- 754 Pope Stefanus II arrives in Ponthion
- 1325 Afonso IV succeeds Dionysius as King of Portugal
- 1558 Calais, last English possession in France, retaken by French
- 1566 Antonio "Michele" Ghislieri is elected Pope Pius V
- 1579 England signs an offensive & defensive alliance with Netherland
- 1584 Last day of the Julian calendar in Bohemia & Holy Roman empire
- 1598 Boris Godunov seizes Russian throne on death of Feodor I
- 1601 Robert, Earl of Essex, leads revolt in London against Queen Elizabeth
- 1608 Fire destroys Jamestown, Virginia
Historic Discovery
1610 Galileo Galilei discovers the first three moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa & Ganymede
Galileo Galilei
Event of Interest
1618 Francis Bacon becomes Lord Chancellor of England
Francis Bacon
Event of Interest
1698 Russian Tsar Peter the Great departs Netherlands for England
Peter the Great
- 1714 Typewriter patented by Englishman Henry Mill (built years later)
- 1761 Battle at Panipat India: Afghan army beats Mahratten
- 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 The modern Italian flag is first used
- 1817 2nd Bank of US opens in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- 1822 1st printing in Hawaii
- 1822 Liberia colonized by Americans
- 1830 1st US Railroad Station opens (Baltimore)
- 1835 HMS Beagle anchors off Chonos Archipelago
- 1861 Florida troops takeover Fort Marion at St Augustine (US Civil War)
- 1862 Battle of Manassas Junction, VA
Event of Interest
1862 Romney Campaign: Stonewall Jackson march towards Romney, WV
Stonewall Jackson
- 1868 Arkansas constitutional convention meets in Little Rock
- 1868 Mississippi constitutional convention meets in Jackson
- 1888 Start of Sherlock Holmes adventure "Valley of Fear" (BG)
- 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 "Heimat" premieres in Berlin
Event of Interest
1894 Early 5 second film of Fred Ott sneezing shot by Edison Manufacturing - 1st ever copyrighted
Thomas Edison
Guglielmo Marconi
- 1907 Clyde Fitch' "Truth" premieres in NYC
- 1908 England beat Australia by one wicket at the MCG
- 1911 1st airplane bombing experiments with explosives, San Francisco
- 1911 Dutch Scouts Organization established in Amsterdam
- 1913 William M Burton patents a process to "crack" petroleum
- 1914 1st steamboat passes through the Panama Canal
- 1916 German troops conquer Fort Vaux at Verdun
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
Woodrow Wilson
Treaty of Interest
1922 The Anglo-Irish Treaty is ratified by Dail Eireann by a 64-57 vote
Michael Collins
- 1923 Baltimore Sun warns of Ku Klux Klan
- 1927 Commercial transatlantic telephone service inaugurated between New York & London
- 1927 Harlem Globetrotters play their 1st game in Hinckley, Illinois
- 1929 "Buck Rogers" sci-fi comic strip's 1st appearance in a newspaper
- 1929 "Tarzan", one of the 1st adventure comic strips, 1st appears
- 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
- 1934 "Flash Gordon" comic strip (by Alex Raymond) debuts
- 1935 Zoe Akins' "Old Maid" premieres in NYC
Agreement of Interest
1935 French Foreign minister Pierre Laval and Benito Mussolini sign the Franco-Italian Agreement
Benito Mussolini
Pierre Laval
- 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
- 1942 WW II siege of Bataan starts
- 1944 US Air Force announces production of 1st US jet fighter, the Bell P-59
- 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
Event of Interest
1948 US President Harry Truman raises taxes for the Marshall Plan
Harry Truman
George Marshall
- 1948 Thomas Mantell, a pilot for the Kentucky Air National Guard, crashes while pursuing a supposed UFO
- 1949 1st photo of genes taken at University of Southern California by Pease & Baker
- 1950 Hank Snow's 1st appearance on "Grand Ole Opry"
- 1950 Mental health wing of Mercy Hospital burns, kills 41 in Davenport, Iowa
- 1952 French Plevin government falls
- 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
- 1956 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
- 1958 USSR reduces army to 300,000
Event of Interest
1959 US recognizes Fidel Castro's Cuban government
Fidel Castro
Event of Interest
1959 American gangster Meyer Lansky flees Cuba for the Bahamas due to the Cuban Revolution and rise of Fidel Castro
Meyer Lansky
Assassination Attempt
- 1962 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to John Hall Wheelock
- 1963 1st class postage raised from 4 cents to 5 cents
- 1964 Bahamas becomes self-governing
- 1964 Dick Weber rolls highest bowling game in air (Boeing 707)
- 1965 France announces it will convert $150 million of its currency to gold
- 1965 Twin brothers are in held in custody in London charged with abduction and murder
- 1966 Gene Kiniski beats Lou Thesz in St Louis, to become NWA wrestling champion
- 1968 1st class US postage raised from 5 cents to 6 cents
- 1968 Surveyor 7, the last spacecraft in the Surveyor series, lifts off
- 1969 US Congress doubles president salary
Woodstock Music and Art Fair
1970 Farmers sue Max Yasgur for $35,000 in damages caused by "Woodstock"
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- 1971 -40°F (-40°C) in Hawley Lake, Arizona (state record)
- 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 William Hubbs Rehnquist sworn in as US Supreme Court Justice
- 1973 Johnny Watkins bowls six overs 0-21 v Pakistan Never again
- 1973 US poet James Merrill wins Bollingen Prize
- 1974 Gasoline rationed in Netherlands
- 1975 Bollingen Prize for poetry awarded to AR Ammons (Sphere)
- 1978 Angola revises its constitution in include a state security law
- 1979 Vietnamese forces capture Phnom Penh from Khmer Rouge
Event of Interest
1980 American President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation to bail out the Chrysler Corporation with a 1.5 billion dollar loan
Jimmy Carter
- 1984 Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
- 1985 Japanese space probe Sakigake launched to Halley's comet
- 1985 KHQ-AM in Spokane WA changes call letters to KLSN (now KAQQ)
- 1986 Netherlands Bank issues 250 guilder notes
- 1986 STS 61-C mission scrubbed at T -9m because of weather problems
- 1987 French airplanes harass Libyan positions in Duadi Doum
- 1989 Akihito becomes the 125th Emperor of Japan
- 1989 International Conference on Limitation of Chemical Weapons opens in Paris
- 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
Saddam Hussein
- 1992 AT&T releases video-telephone ($1,499)
- 1993 The Fourth Republic of Ghana is inaugurated with Jerry Rawlings as President.
- 1993 Bosnian War: Bosnian Army launches a surprise attack on Kravica, a village in Srebrenica
- 1994 South Africa beat Australia in the Sydney Test by 5 runs
- 1994 US female Figure Skating championship won by Tonya Harding
- 1994 United Express commuter plane crashes in Ohio, killing 5
- 1996 16th United Negro College Fund raises $12,600,000
Election of Interest
1997 Newt Gingrich narrowly re-elected speaker of the US House of Representatives
Newt Gingrich
Event of Interest
1998 Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky signs affidavit denying she had an affair with President Bill Clinton
Monica Lewinsky
Bill Clinton
Event of Interest
1999 Impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton begins in the US Senate.
Bill Clinton
- 2000 Former UK Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken released from prison after 9 months of a 18-month sentence
- 2010 Muslim gunmen in Egypt kill nine people after opening fire on a crowd of Coptic Christians
- 2012 Hot air balloon crashes in Carterton, New Zealand, killing 11
- 2014 Sheikh Hasina wins the general election in Bangladesh
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
Stéphane Charbonnier