- 502 King Gundobar of Burgundy delegates royal power
Viking Siege of Paris
845 Paris is sacked by Viking raiders, probably under Ragnar Lodbrok, who collects a huge ransom in exchange for leaving
Victory in Battle
1461 Wars of the Roses: Battle of Towton - Duke Edward of York defeats the Lancastrian army, deposes King Henry VI and Queen Margaret of Anjou and proclaims himself as King Edward IV
Event of Interest
1673 English King Charles II accepts Test Act: Roman Catholics excluded from public functions
Assassination of King Gustav III
1792 King Gustav III of Sweden dies after being shot in the back at a midnight masquerade ball at Stockholm's Royal Opera just 13 days earlier. He is succeeded by Gustav IV Adolf.
- 1798 Republic of Switzerland forms
- 1799 New York passes gradual abolition law saying children of enslaved mothers are born free but still owe free service to masters until they are 25 if female and 28 if male
- 1804 Thousands of Whites massacred in Haiti
- 1806 Construction is authorized of the Great National Pike, better known as the Cumberland Road, becoming the first United States federal highway
Coup d'état
1809 King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden abdicates after a coup d'état. At the Diet of Porvoo, Finland's four Estates pledge allegiance to Alexander I of Russia, commencing the secession of the Grand Duchy of Finland from Sweden.
Niagara Falls Stops Flowing
1848 Niagara Falls stops flowing for 30 hours due to an ice jam in the river upstream
- 1849 Great Britain formally annexs Punjab after defeat of Sikhs in India
- 1850 SS Royal Adelaide sinks in storm; 200 die
- 1852 Ohio makes it illegal for children under 18 and women to work more than 10 hours a day
- 1864 Great Britain gives the Ionian Islands back to Greece
- 1864 Union General Steeles troops reach Arkadelphia, Arkansas
- 1865 -Apr 9th], Appomattox campaign, Virginia, 7582 killed
- 1865 Battle of Lewis's Farm [alt. Quaker Road, Gravelly Run], in Dinwiddie County, Virginia begins (Union victory)
- 1867 British North America Act (Canadian constitution) is given Royal Assent
- 1867 US Congress first approves building of Lincoln Memorial
Event of Interest
1871 Royal Albert Hall opened by Queen Victoria in London
Event of Interest
1912 Captain Robert Falcon Scott, storm-bound in a tent near South Pole, makes last entry in his diary "the end cannot be far"
Event of Interest
1929 US President Herbert Hoover has 1st telephone installed on the desk at the Oval Office's in the White House
- 1930 Heinrich Brüning is appointed German Chancellor
- 1934 Bank of Travail in Belgium, socialist workers' movement bankrupt
- 1936 10,000 watch the 200-inch mirror blank passing through Indianapolis
- 1936 Nazi propaganda claims 99% of Germans voted for Nazi candidates
- 1942 Bombing of Lübeck in World War II was the first major success for the RAF Bomber Command against Germany and a German city
- 1942 British cruiser HMS Trinidad torpedoes itself in the Barents Sea
- 1942 German submarine U-585 sinks
- 1943 Meat (784 gram/week, 2 kilogram for GI's), butter & cheese rationed in US during WW II
- 1945 World War II: Last day of V-1 flying bomb attacks on England
- 1949 Turkey recognizes Israel
Event of Interest
1951 American citizens Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted and sentenced to death for conspiracy to commit espionage for the Soviet Union
- 1955 Linguist Yuri Knorosov defends his master's thesis in Moscow, expanding on his new phonetic method to decipher the Mayan script (first announced in article Soviet Ethnology 1952) [1]
- 1961 23rd Amendment to the US Constitution ratified, allowing Washington, D.C. residents to vote in presidential elections
Event of Interest
1961 After a 4½ year trial Nelson Mandela is acquitted of treason in Pretoria
Appointment of Interest
1961 Economist John Kenneth Galbraith is appointed US Ambassador to India
- 1962 Argentine President Arturo Frondizi flees from the army
- 1968 Students seize building at Bowie (Maryland) State College
- 1969 Communist New People's Army founded in the Philippines
- 1971 1st Lt William L Calley Jr found guilty in My Lai (Vietnam) massacre
- 1971 Chile president Allende nationalizes banks/copper mines
- 1971 Conrad Van Emde Boas becomes West Europe's 1st sexology professor
- 1971 Development of a serum hepatitis vaccine for children announced
