Florence Cathedral
1420 Construction begins on the dome of Florence Cathedral, designed by Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi
- 1485 Henry Tudor's (Henry VII to be) army lands in Milford Haven, South Wales
Historic Event
1573 Francis Drake's fleet returns to Plymouth after a year spent raiding for Spanish treasure
- 1575 Spanish troops conquer Oudewater, almost all inhabitants died
Historic Event
1606 Possible first performance of Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth, performed in the Great Hall at Hampton Court Palace for King James I
Historic Event
1620 Astronomer Johannes Kepler's mother arrested for witchcraft
Victory in Battle
1620 Battle at Ponts-the-Ce, Poitou: French king Louis XIII defeats his mother Marie de Medici
Historic Event
1782 George Washington creates the Purple Heart medal (original name Badge of Military Merit) as commander of the Continental Army
- 1789 US Congress creates the Department of War and the United States Lighthouse Establishment
- 1819 Battle of Boyacá; Bolívar defeats Spanish in Colombia
- 1820 1st potatoes planted in Hawaii
- 1864 Battle of Moorefield, West Virginia
- 1879 The opening of the Poor Man's Palace in Manchester.
- 1882 Hatfields of south West Virginia and McCoys of east Kentucky feud, 100 wounded or die
- 1884 Germany annexes Angra Pequena / German South West-Africa (modern Namibia)
- 1885 Five German warships anchor off Zanzibar
- 1888 Theophilus Van Kannel of Philadelphia patents revolving door
- 1893 53rd Congress (1893-95) convenes
- 1900 Diamond workers in Amsterdam strike
- 1904 Train derails on bridge in Eden, Colorado, during a flash flood, kills 96
- 1908 The first train to travel the length of New Zealand's North Island 'main trunk line', leaves Wellington
Presidential Convention
1912 Progressive (Bull Moose) Party nominates Theodore Roosevelt for US President
- 1914 Engagement between British cruiser HMS Gloucester and German cruisers SMS Breslau and SMS Goeben off Greece
- 1914 French government awards King Albert of Belgium the Great Cross
- 1914 French troops under Gen Bonneau occupy Altkitrch at Elzas
- 1914 German army occupies city of Liege, Belgium
- 1914 Russia invades East Prussia
- 1915 WWI: Assault against Russell's Top at Gallipolis, Turkey - 232 Australians are killed
- 1925 League of Nation advises against Turk/Iraqi division of Mosoelgebied
- 1927 Peace Bridge between US and Canada dedicated
- 1927 US rum smuggler Horace Alderman kills 3
- 1929 Charles Ruijs de Beerenbrouck forms Dutch government
- 1930 A large mob estimated at 2,000, lynch two young black men Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana
Election of Interest
1930 Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King loses the election to Richard Bedford Bennett of the Conservative Party
- 1933 The Iraqi Government slaughters over 3,000 Assyrians in the village of Sumail. The day becomes known as Assyrian Martyrs Day.
Historic Event
1934 US Court of Appeals upheld lower court ruling striking down government's attempt to ban controversial James Joyce novel "Ulysses"
Historic Event
1939 Millionaire Howard Hughes is presented with a Congressional Gold Medal
- 1940 Alsace Lorraine is annexed by the Third Reich (Germany) during World War II
- 1940 Churchill recognizes De Gaulle's French government in exile
- 1940 Largest amount paid for a stamp ($45,000 for 1 1856 British Guiana)
- 1941 551 Jews are shot in Kishnev ghetto in Romania
- 1942 1st American offensive in Pacific in WW2, Guadalcanal, Solomon Island
- 1942 Dutch resistance bombs Rotterdam railway
- 1942 Transport 16 departs with French Jews to nazi-Germany
- 1943 Red Army recaptures Bogodukov
- 1944 Anton de Kom arrested by Surinam resistance fighter
- 1944 Canada/Polish offensive direction Falaise: Total Cooperation
- 1944 German counter attack at Avranches fails
- 1944 IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I)
- 1944 July 20th Plot trial under Roland Freis in Berlin begins
- 1944 US 3rd Army reaches suburbs of Brest, Brittany
Historic Event
1946 1st US commemorative coin of an African American, Booker T. Washington (half dollar)
- 1947 The Bombay Municipal Corporation formally takes over the Bombay Electric Supply and Transport (BEST)
Historic Event
1947 Thor Heyerdahl and the crew of the Kon-Tiki crash into a reef in the Tuamotu Islands, French Polynesia after 101 days crossing the Pacific Ocean
- 1948 1st Dutch government of Beel resigns
- 1950 Police bar white players-Lou Chirban, Stan Mierko and Frank Dyle, from playing in Negro League
- 1951 Douglas D-558-II Skyrocket reaches 1,992 kph
- 1951 US Viking rocket reaches 210 km height (record)
- 1953 Eastern Airlines enters jet age, uses Electra prop-jet
- 1954 Charles Mahoney becomes 1st US black to serve as a full UN delegate
- 1955 Bar-Ilan University founded in Israel
- 1955 Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, begins selling its first transistor radios in Japan
