Historic Discovery
1502 Christopher Columbus leaves Spain on his 4th and final trip to the New World
Christopher Columbus
- 1519 Austrian adel and burgerij in uprising against central government
- 1573 Polish Parliament selects Duke of Anjou as king
- 1588 Duke Henri de Guise's troops occupy Paris
- 1671 Colonel Thomas Blood attempts to steal Crown Jewels of England and Scotland from the Tower of London, captured running from the tower with the jewels
- 1689 English King William III declares war on France
- 1726 Five men arrested during a raid on Mother Clap's molly house in London are executed at Tyburn
- 1738 Britain sends fleet to the Mediterranean Sea & West Indies
- 1753 King Louis XV disbands French parliament
- 1766 John Byron back in England after trip around the world
Event of Interest
1768 John Hancock pays duties on 25 pipes of wine, only one fourth of his ship's carrying capacity. British officials accuse him of unloading the rest during the night to avoid paying duties on the entire cargo.
John Hancock
Historic Publication
1816 Lady Caroline Lamb publishes the Gothic novel "Glenarvon", a thinly disguised account of her affair with Lord Byron which also depicts her husband William Lamb
Lord Byron
William Lamb
- 1837 "Sherrod" burns in the Mississippi River below Natchez, Mississippi; 175 die
- 1846 Battle of Resaca de la Palma-US sends Mexico back to Rio Grande
- 1862 Battle of Farmington, Mississippi
- 1862 Battle of Fort Pickens, Florida, Pensacola evacuated by Confederates
- 1862 US Naval Academy relocated from Annapolis Maryland to Newport, Rhode Island
- 1864 -20] Skirmish at Ware Bottom Church, Virginia
- 1864 Battle of Cloyd's Mt, & Swift Creek, Virginia (Drewery's Bluff, Fort Darling)
- 1864 Ship battle at Helgoland, Austria-Denmark
Event of Interest
1865 President Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation declaring armed resistance in the South is virtually at an end; this is the commonly accepted end date of the American Civil War
Andrew Johnson
- 1868 The city of Reno, Nevada, is founded
- 1873 Der Krach: Vienna stock market crash heralds the Long Depression
- 1874 London's Victoria Embankment opens
- 1874 The first horse-drawn bus makes its début in the city of Mumbai, plying two routes
- 1877 Mihail Kogălniceanu reads, in the Chamber of Deputies, the Declaration of Independence of Romania. This day becomes the Independence Day of Romania.
- 1882 Telegraph Hill RR Co (Cable Cars) in San Francisco organized
- 1887 Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show opens in London
- 1896 1st horseless carriage show in London (featured 10 models)
- 1899 John Burr patents an improved rotary blade lawn mower in the US
First Australian Parliament
1901 The first Australian Parliament opens in Melbourne, though the first working session will not be until 21 May
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- 1901 A financial panic begins in the USA following the struggle between two groups to control the railroads between the Great Lakes and the Pacific
- 1904 The steam locomotive City of Truro becomes the first steam engine to exceed 100mph.
- 1908 Dirk Fock becomes governor of Suriname
- 1911 Fire breaks out at Empire Theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland
Event of Interest
1914 US President Woodrow Wilson proclaims Mother's Day
Woodrow Wilson
Event of Interest
1922 The International Astronomical Union formally adopt Annie Jump Cannon's stellar classification system, which with only minor changes, is still used today
Annie Jump Cannon
- 1925 Cornerstone for Hebrew University, Jerusalem, laid
Event of Interest
1926 1st flight over the North Pole claimed by Richard E. Byrd and co-pilot Floyd Bennett. Later discovery of Byrd's diary suggests they may have turned back 150 miles short of the pole due to an oil leak.
