- 939 Battle at Andernach: King Otto & Hermann of Zwaben beat Eberhard of France & Giselbert of Lutherans
- 976 Hisham II appointed kalief of Cordoba
- 1134 Storm flood ravages Zeeland county
Historic Discovery
1535 Jacques Cartier discovers Mount Royal (Montreal)
Jacques Cartier
- 1540 Venice and Turkey signs peace
Event of Interest
1552 Conquest of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible.
Ivan the Terrible
Bill of Rights
1789 George Washington transmits the proposed Constitutional amendments (The United States Bill of Rights) to the States for ratification
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- 1792 Baptist Missionary Society forms in London
- 1795 Tula (leader slave uprising) sentence to death in Curacao
- 1799 Duke of York & Russians capture Alkmaar in Netherlands
- 1804 Britain mobilizes to protect against French invasion
- 1833 NY Anti-Slavery Society organized
- 1835 Battle of Gonzales fought between Texan settlers and Mexican forces. First engagement of the Texas revolution
Event of Interest
1836 After 5 years at sea Charles Darwin returns to England aboard the HMS Beagle
Charles Darwin
- 1851 The pasilalinic-sympathetic compass(a contraption built to test the pseudo-scientific hypothesis that snails create a permanent telepathic link when they mate) is demonstrated but proves to be a fake.
- 1853 Austrian law forbids Jews from owning land
- 1861 Former US VP John C Breckinridge flees Kentucky
- 1864 Battle of Saltville, Virginia
- 1866 J Osterhoudt patents tin can with key opener
- 1870 Italy annexes Rome & Papal States; Rome made Italian capital
Event of Interest
1871 US Mormon leader Brigham Young arrested for bigamy
Brigham Young
- 1872 Morgan State University founded
Event of Interest
1872 Phileas Fogg sets out on his journey as depicted in Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days"
Jules Verne
Historic Publication
1902 Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" is published by Frederick Warne & Co. in London
Beatrix Potter
Event of Interest
1912 Gopal Krishna Gokhale, at invitation of Gandhi, arrives in South Africa on a 26-day tour; he also visits Tolstoy Farm
Mahatma Gandhi
Event of Interest
1919 US President Woodrow Wilson has a stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed
Woodrow Wilson
- 1920 The Chinese sign an agreement with the Russo-Asiatic Bank, largely French and Russian controlled, which will oversee the Chinese Eastern Railway, but give local supervision to China
- 1923 British occuping army leaves Constantinople
- 1924 League of Nations approves protocols of Geneva
- 1928 "Prelature of the Holy Cross and the Work of God", known as Opus Dei, founded by Saint Josemaría Escrivá
- 1931 Pope Pius XI encyclical On economic crisis
Benito Mussolini
Franklin D. Roosevelt
- 1940 17 German aircraft shot down over England
- 1940 British Council receives Royal Charter
- 1940 British liner Empress, loaded with refugees for Canada, sunk
- 1941 6 Paris synagogues are bombed by Gestapo
- 1941 Germans launch attack on Moscow
- 1942 RMS Queen Mary, carrying thousands of US troops, slices cruiser HMS Curacao in half, killing 239
- 1943 Japanese troops leave Kolombangara, Solomon Island
- 1944 Polish resistance fighters capitulate in the Warsaw Uprising, with some 250,000 people killed
- 1944 US B-17's drops pamphlets on Walcheren
- 1947 Revised International Telecommunication Convention adopted
- 1949 USSR recognizes People's Republic of China
Historic Publication
1950 1st strip of Charlie Brown, "Li'l Folks", later "Peanuts", by Charles M. Schulz published in seven nationwide papers
Charles M. Schulz
- 1954 Former French possession of Chandernagore made part of West Bengal, India
- 1955 Chiva Stoica becomes premier of Romania
- 1956 1st atomic power clock exhibited-NYC
- 1957 New volcanic island appears off Fayal Island Azores
- 1958 Guinea (French Guinea) gains independence from France (National Day)
- 1958 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
- 1961 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
- 1962 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Johnston Island
Event of Interest
1963 West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer condemns western grain shipments to USSR
Konrad Adenauer
- 1965 Mel Stottlemyre wins game #20
- 1967 Groundbreaking begins on Veteran's Stadium in Philadelphia
Event of Interest
1967 Thurgood Marshall sworn in as 1st black Supreme Court Justice
Thurgood Marshall
- 1968 1st London performance of "Promises, Promises" presented
- 1968 Mexico City police fire on protesting students, 300-500 killed
- 1968 Republic Guinea forms (day of republic)
