- 451 The Battle of Avarayr between Armenian rebels and the Sassanid Empire takes place. The Armenians are defeated militarily but are guaranteed freedom to openly practice Christianity.
- 553 Moon Jaguar becomes the 10th ruler of the Maya city of Copán (modern Honduras), will reign for 25 years
- 961 German King Otto II crowned
John Calvin Expelled
1538 Geneva expels John Calvin and his followers from the city. Calvin lives in exile in Strasbourg for the next three years.
- 1596 England, France & Netherlands sign Drievoudig Covenant against Spain
- 1637 Mystic Massacre: in 1st battle of Pequot War in Connecticut about 500 Pequot Native Americans are killed by Colonial forces
- 1647 Alse Young becomes the first person executed as a witch in the American colonies, when she is hanged in Hartford, Connecticut
- 1647 Massachusetts disallows priest access to colony
- 1736 Battle of Ackia (Louisiana), British & Chickasaw Indians defeat French
- 1770 The Orlov Revolt, a first attempt to revolt against the Turks before the Greek War of Independence ends in disaster for the Greeks.
- 1781 Bank of North America incorporates in Philadelphia
- 1790 Territory South of River Ohio created by US Congress
- 1796 French garrison of Fort Charlotte on island of St Lucia surrenders to British forces, 2780 mostly black prisoners of war board ships to England [1]
- 1798 British kill about 500 Irish insurgents at the Battle of Tara
Rocky Mountains Sighted
1805 Lewis and Clark first sight the Rocky Mountains
Dred Scott Freed
1857 US slave Dred Scott and family freed by owner Henry Taylor Blow, only 3 months after US courts ruled against them in Dred Scott v. Sandford
Garibaldi Occupies Palermo
1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi occupies Palermo, Italy
- 1861 Union blockades towns of New Orleans and Mobile
- 1861 US Postmaster General Blair announces end of postal connection with South
- 1864 -30] Skirmish along the Totopotomoy Creek, Virginia
- 1864 Battle of Dallas, begins near Paulding County, Georgia (Atlanta Campaign), Union victory (US Civil War)
- 1864 Territory of Montana formed
- 1865 US Civil War Battle of Galveston, (Texas) - Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith negotiates a surrender
- 1868 US President Andrew Johnson is acquitted by the Senate by one vote during his impeachment trial
- 1869 Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
- 1876 HMS Challenger returns from 128,000-km oceanographic exploration
- 1884 Australian cricket fast bowler Fred Spofforth takes 7-34 & 7-3 against an England XI in a tour match in Birmingham; match over in just 4 hours
- 1887 Racetrack betting becomes legal in NY state
- 1894 German Emanuel Lasker becomes undisputed World Chess Champion by beating Austrian-American defending titleholder Wilhelm Steinitz, 10-5 (4 draws) in Montreal, Canada
- 1896 Dow Jones index begins with an average of 12 industrial stocks (closing is 40.94)
- 1896 James Dunham murders six people in Campbell, California
Coronation of Nicholas II
1896 Last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, crowned
- 1896 Worst streetcar disaster in North American history when part of Port Ellice Bridge collapses killing 55 people at Victoria harbour, British Columbia [1]
Dracula Published
1897 "Dracula" by Irish author Bram Stoker is published by Archibald Constable and Company in London
- 1898 San Francisco approves City Charter, allows Municipal ownership of utilities
- 1899 Lifts for the recently opened Eiffel Tower are ready, offering an option other than 1,710 steps, for visitors to get to top
- 1900 British troops under Ian Hamilton attack the Vaal in South Africa
- 1904 In two days of bitter fighting, the Japanese Army soundly defeats the Russians at Kinchan and captures the forts at Nanshan
- 1905 A pogrom against Jews in Minsk, Belorussia
- 1906 Archaeological Institute of America forms
- 1906 Vauxhall Bridge is opened in London, England
- 1908 At Masjed Soleyman (مسجد سليمان) in southwest Persia, the first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made, rights acquired by the United Kingdom
- 1908 Mr & Mrs Jacob Murdock and their children become 1st family to travel across United States by car: Los Angeles to NYC in a Packard Thirty (32 days, 5 hours and 25 minutes)