Richard E. Byrd
Event of Interest
1941 British intelligence at Bletchley Park breaks German spy codes after capturing Enigma machines aboard the weather ship Muenchen
Alan Turing
Murder of Interest
1941 Louis Buchalter is arraigned in New York state court on the 1936 Joseph Rosen murder along with three other murders
Louis Buchalter
- 1943 5th German Panzer army surrenders in Tunisia
- 1943 Rotschild-Haddassh University Hospital opens
- 1944 1st eye bank opens in New York
- 1944 Dutch resistance fighter Gerard Musch arrested
- 1944 Russians recapture Crimea by taking Sevastopol
- 1945 Czechoslovakia liberated from Nazi occupation (National Day)
- 1945 Nazi propagandist Max Blokzijl arrested
- 1945 Norwegian nazi collaborators Vidkun Quisling arrested
- 1945 Victory celebration at Red Square
- 1945 World War II: Partisans liberate Ljubljana.
Event of Interest
1945 World War II: Hermann Goering is captured by the United States Army
Hermann Goering
Event of Interest
1946 King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy abdicates and is succeeded by his son Umberto II who reigns for only 34 days before the monarchy is abolished
Victor Emmanuel III
- 1949 Britain's 1st launderette opens in Queensway, London
- 1949 Prince Rainier III becomes monarch of Monaco
- 1950 French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman calls for European community EGKS
- 1951 Air raid on Chinese positions at Yalu River
- 1955 German Federal Republic (West Germany) joins NATO
- 1956 First ascent of Manaslu, the world's eighth-highest mountain in the Nepalese Himalayas by Japanese climbers Toshio Imanishi and Gyalzen Norbu
Event of Interest
1956 War Reparations and Peace Settlement between Philippines and Japan was finally signed at Malacañang Palace under Magsaysay administration
Ramon Magsaysay
- 1960 Nigeria becomes a member of British Commonwealth
- 1960 US becomes the first country to legalize the birth control pill
- 1961 FCC Chairman Newton N Minow criticizes TV as a "vast wasteland"
- 1961 Jim Gentile is 4th to hit grand slams in consecutive innings
- 1962 Laser beam successfully bounced off Moon for 1st time
- 1962 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island
- 1963 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Event of Interest
1964 Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev visits Egypt
Nikita Khrushchev
- 1965 Luna 5 launched (USSR) 1st attempt to soft land on Moon (fails)
- 1966 1st black member of Federal Reserve Board (A F Brimmer)
- 1966 China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor, PRC
- 1967 1st flight of Fokker F-28 Fellowship
- 1967 Gijs van Hall resigns as mayor of Amsterdam
- 1969 BPAA All-Star Bowling Tournament won by Billy Hardwick
Event of Interest
1969 Following his release from prison Ian Paisley, North Ireland Loyalist holds a 'victory' meeting
Ian Paisley
- 1971 Friends of Earth return 1500 non-returnable bottles to Schweppes
- 1971 Largest walk in crowd (31,626) in Baltimore Oriole history
- 1974 US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee begins formal hearings on Nixon impeachment
- 1977 Hotel Poland in Amsterdam destroyed by fire, 33 killed
- 1977 Mabel Murphy Smythe confirmed as ambassador to Rep of Cameroon
- 1977 Patty Hearst let out of jail
- 1978 Fee Waybill of Tubes breaks a leg falling off stage
- 1979 Iranian-Jewish businessman Habib Elghanian is the 1st Jew executed by the Islamic government firing squad in Tehran, prompting the mass exodus of the once 100,000-strong Jewish community of Iran
- 1980 35 motorists die as a Liberian freighter rams a Tampa Bay Bridge
- 1981 Kazimiroff Blvd in Bronx named for a Bronx historian
The Motherland Monument
1981 The Motherland Monument at 62 m (203 ft) high is opened in Kiev, Ukraine in ceremony attended by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev
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Event of Interest
1984 Alexander Calder's "Big Crinkly" sells for $852,000
Alexander Calder
- 1987 183 die aboard a Polish jetliner that crashes in Warsaw
Event of Interest
1988 Australia's new parliament house is opened by Queen Elizabeth II in Canberra
Elizabeth II
- 1988 Belgium: 8th government of Martens forms
- 1989 Journalist petition Chinese government for freedom of press
- 1989 VP Quayle says in United Negro College Fund speech: "What a waste it is to lose one's mind" instead of "a mind is terrible thing to waste"