America’s Agony Is Over: Vietnam War Ends
1973 US troops leave Vietnam, 9 yrs after Tonkin Resolution
Terracotta Army Discovered
1974 Chinese farmers discover the Terracotta Army near Xi'an, 8,000 clay warrior statues buried to guard the tomb of China's 1st emperor, Qin Shi Huang
- 1974 Mariner 10's, 1st fly-by of Mercury, returns photos
- 1975 "Lady Marmalade" by Labelle reaches #1 on US singles chart
- 1976 8 Ohio National Guardsmen indicted for shooting 4 Kent State University students in 1970
- 1979 Andrew Hilditch given out handled the ball v Pakistan at WACA
- 1979 Caryl Churchill's "Cloud Nine" premieres in London
Event of Interest
1981 Jorge Rafael Videla resigns as President and dictator of Argentina, handing the reins to Roberto Viola
Election of Interest
1987 Yitzḥak Shamir re-elected chairman of right wing Likud Party
Louvre Pyramid
1989 I. M. Pei's pyramidal entrance to the Louvre opens in Paris
Event of Interest
1994 Serbs & Croats sign a cease-fire to end the war in Croatia
- 1995 Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Chicago IL on WCKG 105.9 FM
- 1997 PBA National Championship Won by Rick Steelsmith
- 1998 Vasco da Gama Road bridge opens in Lisbon, Portugal as the longest bridge in Europe
- 1999 The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 10006.78 - above the 10,000 mark for the first time ever
- 2004 Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia join NATO as full members
- 2004 The Republic of Ireland becomes the first country in the world to ban smoking in all work places, including bars and restaurants
- 2010 Archaeological site of the Mayan city of Chichen Itza purchased by the Mexican state of Yucatán from a private landowner
- 2010 Two female suicide bombers hit the Moscow Metro system at the peak of the morning rush hour, killing 40
- 2013 10 people are killed and 31 are injured by a blast outside the US consulate in Pakistan
- 2013 23 people are killed by coordinated bombings on Shiite mosques in Iraq
- 2013 36 people are killed after a 16-floor building collapses in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
- 2013 American horse, Animal Kingdom, wins the 2013 Dubai World Cup
- 2013 Soyuz TMA-08M sets a new record of 6 hours in orbit before docking with the International Space Station
- 2013 UN regulation of international arms trade is blocked by North Korea, Iran, and Syria
- 2014 Andrej Kiska is elected President of Slovakia
- 2014 First same-sex couples marry in the UK as a result of the passing of The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013
- 2015 Nigerian General Election - voting is extended to a 2nd day. death toll from Boko Haram attacks at 43
Event of Interest
2017 Ivanka Trump (35) assumes an unpaid position as Senior Advisor to the President, Donald Trump (her father)
- 2017 Man's body found inside a 7m long reticulated python in Sulawesi, Indonesia
Treaty of Interest
2017 UK Prime Minister Theresa May sends a letter to the EU invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, formally triggering Brexit
COVID-19 Pandemic
2020 Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari orders a lockdown in the cities of Lagos and Abuja after the country records 97 COVID-19 cases and one death
COVID-19 Pandemic
2020 US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci warns America may see between 100,000 - 200,000 deaths from COVID-19
- 2021 Megaship Ever Given freed after nearly a week stuck in and blocking the Suez Canal, with at least 369 vessels waiting to pass though
Murder of Interest
2021 Trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd begins in Minneapolis
- 2022 BA.2 version of Omicron is now the dominant form of COVID-19 in America according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention [1]
- 2022 In a major victory for Ukraine, Russia announces it is withdrawing its badly mauled forces from around Ukraine's capital, Kyiv
- 2022 New study of Pluto finds evidence of cryovolcanoes and ice lava from NASA's New Horizons footage 2015 [1]
- 2022 US F.D.A. authorizes a second Pfizer or Moderna booster shot for people over 50 or immunocompromised [1]
- 2022 US President Joe Biden signs the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into law, making lynching a federal hate crime after over 200 attempts to pass similar legislation since 1900 [1]