- 1911 Germany passes legislation organizing Alsace and Lorraine as an autonomous state with a legislature
- 1913 Emily Duncan becomes Great Britain's first woman magistrate
- 1913 US Actors' Equity Association forms (NYC)
Asquith Coalition
1915 H. H. Asquith forms a coalition government in the United Kingdom
- 1917 Walt Cruise hit 1st HR out of Braves Field
- 1918 Armenia defeats the Ottoman Army in the Battle of Sardarapat
- 1918 Georgian Social Democratic Republic declares independence from Russia
- 1919 The Supreme Council of Allies, meeting at Versailles, decides to recognize two White Russian leaders, Admiral Kolchak and General Denikin, and support them against the Bolsheviks
Lenin's Stroke
1922 Vladimir Lenin suffers a stroke
- 1923 Inaugural 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race for cars starts through public roads around Le Mans, France; inaugural winners: André Lagache and René Léonard (France) for Chenard & Walcker
- 1923 Socialist Workers Youth International forms in Hamburg
Coolidge Restricts Immigration
1924 US President Calvin Coolidge signs Immigration law restricting immigration
- 1926 Lebanon adopts constitution
The Last Model T
1927 Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company produce the last (and 15th million) Model T Ford / Tin Lizzie
Klein Hits for Cycle
1933 Phillies Chuck Klein hits for cycle vs St Louis Cards
1st US Helicopter Flight
1940 1st successful helicopter flight in US: Vought-Sikorsky US-300 designed by Igor Sikorsky
- 1941 Aircraft from HMS Ark Royal sights German battleship Bismarck
Betsy Ross House
1941 American Flag House (Betsy Ross' Home) given to city of Philadelphia
- 1941 German occupiers begin youth labor
- 1942 Anglo-Soviet Treaty signed in London
- 1942 Belgium Jews are required by Nazis to wear a Jewish star
- 1942 Tank battle at Bir Hakeim: Afrika Korps vs British army
Churchill to North Africa
1943 British PM Winston Churchill and US General George C. Marshall fly from the US to North Africa
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
1946 Darius Milhaud's 3rd Concerto for Piano and Orchestra premieres in Prague
Eden Leads Conservatives to Victory
1955 Conservatives led by Anthony Eden win British parliamentary election
Khrushchev in Belgrade
1955 Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev arrives in Belgrade
- 1956 A fire on board the aircraft carrier USS Bennington in Narragansett Bay, off Rhode Island, kills 103 crew
- 1956 Reds' John Klippstein, Hershel Freemman & Joe Blacks no-hitter, broken up with 2 outs in 10th & lose to Braves in 11th, 2-1
- 1958 Ceylon emergency crisis proclaimed
- 1958 Union Square, San Francisco becomes state historical landmark
- 1958 US performs nuclear test at Enwetak (atmospheric tests)
- 1959 MLB Pittsburgh Pirates Harvey Haddix pitches 12 perfect innings, loses in 13th to Braves at Milwaukee County Stadium
- 1959 Wreck of WWII bomber 'Lady Be Good' in the Libyan Desert is reached by a recovery team from US Air Force's Wheelus Air Base in Tripoli; plane had crashed returning from initial mission on 1943 [1]
- 1961 Freedom Ride Coordinating Committee establishes in Atlanta
- 1961 USAF bomber flies Atlantic in a record of just over 3 hours
Emmy Awards
1963 15th Emmy Awards: "The Dick Van Dyke Show", E G Marshall & Shirley Booth win
- 1963 Organization of African Unity forms
- 1965 Dutch Voting Rights Bill passes
- 1965 Revised International Convention on Safety of Life at Sea takes effect
- 1966 Buddhist sets himself on fire at US consulate in Hué, South Vietnam
- 1966 Guyana (formerly British Guiana) declares independence from the United Kingdom
Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
1967 EMI rush releases The Beatles' album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" in London and select markets in the UK, prior to nation-wide release; it would go to number one for 15 weeks in the US and 22 weeks in the UK
- 1967 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1969 Apollo 10 astronauts returned to Earth
Music History