- 1956 British government sends 3 aircraft carriers to Egypt
- 1956 Dynamite transport explodes in Colombia; about 1200 die
- 1957 Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1957
- 1957 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1959 Explorer 6 transmits 1st TV photo of Earth from space
- 1960 Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) gains independence from France
- 1960 Students stage kneel-in demonstrations in Atlanta churches
- 1961 Cosmonaut Gherman Titov circles Earth for a full day in Vostok 2
Historic Event
1961 Soviet premier Khrushchev predicts USSR economy will surpass US
- 1962 USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR
Historic Event
1963 Jacqueline Kennedy becomes 1st US First Lady to give birth (Patrick Kennedy) since Mrs Cleveland
- 1964 Turkey begins air attack on Greek Cypriots
Historic Event
1964 US Congress approves Gulf of Tonkin resolution granting US President Lyndon Johnson authority to assist any Southeast Asian facing "communist aggression"; he uses it to openly bring US into Vietnam conflict
Agreement of Interest
1965 Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister of Singapore signs a separation agreement with Malaysia, after 2 years of political union
- 1966 Race riot in Lansing Michigan
- 1970 Shootout at Marin Courthouse in San Rafael, California, kills 4, including the presiding judge
- 1971 A Catholic man is shot dead by a British soldier in Belfast
- 1971 Apollo 15 returns to Earth
- 1974 Philippe Petit walks tightrope strung between twin towers
- 1976 Scientists in Pasadena, California, announce Viking I found strongest indications to date of possible life on Mars
- 1976 US Viking 2 goes into Martian orbit after 11-month flight from Earth
- 1977 Mount Usu volcano in Hokkaido, Japan erupts for the first time in over 30 years
Meeting of Interest
1985 A delegation of the South African Council of Churches meets with President P. W. Botha, following calls by the church for urgent discussions on the causes of unrest, forced removals and the emergency regulations in the country
- 1985 Takao Doi, Mamoru Mohri and Chiaki Mukai are chosen to be Japan's first astronauts
- 1987 5 Central American presidents sign peace accord in Guatemala
- 1987 Lynne Cox becomes the 1st woman to swim from the US to the Soviet Union, 4.3 km across the Bering Sea in water temperature averaging 43 to 44 °F (6 to 7 °C)
- 1988 Angola, Cuba and South Africa allegedly signed a cease fire treaty
- 1988 Rioting in New York City's Tompkins Square Park.
- 1988 Writers guild ends its 6 months strike
- 1989 U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland (D-TX) and 15 others die in a plane crash in Ethiopia
Operation Desert Shield
1990 US deploys troops to Saudi Arabia beginning Operation Desert Shield
Historic Event
1991 Courts rules Manuel Noriega, may access some secret US documents
- 1991 Manhattan Cable final day of amnesty to return illegal cable boxes
- 1993 Tropical storm Brett ravages Venezuela, 118 killed
- 1994 1st telephone link between Israel & Jordan
- 1994 Ernesto Samper sworn in as president of Colombia
- 1997 STS 85 (Discovery 23) launches into orbit
- 1997 Ung Huot appointed Cambodia's 1st premier
Historic Publication
2007 "Eclipse" 3rd book in Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight Saga" is published by Little Brown - initial print run 1 million copies
- 2008 Beginning of the Russo-Georgian War: Georgia moves troops into self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Tskhinva who are supported by Russia. First European war of the 21st century.
- 2012 200,000 people are evacuated from Shanghai in anticipation of Typhoon Haikui
- 2012 21 people are killed by a gun attack in a church in Okene, Nigeria
- 2012 Heavy rain forces 20,000 people to flee their homes in Manila, Philippines
- 2013 11 people are killed by a bombing in Karachi, Pakistan
- 2018 Australia's population hits 25 million according to Australian Bureau of Statistics
- 2018 Mendocino Fire becomes the largest recorded fire in California's history at 290,600 acres, overtaking 2017 Thomas Fire
- 2018 Swedish furniture brand Ikea opens its first store in India in Hyderabad
- 2019 Bodies of two teenagers at center of huge manhunt and suspected of killing three people on remote British Columbia roads found after apparent suicides
- 2019 Largest single-state immigration raid in Mississippi as nearly 700 people arrested
- 2019 Wanda Vazquez becomes Puerto Rico's third governor in a week after her predecessor Pedro Pierluisi is removed by the supreme court
- 2022 Ceasefire comes into effect in Gaza after 43 people killed in three days of violence between Israeli military and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants [1]
- 2022 US Senate passes sweeping Inflation Reduction Act, an economic package designed to combat climate change, address health care costs and tax large corporations [1]