as head of Manchuria
- 1933 "42nd Street" a musical film revolving around rehearsals for a Broadway show, directed by Lloyd Bacon, with choreography by Busby Berkeley, and songs by Harry Warren and by Al Dubin, premieres at the Strand, NYC; later adapted as a stage musical
- 1933 Bulgarian communists Georgi Dimitrov, Blagoy Popov & Vasil Tanev arrested in Berlin, Germany, on charges of complicity in the Reichstag fire; all were acquitted
Event of Interest
1933 US Congress is called into special session by President Franklin D Roosevelt, beginning its "100 days"
Event of Interest
1935 Adolf Hitler publicly announces the creation of a new air force, the Luftwaffe
Firebombing of Tokyo
1945 334 US B-29 Superfortresses attack Tokyo with 120,000 fire bombs
- 1945 Japanese proclaim "independence" of Indo-China
- 1946 Dutch troops land at Batavia/Semarang
Sports History
1946 Ted Williams is offered $500,000 to play in Mexican Baseball League, he refuses
- 1947 US Ladies' Figure Skating championship won by Gretchen Merrill
- 1947 US Men's Figure Skating championship won by Richard Button
- 1948 Provisionary Indonesian government installed in Batavia
- 1949 Brigadier General Edwin K Wright, USA, ends term as deputy director of CIA
- 1949 England beat South Africa by scoring 174 runs in 94 minutes
Event of Interest
1950 Willie Sutton robs Manufacturers Bank of $64,000 in NYC
Event of Interest
1951 Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam submit a classified paper at the Los Alamos lab, in which they proposed their revolutionary new design, staged implosion, for a practical megaton-range hydrogen bomb
- 1952 Heinz Neuhaus wins Europe Heavyweight Boxing title
Event of Interest
1953 Joseph Stalin's funeral is held in Moscow after four days of national mourning
- 1954 1st local color TV commercial WNBT-TV (WNBC-TV) NYC (Castro Decorators)
Film & TV History
1954 Edward R. Murrow criticizes US Senator Joseph McCarthy on his TV show "See it Now"
- 1954 WMUR TV channel 9 in Manchester, NH (ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1956 Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus arrested & exiled to Seychelles
- 1956 Weather forecasting phone line set up in London England
- 1957 4th ACC Men's Basketball Tournament: North Carolina beats South Carolina, 95-75
- 1957 8.1 earthquake shakes Andreanof Islands, Alaska
- 1958 Detroit Pistons forward George Yardley III scores 26 points in 111-90 defeat to Syracuse Nationals; 1st NBA player to score 2,000 points in a season
- 1959 "Juno" opens at Winter Garden Theater NYC for 16 performances
- 1959 1st known radar contact is made with Venus
- 1959 Barbie makes her debut at the American Toy Fair in New York. Over a billion have been sold worldwide since.
- 1959 The Coasters' single "Charlie Brown" peaks at #2 on the Billboard Top 100
- 1961 Mine cave-in in Japan, kills 72
Sports History
1961 Philadelphia Warriors center Wilt Chamberlain scores 67 points in 135-126 win over NY Knicks at Philadelphia Civic Center
Space Dog Laika Launched to her Death
1961 Soviet flight Sputnik 9 carries and returns from orbit a dog named Chernushka (Blackie), frogs and a guinea pig
Music Single
1961 The Supremes release singles "I Want A Guy" and "Never Again"
Event of Interest
1962 Egyptian President Nasser declares Gaza belongs to Palestinians
- 1962 US advisors in South-Vietnam join the fight
- 1963 Beatles began 1st British tour, supporting Tommy Roe & Chris Montez
- 1964 1st Ford Mustang produced
- 1964 Creighton University's Paul Silas grabs Midwest record 27 rebounds against Oklahoma State
- 1964 Supreme Court issues NY Times vs Sullivan decision: public officials must prove malice to claim libel and recover damages
- 1966 Andrew Brimmer becomes 1st black governor of Federal Reserve Board
- 1968 10th Grammy Awards: Up Up & Away, Sgt Pepper's wins 4
- 1968 15th ACC Men's Basketball Tournament: North Carolina beats NC State, 87-50
- 1971 J M Noreiga takes 9-95 WI v India at Port-of-Spain
- 1971 Three off-duty Scottish soldiers are killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army; 4000 shipyard workers take to the streets to demand internment in response
- 1972 Four members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) die in a premature explosion at a house in Clonard Street, Lower Falls, Belfast
- 1972 Players on White Sox vote 31-0 in favor of a strike, if necessary
- 1974 21st ACC Men's Basketball Tournament: NC State beats Maryland, 103-100 (OT)
- 1974 Last Japanese soldier, a guerrilla operating in the Philippines, surrenders, 29 years after World War II ended
- 1975 "Lieutenant" opens at Lyceum Theater NYC for 9 performances
- 1975 Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.
- 1977 Adm Stansfield Turner, USN (Ret), becomes 12th director of CIA replacing acting director Knoche
- 1977 Hanafi Muslims invade 3 buildings in Washington, D.C., siege ended Mar 11th
- 1978 Ice Dance Championship at Ottawa Canada won by Linichuk & Karponosov
- 1978 Ice Pairs Championship at Ottawa won by Rodnina & Zaitsev (Soviet Union)
- 1978 Ladies Figure Skating Champions in Ottawa won by Anett Pötzsch (East Germany)
- 1978 Men's Figure Skating Champions in Ottawa won by Charles Tickner (USA)
Film Release
1979 "The Passage", directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Anthony Quinn, is released in the United States
- 1979 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
Sports History
1979 MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn orders baseball to give equal access to female reporters
- 1980 Flemish and Walloon battle in Belgium, 40 injured
People's Choice Awards
1981 7th People's Choice Awards: Clint Eastwood, Jane Fonda & Goldie Hawn win (Motion Picture) and Alan Alda & Carol Burnett win (TV)
Film & TV History
1981 Dan Rather becomes primary anchorman of CBS-TV News
Music Single
1984 John Lennon single "Borrowed Time" released posthumously
- 1984 Philadelphia 76'ers block 20 Seattle shots tying NBA regulation game record
- 1984 The Competitive Enterprise Institute is founded in Washington, D.C.