1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono begin their 2nd bed-in for peace at Hotel La Reine Elizabeth, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Boxing Title Fight
1972 Joe Frazier TKOs Ron Stander in 5 for heavyweight boxing title
- 1972 The British state-owned travel firm Thomas Cook & Son is sold to a consortium of private businesses headed by the Midland Bank
- 1972 The Irish Republican Army (IRA) plant a bomb in Oxford Street, Belfast, killing a 64-year-old woman
- 1972 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
Event of Interest
1972 US President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sign SALT accord
- 1973 "Funky Worm" by Ohio Players hits #15
- 1973 "Super Fly Meets Shaft" by John & Ernest hits #31
- 1973 Bahrain adopts its constitution
- 1973 Beatles' "Beatles 1967-1970" album (the blue one) goes #1
- 1973 British composer Michael Tippett's 3rd Piano Sonata premieres
- 1974 During a David Cassidy concert at London's White City, a 14-year-old is trampled, and dies four days later
Rhinestone Cowboy
1975 "Rhinestone Cowboy" single released by Glen Campbell (Billboard Song of the Year, 1975)
Dancin' Fool
1979 CBS Records releases Frank Zappa's "Dancin' Fool" single from his album "Sheik Yerbouti"; it peaks at #45, his biggest hit at the time
- 1980 Dietmar Mogenburg of West Germany ties high jump record at 7'8"
Soyuz 36
1980 Soyuz 36 carries cosmonauts Valery Kubasov and 1st Hungarian in space Bertalan Farkas to Salyut 6
- 1981 Marine jet crashes on flight deck of USS Nimitz, killing 14
- 1981 The Italian Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani and his coalition cabinet resign following a scandal over membership of the pseudo-masonic lodge P2 (Propaganda Due)
- 1982 35th Cannes Film Festival: "Missing" directed by Costa Gavras and "Yol" directed by Serif Goren and Yilmaz Güney jointly awarded the Palme d'Or
- 1982 British ship Atlantic Conveyor carrying Chinook helicopters and destroyer HMS Coventry hit in Falkland war: 39 crew members die
- 1983 LA Lakers set NBA playoff game record of fewest free throws
- 1983 NASA launches Exosat
- 1983 Space Shuttle Challenger moves to launch pad for STS-7
- 1983 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1984 Floods kill 14 in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Event of Interest
1984 US President Ronald Reagan rules out US military intervention in Iran-Iraq war
Event of Interest
1987 William H. Webster replaces Robert M. Gates as 14th director of CIA
- 1988 Stanley Cup Final, Northlands Coliseum, Edmonton, AL: Edmonton Oilers beat Boston Bruins, 6-3 for 4 game series sweep
- 1989 American radio broadcasters go silent for 30 seconds at 7:42 am to honor the radio industry
- 1989 Danish parliament allows same-sex marriage
- 1989 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1990 China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor, PRC
Sports History
1990 Philadelphia Phillies retire future Baseball Hall of Fame 3rd baseman Mike Schmidt's uniform #20
- 1996 Parliamentary elections in Albania results are disputed, with irregularities and intimidation causing opposition parties to withdraw; pro-Western Democratic party wins over 50% of the vote
Baseball Record
1997 Sammy Sosa (Cubs) & Tony Womack (Pirates) hit inside the park HRs
Event of Interest
1998 Date for Paula Jones sex harassment trial vs President Clinton
- 1998 The United States Supreme Court rules that Ellis Island, the historic gateway for millions of immigrants, is mainly in the state of New Jersey, not New York
Knighthood
2000 Arthur C. Clarke is knighted "for services to literature" at a ceremony in Colombo, Sri Lanka
- 2001 Super Rugby Final, Canberra: Fullback Andrew Walker kicks 5 penalties & 3 conversions as the ACT Brumbies win their first title; beat Coastal Sharks (Durban), 36-6
Cannes Film Festival
2002 55th Cannes Film Festival: "The Pianist" directed by Roman Polanski wins the Palme d'Or
- 2002 Álvaro Uribe becomes President of Colombia
- 2002 The Mars Odyssey finds signs of large ice deposits on the planet Mars
- 2003 Only three days after a previous record, Sherpa Lakpa Gelu climbs Mount Everest in 10 hours 56 minutes. The tourism ministry of Nepal confirms this record in July that year.
