- 1619 Theatrum Anatomicum opens in Amsterdam
Historic Event
1713 Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI issues the Pragmatic Sanction, decreeing that Habsburg possessions could be inherited by a daughter
- 1770 Amsterdam buys Van Aerssens family 1/3 part of Suriname
Historic Discovery
1770 British explorer Captain James Cook first sights Australia. Writes in his log book that “what we have as yet seen of this land appears rather low, and not very hilly, the face of the Country green and Woody, but the Sea shore is all a white Sand.”
The Shot Heard Round the World
1775 American Revolution begins in Lexington, Massachusetts. The "Shot Heard Round the World" takes place later that day in Concord
- 1775 Minutemen Capt John Parker orders not to fire unless fired upon
- 1775 New England militiamen begin the siege of Boston, hemming in the British army garrison
Historic Event
1775 Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott are captured by British troops riding from Lexington to Concord, Prescott escapes to warn Concord
Historic Event
1782 John Adams secures Dutch Republic's recognition of the United States as an independent government and house he purchased in The Hague, Netherlands became first American embassy.
- 1810 Venezuela achieves home rule: Vicente Emparan, Governor of the Captaincy General is removed by the people of Caracas and a Junta is installed.
- 1825 33 patriotic exiles return to Uruguay
- 1836 Nikolai Gogol's "Revisor" premieres in St Petersburg
- 1837 Cheyney University forms as the Institute for Colored Youth
- 1839 Treaty of London constitutes Belgium an independent kingdom & Luxembourg a Grand Duchy
- 1852 California Historical Society forms
- 1853 Netherlands Van Hall government forms
- 1861 Baltimore riots - 4 soldiers, 9 civilians killed
- 1861 Lincoln orders blockade of Confederate ports (Civil War)
- 1863 Union troops and fleet occupy For Huger, Virginia
- 1874 Barracks on Alcatraz Island destroyed in fire
Historic Event
1890 Henry Morton Stanley inaugurated in Brussels
- 1892 Charles Duryea takes the 1st American-made automotive for a test drive
Philippine Revolution
1901 In the Philippines, recently captured insurgent leader Emilio Aguinaldo issues a proclamation advising his countrymen to end their rebellion and use of peaceful means to work with the US toward independence.
Beatification
1909 Joan of Arc receives beatification by the Roman Catholic Church
- 1910 Halley's comet seen by naked eye 1st time this trip (Curacao)
Theater Premiere
1911 George Bernard Shaw's play "Fanny's First Play" premieres in London
- 1916 "Bing Boys are Here" opens in London
- 1916 Alderman Kelly reads the 'Castle Order' to a meeting of Dublin Corporation; this forged document supposedly from Dublin Castle, indicated that there was to be mass arrests of Irish Volunteers to prevent "trouble"
- 1916 Italians troops conquer Col di Lana at Merano
- 1919 French assembly decides on 8 hour work day
- 1919 Leslie Irvin of US makes first premeditated free-fall parachute jump
- 1921 Funeral of last German Emperoress, Augusta Victoria
- 1923 New Egyptian law allows suffrage for men, except soldiers
- 1927 "Vagabond King" opens in London
- 1928 Japanese troops occupies Sjantung-schiereiland
- 1928 The 125th and final fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary is published
Historic Event
1932 Bonnie Parker is captured in a failed hardware store burglary, and subsequently jailed. A grand jury fails to indict her, however, and she is released a few months later
Historic Event
1932 President Herbert Hoover suggests 5 day work week
Theater Premiere
1941 Bertolt Brecht's play "Mother Courage and her Children" premieres in Zurich
- 1941 Bulgarian troops invade Macedonia
- 1941 Milk rationed in Holland
Historic Event
1943 Bicycle Day - Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time
Historic Event
1943 Jews refuse to surrender the Warsaw Ghetto to SS officer Jürgen Stroop, who then orders its destruction, beginning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
- 1944 Allied fleet attack Sabang Sumatra
- 1945 Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Guatemala are established
- 1945 US aircraft carrier Franklin heavy damaged in Japanese air raid
- 1945 US offensive against Shuri-barrier on Okinawa
- 1947 AAU record for a 25-foot rope climb is set in 4.7 seconds
Election of Interest
1948 Chiang Kai-shek elected President of Nationalist China
Historic Event
1951 General Douglas MacArthur ends his military career
- 1955 The German automaker Volkswagen, after six years of selling cars in the United States, founds Volkswagen of America in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey to standardize its dealer and service network
- 1959 Uprising in La Paz Bolivia, fails
- 1960 Comiskey Park's famed "exploding" scoreboard begins operating
Historic Event
1962 NASA civilian pilot Joseph A. Walker takes X-15 to 46,900m
- 1964 Rightist coup in Laos, Suvanna Phuma remains premier
- 1965 "Whipped Cream & Other Delights", fourth full album by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass Band, is released
- 1965 1st all news radio station (WINS 1010 AM in NYC) begins operating
