Historic Event
1387 One of the most extravagant medieval English feasts ever recorded held for Richard II and John of Gaunt in London. Included 14 salted oxen, 120 sheep, 1200 pigeons and 11,000 eggs [1]
Victory in Battle
1408 Battle of Othée; victory of John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy over Liège.
Historic Event
1561 King Philip II of Spain forbids Spanish settlements in Florida
'I Have Not Yet Begun To Fight'
1779 John Paul Jones aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard defeats the British frigate HMS Serepis and becomes the United States first well-known naval hero
Historic Event
1780 British Major John Andre reveals Benedict Arnold's plot to betray West Point
Historic Event
1806 Lewis and Clark return to St Louis from Pacific Northwest
- 1818 Border demarcation markers for Moresnet formally installed.
- 1821 Fall of Tripolitsa, Greek forces massacre 30,000 Turks during Greek War of Independence
- 1830 Dutch troops occupy Brussels
- 1835 HMS Beagle sails to Charles Island in Galapagos archipelago
- 1845 Hunger strike in Hague
- 1846 Johann Gottfried Galle & Heinrich d'Arrest find Neptune
- 1857 Russian warship Leffort disappears in a storm in the Gulf of Finland; 826 die
The German Empire
1862 Otto von Bismarck appointed Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Prussia by King Wilhelm I
Historic Event
1875 Billy the Kid is arrested for the 1st time and jailed after receiving clothing stolen from a Chinese laundry. Escapes two days later.
- 1876 Ottawa Rough Riders play their 1st game
- 1877 Hurricane strikes Curacao & Bonaire kills 200
- 1879 Baldwin steam motors tram 1st tried in Sydney Australia
- 1879 Richard Rhodes invented a hearing aid called the Audiophone
- 1880 Jules Ferry forms French government
- 1884 American Herman Hollerith patents his mechanical tabulating machine, the beginning of data processing
- 1887 Tongariro National Park formed in New Zealand after proposal by local chief Ngāti Tūwharetoa - fourth national park in the world [1]
- 1890 Ed Cartwright bats in 7 RBIs in 1 inning
- 1891 Vocational school Troop College, later California Institute of Technology (CalTech) established in Pasadena, California
- 1895 French labor union CGT (Confederation Generale du Travail) forms
- 1897 1st frontier days rodeo celebration (Cheyene Wyoming)
- 1904 British Colonel Francis Younghusband and his expedition with accompanying military force leave Lhasa, Tibet
- 1905 Mbunga-siege of Fort Mahenge German East-Africa broken
- 1907 Proclamation sets fineness & weight of silver & bronze coins of Canada
- 1908 University of Alberta opens
- 1911 Earl Ovington becomes 1st air mail pilot
- 1913 Roland Garros is 1st to fly over Mediterranean Sea
- 1913 Serbian troops march into Albania
- 1913 Women protests take place in the Free State, South Africa, led by Charlotte Maxeke, resisting government attempts to impose passes on women; passes are burnt in front of the municipal offices
- 1920 Alexander Millerand elected president of France
- 1920 Despite Japanese protests, China withdraws recognition of Tsarists representatives in China
- 1922 Berthold Brecht's "Drum in the Night" premieres in Germany
- 1922 Gdynia Seaport Construction Act passed by the Polish parliament.
- 1923 80,000 demonstrate in Amsterdam against Fleet law
- 1925 George Kaufman's "Butter & Egg Man" premieres in NYC
Historic Event
1938 British premier Neville Chamberlain flies to Munich
- 1938 Time capsule, to be opened in 6939, buried at World's Fair in NYC (capsule contained a woman's hat, man's pipe & 1,100' of microfilm)
- 1940 -27] French/British assault on French fleet in Dakar, flees
Historic Event
1940 Dutch artist Piet Mondrian leaves Europe for New York, where he lives for the rest of his life
Historic Event
1940 Dutch Nazi collaborator Mussert's 1st meeting with Adolf Hitler
- 1941 General de Gaulle forms government in exile in London
- 1941 German air raid on Soviet naval base at Kronstadt (battleship Marat sinks)
- 1941 The first gas murder experiments are conducted at Auschwitz. concentration camp
- 1942 Soviet counter offensive at Stalingrad
- 1942 Transport #36 departs with French Jews to nazi-Germany
- 1944 Proclamation No. 30 was issued, declaring the existence of a state of war between the Philippines and the United States and the United Kingdom
Historic Event
1949 US President Harry Truman announces evidence of USSR's 1st nuclear device detonation
- 1950 Canada's first mountain rescue by helicopter of a forestry worker from a Wells Gray Park forestry lookout
Nobel Prize
1950 Nobel peace prize awarded to Ralph Bunche for mediation in Israel - 1st African American winner
- 1950 US Air Force Mustangs accidentally bomb British on Hill 282 Korea, 17 killed
Historic Event
1952 US vice-presidential candidate Richard Nixon makes his "Checker's" speech, defending the gift of a cocker spaniel to his daughters
Murder of Interest
1955 All white jury finds Roy Brant and John William Milam not guilty of the brutal murder of black teenager Emmett Till in Sumner, Mississippi, in landmark case that would help inspire civil rights movement in the US
- 1955 Pakistan signs Pact of Baghdad
Little Rock Crisis
1957 President Dwight D. Eisenhower orders US troops to support integration of nine black students at Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas
- 1957 White mob forces 9 black students enrolled at Little Rock's Central High School in Arkansas to withdraw