- 2004 The New York Times publishes admission of journalistic failings, claims its flawed reporting and lack of skeptism during buildup to 2003 Iraq War helped promote belief that Iraq possessed large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
- 2004 The United States Army veteran Terry Nichols is found guilty of 161 state murder charges for helping carry out the Oklahoma City bombing.
- 2006 The May 2006 Java earthquake kills over 5,700 people, leaves 200,000 homeless.
- 2012 A gunman in the Finnish town of Hyvinkaa kills 2, wounds 7
Event of Interest
2012 Pope Benedict XVI's butler is arrested for allegedly leaking confidential documents
Cannes Film Festival
2013 66th Cannes Film Festival: "Blue Is the Warmest Colour" directed by Abdellatif Kechiche wins the Palme d'Or. The two main actresses in the film, Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux also awarded
Film & TV History
2013 Joss Whedon is awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters from Wesleyan University
PM Narendra Modi
2014 Narendra Modi becomes the 15th Prime Minister of India
- 2014 Protests across Thailand in response to military coup; General Prayuth warns of a crackdown in demonstrations continue
- 2014 World Health Organization confirms that Ebola has reached Sierra Leone
- 2015 Cleveland Cavaliers win the NBA Eastern Conference
- 2015 Henry Threadgill releases his album "In for a Penny, In for a Pound" with jazz quintet Zooid (Pulitzer Prize for Music 2016)
- 2017 Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche and Ricky John Best killed, Micah David-Cole Fletcher injured defending Muslim teenager in Portland, Oregon
- 2018 Ireland votes to repeal their 8th amendment to allow legalized abortion, 66.4% vote yes
- 2019 Ken Wyatt becomes Australia's first Aboriginal minister in government as the minister for indigenous Australians
- 2019 Nine climbers die in a week on Mt Everest after overcrowding leads to a huge queue to reach the summit
- 2020 Costa Rica becomes the first county in Central America to legalize same-sex marriage
The Ickabog
2020 J. K. Rowling begins publishing children's story "The Ickabog" online in installments
Event of Interest
2020 Twitter adds warning labels to warn about inaccuracies in US President Donald Trump's tweets for the first time
- 2020 US restricts travel from Brazil as the country posts world's second highest number of recorded cases of COVID-19
- 2021 A super "blood" moon, the first total lunar eclipse for two years, visible across the Pacific
- 2021 Amazon says it will buy 97-year-old film and television studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $8.45 billion
- 2021 Ferry sinks carrying about 150 people in Nigeria between Niger state and Kebbi state, with only 20 people rescued
COVID-19 Pandemic
2021 Former advisor Dominic Cummings gives a damming report to MPs into UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his government's handling of the COVID-19 crisis
- 2021 In landmark case oil giant Royal Dutch Shell ordered by a Hague court to cut its global carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 [1]
- 2021 Nine people shot and killed by their colleague, a public transit employee in San Jose, California
COVID-19 Pandemic
2021 President Joe Biden orders US intelligence services to intensify their efforts to investigate the origins of COVID-19
- 2023 At least 828 civilians have now died and 3,688 have been injured over six weeks of fighting in Sudan, according to the Sudanese American Physicians Association [1]
- 2023 Philadelphia Phillies reliever Craig Kimbrel becomes eighth MLB pitcher to earn 400 career saves, in 6-4 victory over Braves in Atlanta