- 1965 At a cost of $20,000, the outer Astrodome ceiling is painted because of sun's glare, this causes the grass to die
- 1965 T.A.M.I. Show premieres in London
- 1966 In 1st regular season game at Anaheim Stadium, Angels lose 3-1 to Chic
- 1967 Yugoslav author Mihaljo Mihaljov sentenced 4½ years
- 1968 Belgian construction workers strike
- 1968 NL owners approve expansion for 2 new teams
- 1969 Serious rioting in the Bogside area of Derry following clashes between Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association marchers and Loyalists and members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary
- 1970 24th Tony Awards: Borstal Boy & Applause win
- 1971 Sierra Leone becomes a republic (National Day)
- 1971 USSR Salyut 1 launched; 1st manned lab in orbit
- 1972 Bangladesh becomes a member of the British Commonwealth
Historic Event
1972 British Prime Minister Edward Heath confirms that a plan to conduct an arrest operation, in the event of a riot during the march on 30 January 1972, was known to British government Ministers in advance
- 1972 Hungary revises its constitution to declare itself a socialist state
- 1972 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1973 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1975 India launches 1st satellite with help of USSR
- 1978 Yitzhak Navron elected 5th president of Israel
- 1979 FCC raids & shuts down pirate radio station WFAT (Brooklyn New York)
- 1982 Guinon Bluford announced as 1st African American NASA astronaut
Historic Event
1982 Sally Ride is named the 1st American woman astronaut
- 1982 USSR Salyut 7 space station put into orbit
- 1983 France performs nuclear test
- 1984 Nemesis, death star of dinosaurs 1st appears in print (Nature magazine)
- 1985 16th NASA Space Shuttle Mission (51-D): Discovery 4 returns to Earth
- 1985 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
- 1987 Jacqueline Blanc, sets women's downhill ski speed rec (124.902 mph)
- 1987 Last wild condor captured on California wildlife reserve
- 1987 USSR performs underground nuclear test
- 1989 Central Park Five: Violent rape of jogger Trisha Meili in NYC's Central Park becomes one of the most widely publicized crimes of the 1980s. Five teenagers are wrongfully convicted and spend between 6-12 years in prison.
- 1989 Gun turret explodes on USS Iowa, killing 47 sailors
- 1989 Republic Day in Sierra Leone
- 1990 Contra guerrillas, leftist Sandinistas & incoming government agree to truce n Nicaragua's civil war
- 1991 Greyhound Bus posts $195 million loss for 1990
- 1993 After a 51 day siege by the FBI 76 Branch Davidians die in a fire near Waco Texas (accident, suicide, tear gas are disputed causes)
- 1993 Fire in psychiatric institute in South Korea, kills 40
- 1993 South Dakota governor George Mickelson and seven others are killed when a state-owned aircraft crash lands in Iowa
- 1994 Inkatha ends boycott of South African multi-racial election
Rodney King Riots
1994 Rodney King awarded $3,800,000 compensation by the Los Angeles County for his police beating
- 1994 US Supreme Court outlaws excluding people from juries because of gender
Historic Event
1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy McVeigh sets a truck bomb at Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 and injuring 500
Papal Inauguration
2005 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger elected Pope Benedict XVI on the second day of the Papal conclave.
Historic Event
2011 Fidel Castro resigns his position of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba after 45 years of holding the title [1]
- 2013 Boston bombing suspects killed and captured in Boston after 4 days
- 2015 Boat carrying approx. 850 migrants is shipwrecked in the Mediterranean between Italian and Libya, with only 27 migrants rescued.
- 2017 Fox News confirms they would be letting go of Bill O'Reilly after allegations of sexual harassment
- 2018 King Mswati III of Swaziland changes the name of Swaziland to Eswatini, which translates as the “Land of the Swati”
Election of Interest
2018 Miguel Diaz-Canel is elected Cuba's new president, after former president Raúl Castro steps down
- 2018 US Senator Tammy Duckworth (Illinois (D)) is the first parent to bring a baby into the Senate chambers, a day after the Senate votes to allow babies on the chamber's floor
COVID-19 Pandemic
2020 UK COVID-19 death toll reaches 16,060 (hospitals only), as "The Sunday Times" criticizes Boris Johnson's government's response, saying they "sleepwalked into disaster"
- 2020 US COVID-19 death toll passes 40,000, with 742,442 cases recorded according to Johns Hopkins tally
- 2021 Cuba's Communist party announces Miguel Díaz-Canel will replace Raúl Castro as party leader, after the latter steps down
- 2021 NASA successfully flies its drone helicopter Ingenuity on Mars, first powered aircraft to fly on another world
- 2021 New Zealand and Australia open a travel bubble between the two countries after more than a year of border closures
Historic Event
2022 US Biden administration restores climate impacts and community say to the National Environmental Policy Act, previously removed by Donald Trump [1]
- 2022 US inflation hits 8.5%, the highest since 1981, driven by a rise in gas prices, rent and food [1]