- 1958 Great Britain performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island
- 1958 Stravinsky's "Thieni" premieres in Venice
- 1958 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1959 Australia's first passenger roll on/roll off diesel ferry, the MS Princess of Tasmania makes her maiden voyage across Bass Strait
Historic Event
1962 Martin Walser's "Esche und Angora" premieres in Berlin
- 1962 NY's Philharmonic Hall (since renamed Avery Fisher Hall) opens as 1st unit of Lincoln Center for Performing Arts
- 1963 Georgette Ciselet is 1st woman on Belgian Council of State
- 1967 Greek Colonels' regime frees ex-Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou
- 1967 Radio Malta stops testing
- 1970 Abdul Razak bin Hussain becomes premier of Malaysia
- 1970 Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Arthur Young announces his resignation
- 1971 2 members of the Official Irish Republican Army are killed in a premature bomb explosion
Historic Event
1971 Jan Vermeer's painting "The Love Letter" is stolen from The Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels by a 21 year old thief
Historic Event
1972 Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos announces state of emergency and declares martial law
Election of Interest
1973 Argentine General Elections - former Argentine President Juan Perón returns to power
Summit of Interest
1978 100,000 cheering Egyptians welcome Anwar Sadat home from Camp David peace summit
- 1979 Somali constitution approved by president
- 1982 Amin Gemayel sworn in as President of Lebanon
- 1982 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1983 Argentine military regime gives amnesty to military and political assassins
- 1983 Columbia moves to Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (Florida), for mating in preparation of STS-9
- 1986 Astro Jim Deshaies strikes out 1st 8 Dodger of game (ends with 10)
- 1986 Congress selects the rose as US national flower
Historic Event
1987 Nigerian President Ibrahim Babangida creates two states: Akwa Ibom and Katisna
- 1988 Fiji's new constitution is proposed
- 1990 Saddam says he will destroy Israel
- 1992 Bradlees announces it will take over Alexander's department stores in NYC
- 1992 Mud storm kills 30 in South France
- 1993 Paul Chu group reports super conduction at -123°C (record high)
- 1996 Howard Stern radio show premieres in Wilkes-Barre PA (WZMT 97.9 FM) and in West Palm Beach FL (WCLB 95.5 FM)
- 1999 NASA announces that it has lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter.
- 1999 Qantas Flight 1 overruns the runway in Bangkok during a storm. While some passengers only received minor injuries, it is still the worst crash in Qantas's history to date.
- 2002 The first public version of the web browser Mozilla Firefox ("Phoenix 0.1") is released
- 2004 At least 1,070 in Haiti reported killed by floods due to Hurricane Jeanne
- 2005 FBI killing of Filiberto Ojeda on Plan Bonito Hormigueros, Puerto Rico.
- 2012 20 Iranian US Visas are denied, including diplomats and two ministers, ahead of the UN general assembly meeting in New York
- 2012 Iran blocks the use of Google as a search engine
- 2012 Scientists discover four genetically distinct types of breast cancer
- 2013 25 people are killed after Typhoon Usagi passes Hong Kong and China
- 2017 Women are allowed in King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh for the first time during Saudi Arabia's 87th anniversary celebrations
Historic Event
2018 Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launches "Modicare", free heathcare for 500 million, world's biggest healthcare program
- 2018 Japan's space agency is the first to place two robotic explorers on an asteroid - Ryugu, from its Hayabusa-2 spacecraft
- 2018 Mud volcano, the Otman-Bozdag, erupts 300m (980ft) high, near Baku, Azerbaijan
- 2019 178 year old British travel company Thomas Cook goes into liquidation, stranding 600,000 travellers worldwide, prompting largest postwar repatriation effort by UK government
Summit of Interest
2019 Climate activist Greta Thunberg scolds world leaders "How Dare You" for not addressing climate change at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York
- 2019 Haitian Senator Jean-Marie Ralph Féthière opens fire hitting a journalist leaving parliament in Port-au-Prince
- 2019 Renewed violence in West Papua region, Indonesia, leaves 27 dead in capital Wamena after protesters set fire to buildings over racism claims
- 2019 US police officer fired after arresting two six-year-olds at a school on charges of misdemeanour battery in Florida
Election of Interest
2020 Alexander Lukashenko sworn in for sixth term as President of Belarus in a secret ceremony, amid continued widespread protests against his re-election
Historic Event
2020 Kentucky grand jury indicts only one of three officers for wanton engagement for shooting unarmed Breonna Taylor in Louisville
Election of Interest
2020 President Donald Trump refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power after the US November election at a White House press conference
- 2021 Fossilized footprints 23,000-21,000 years old from White Sands, New Mexico indicate settlement by humans of North and South America earlier than previous thought [1]
- 2022 Russia holds sham referendums in four partly occupied Ukrainian regions with some Ukrainian citizens voters forced to vote at gunpoint