- 1984 Tim Witherspoon beats Greg Page in 12 for heavyweight boxing title
- 1985 26th SEC Men's Basketball Tournament: Auburn beats Alabama, 53-49
- 1985 Ladies' Figure Skating Championship in Tokyo won by Katarina Witt (East Germany)
- 1986 16th Easter Seal Telethon raises $30,100,000
- 1986 33rd ACC Men's Basketball Tournament: Duke beats Georgia Tech, 68-67
NHL Record
1986 Gilbert Perreault of the Buffalo Sabres becomes the 12th NHLer to score 500 career goals, in a 4-3 win over New Jersey Devils
- 1986 NASA announces searchers found remains of Challenger astronauts
- 1986 Soviet probe Vega 2 flies by Halley's Comet at 8,030 km
- 1987 Chrysler Corp offers to buy American Motors Corp for $1 billion
Appointment of Interest
1988 Actress Audrey Hepburn is appointed a UNICEF Special Ambassador (Goodwill Ambassador 1989)
Event of Interest
1988 US President Ronald Reagan presides at unveiling of Knute Rockne stamp
- 1989 Eastern Airlines files for bankruptcy
- 1989 Roger Kingdom runs world record 60m hurdles indoor (7.36 sec)
- 1989 Soviet Union officially submits to jurisdiction of the World Court
- 1989 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Event of Interest
1989 US Senate rejects President George H. W. Bush's nomination of John Tower as Defense Secretary
- 1990 Dr Antonia Novello sworn-in as 1st Hispanic and female US Surgeon General
- 1991 "Les Miserables" opens at Lyric Theatre, Brisbane
- 1991 5th American Comedy Award: Dennis Wolfberg
- 1991 Joe Dumaars (Detroit) begins NBA free throw streak of 62 games
- 1991 US 70th manned space mission STS 39 (Discovery 12) launches into orbit
Soul Train Music Awards
1993 7th Soul Train Music Awards: Michael Jackson, Mary J. Blige win
- 1993 Pittsburgh Penguins begin NHL record 17 game winning streak
- 1994 IRA launch 1st of 3 mortar attacks on London's Heathrow Airport
- 1995 Baseball awards a franchise to Tampa Bay Devil Rays
- 1995 Mexican peso worth 7.55 pesos to a dollar (record)
- 1995 President Konstantine Karamanlis (88) of Greece, resigns
- 1996 Javed Miandad's last international in Pakistan's Cricket World Cup Quarter Final loss to India
- 1996 NASA space shuttle STS-75 (Columbia 19) lands
Cricket World Cup
1996 Sri Lanka's Sanath Jayasuriya hammers 82 off 44 balls (13x4 3x6) v England in Cricket World Cup Quarter Final
- 1997 38th SEC Men's Basketball Tournament: Kentucky beats Georgia, 95-68
- 1997 44th ACC Men's Basketball Tournament: #5 North Carolina beats NC State, 64-54
Television Premiere
2002 Financial advice TV show The Suze Orman Show" starring Suze Orman premieres on CNBC
- 2006 Liquid water is discovered on Enceladus, the sixth largest moon of Saturn
- 2007 The US Justice Department releases an internal audit that found that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had acted illegally in its use of the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about US citizens
Music History
2011 Bonham's Auctions in New York City conducts sale of Eric Clapton and friends' guitars and amplifiers to benefit Crossroads Centre at Antigua, a drug and alcohol residential rehabilitation facility he co-founded in 1997, raising over $1.75M
- 2011 Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights
Cricket History
2012 Indian batsman Rahul Dravid announces his retirement from Test and domestic cricket
- 2012 Senior members of hacking group Lulz Sec are arrested, including one member of the FBI, in the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland
- 2013 19 people are killed in two suicide bombings in Kabul, Afghanistan
- 2013 Asteroid 2013 ET comes within 960,000 km from the Earth’s surface
- 2013 Bernard Hopkins defeats Tavoris Cloud to win IBF light heavyweight title
Event of Interest
2015 US President Barack Obama signs an executive order declaring Venezuela a national security threat to the US
- 2016 Eighth Democratic presidential candidates debate hosted by Univision and the Washington Post and held in Miami, Florida
- 2016 EU Migrant Crisis: Macedonia, Croatia and Slovenia close their borders to migrants trying to reach Northern Europe
- 2020 Italy announces it is locking down the whole country due to a spike in COVID-19 cases with 10,040 cases and 630 deaths
- 2020 National one-day women's strike held in Mexico to protest high rates of femicide (more than 10 women murdered every day)
- 2021 Brazil records its highest daily COVID-19 death toll to date of 1,972 deaths with 168,370 deaths overall
- 2021 China and Russia agree to build a research station on or around the Moon and collaborate on lunar missions, in move that could start another space race
Event of Interest
2021 Queen Elizabeth II publicly expresses "concern" after Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex interview, saying allegations including of racism with be dealt with privately
Film & TV History
2021 UK TV host Piers Morgan leaves ITV's "Good Morning" after 41,000 complaints made about him saying he did not believe Meghan, Duchess of Sussex's statement about her mental health