- 1990 NY Newsday reporter Jimmy Breslin suspended for a racial slur
- 1991 Michael Landon appears on The Tonight Show to talk about his cancer
- 1992 America Cup finals begin in San Diego
- 1992 Armenian forces capture Shusha, marking a major turning point in the Karabakh War
Salem Witch Trials
1992 Salem Village Witchcraft Victims' Memorial dedicated in Danvers (formally Salem Village) to mark 300 year anniversary of trials
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- 1993 Landslide in Nambija Ecuador, kills 300
- 1993 Mustapha Matura's "Playboy of West Indies" premieres in NYC
- 1993 Paraguay holds its 1st pres & parliamentary elections in 50 years
- 1994 Mass murderer Joel Rifkin found guilty in New York
- 1995 Kinshasa, Zaire under quarantine after an outbreak of Ebola virus
- 1997 1st US ambassador since Saigon fell arrives in Vietnam
- 2002 38-day stand-off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem comes to an end when Palestinians inside agree to have 13 suspected militants among them deported
- 2002 In Kaspiysk, Russia, a remote-controlled bomb explodes during a holiday parade killing 43 and injuring at least 130
- 2004 Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov is killed in a land mine bomb blast under a VIP stage during a World War II memorial victory parade in Grozny, Chechnya
Event of Interest
2005 Liberal commentary website The Huffington Post is launched
Arianna Huffington
- 2006 Estonia ratifies the European Constitution.
- 2006 George Preca is canonized as the first Maltese saint in history
- 2009 Jacob Zuma is sworn in as President of South Africa
- 2012 Mark Rothko's "Orange, Red, Yellow" becomes the most expensive contemporary art piece to be sold at auction for $86.9 million dollars
- 2012 A Russian passenger jet disappears with 45 people on board
Event of Interest
2012 United States President Barack Obama officially states his support for same-sex marriage
Barack Obama
- 2015 A gun fight erupts in Macedonian town of Kumanovo between police and Albanian separatists adding to the government crisis
Election of Interest
2016 Rodrigo Duterte wins Philippine presidential election, promising war on drug trade and killing of criminals
Rodrigo Duterte
Event of Interest
2016 Boris Johnson resigns as Mayor of London, succeeded by Sadiq Khan
Boris Johnson
Event of Interest
2017 US President Donald Trump dismisses FBI Director James Comey
Donald Trump
Malaysian 14th General Election
2018 Historic win in Malaysian general election by opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan led by 92 year old former Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, defeating Prime Minister Najib Razak and ending 61 years of rule by the Barisan Nasional coalition
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- 2018 Walmart takes a majority stake in Indian online retailer Flipkart for 16 billion
Taj Mahal
2018 India's Supreme Court criticises the country’s archaeological conservation body for failing to protect the Taj Mahal from discoloration and green slime
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Event of Interest
2018 Iranians and their president Hassan Rouhani react angrily to President Trump pulling the US out the Iran Nuclear deal
Hassan Rouhani
Donald Trump
- 2018 Dam bursts after heavy rains near Solai, Kenya, killing at least 41
- 2018 Nicaraguan anti-government protests involving tens of thousands take place in Managua and Matagalpa y Chinandega
- 2018 Oldest viral DNA, a form of hepatitis B, reported discovered in 7,000 year old skeleton found in Germany
- 2018 Argentina announces talks with the IMF amid a new financial crisis with interest rates at 40%
Event of Interest
2019 Pope Francis introduces new rules on reporting sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, criticized for not going far enough
Pope Francis
- 2019 New Australian $50 bank note misspells responsibility as "responsibilty" on 46 million notes
- 2019 French adventurer Jean-Jacques Savin (72) successfully crosses the Atlantic Ocean in a barrel arriving in Martinique
- 2019 At least 65 migrants drown off the coast of Tunisia when their boat capsizes after leaving Libya according to the UN
- 2019 Archaeologists hail Anglo-Saxon tomb found 2003 in Prittlewell, England, as Britain’s equivalent of Tutankhamun’s tomb as full report of its contents published