- 1968 1st time, 2 soon-to-be-named MVPs oppose each other Cards Bob Gibson beat Tigers Denny McLain 4-0
- 1969 US performs underground nuclear test at Amchitka Island Aleutians
- 1970 14 members of the Wichita State University Football team as well as 17 administrators and supporters are killed in a plane crash in the Rocky Mountains
- 1971 Homing pigeon averages a record 133kph in an 1100km race in Australia
- 1972 Aeroflot Il-18 crashes near Black Sea resort of Sochi, kills 105
- 1972 Bill Stoneman of Montreal pitches his 2nd no-hitter, beating Mets, 7-0
- 1972 Danish population votes for membership of the European Common Market
- 1972 Ron Johnson becomes 1st NY Giant to score 4 TDs (vs Philadelphia)
- 1975 The Ulster Volunteer Force kill 7 civilians in a series of attacks across Northern Ireland; 6 were Catholic civilians and 1 was a Protestant civilian
- 1975 Four Ulster Volunteer Force members killed after a bomb they are carrying prematurely explodes in Farrenlester, near Coleraine
- 1977 Pakistani general Zia ul-Haq bans all opposition
- 1978 Syrian & Palestinians shoot in East Beirut, 1,300 killed
Papal Visit
1979 Pope John Paul II visits New York City, and at the U.N. denounces all concentration camps and torture
John Paul II
Event of Interest
1982 The Portland Building, designed by Michael Graves, considered the 1st postmodern building is opened in Portland Oregon
Michael Graves
- 1983 Carl Yastrezemski's last at bat
- 1984 3 cosmonauts return after a record 237 days in orbit
- 1984 Richard Miller becomes 1st (former) FBI agent to be charged with espionage
- 1985 Russian party leader Gorbachev visits Paris (his first trip abroad)
- 1985 Detroit 1st baseman Darrell Evans hits home run #40 in Tigers' 4-2 win over Toronto Blue Jays; first to record 40 x HRs in a MLB season in both Leagues
Assassination Attempt
1986 Sikhs attempt to assassinate Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi
Rajiv Gandhi
- 1988 Pakistan's Supreme Court orders free elections
- 1990 WW2 Allied nations cede any remaining rights as occupiers of Germany
- 1990 Chinese plane explodes, about 100 die
- 1990 US Senate votes 90-9 to confirm David Souter's appointment to Supreme Court
- 1990 Radio Berlin International's final transmission (links to Deutsche Welles of West Germany); final song is "The End" by Doors
- 1992 VP Itamar Franco becomes President of Brazil
- 1992 The Carandiru Massacre takes place after a riot in the Carandiru Penitentiary in São Paulo, Brazil
- 1994 Pakistan defeat Australia by one wicket in Karachi Test
9/11 Attack on New York's World Trade Towers
2001 NATO backs US military strikes, following 9/11
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- 2002 The Beltway sniper attacks begin, extending over three weeks
- 2004 American Samoa joins the North American Numbering Plan
- 2005 The Ethan Allen tour boat capsizes on Lake George in Upstate New York, killing twenty people
- 2006 Charles Carl Roberts murders five schoolgirls in a shooting incident at an Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania; he then commits suicide.
Summit of Interest
2007 President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea walks across the Military Demarcation Line into North Korea on his way to the second Inter-Korean Summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il
Kim Jong-il
- 2009 The economic crisis in Ireland is considered to be the driving force behind the largest migration of Irish people to London in 20 years, it is reported today
- 2012 20 students are gunned down in Mubi, Nigeria
- 2012 10 people are killed after a minibus and truck collide in Ilocos Norte, Philippines
- 2013 8 people are killed and 14 are injured after an accident involving an SUV, church bus, and tractor trailer in Jefferson County, Tennessee
- 2014 15 people are killed after a gun powder plant explodes in Gorni Lom, Bulgaria
- 2014 Siege of Syrian town Kobani and its surrounds by ISIS prompts 130,00 people to flee the area
- 2016 Colombia votes against a peace agreement with rebel group FARC in a national referendum
- 2017 US scientists Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young awarded Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for work on the body clock
Event of Interest
2018 Saudi American journalist Jamal Khashoggi enters the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, never to be seen again prompting a diplomatic crisis
Jamal Khashoggi
- 2018 Nobel prize in Physics awarded to Arthur Ashkin (optical tweezers), Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland ( both for laser beams)
- 2019 Two politicians in Peru claim to be the country's leader for a day until Mercedes Aráoz resigns so the constitutional court can rule on the matter