711 BC Emperor Jimmu of Japan (born), (died 585 BC)
1457 Mary of Burgundy (born), (died 1482)
1462 The Treaty of Westminster is finalised between Edward IV of England and the Scottish Lord of the Isles.
1480 Girolamo Aleandro (born), Italian cardinal (died 1542)
1503 Disfida di Barletta (Challenge of Barletta) – tournament between 13 Italian and 13 French knights near Barletta.
1542 Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII of England, is executed for adultery (born 1521).
1542 Jane Boleyn (died), Viscountess Rochford, English assistant to Catherine Howard (born 1505)
1571 Benvenuto Cellini (died), Italian painter and sculptor (born 1500)
1599 Pope Alexander VII (born), (died 1667)
1602 Alexander Nowell (died), English clergyman and theologian (born 1507)
1633 Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition.
1672 Étienne François Geoffroy (born), French chemist (died 1731)
1689 William and Mary are proclaimed co-rulers of England.
1692 Massacre of Glencoe: About 78 Macdonalds at Glen Coe, Scotland are killed early in the morning for not promptly pledging allegiance to the new king, William of Orange.
1728 Cotton Mather (died), American minister and author (born 1663)
1728 John Hunter (born), Scottish surgeon (died 1793)
1739 Battle of Karnal: The army of Iranian ruler Nadir Shah defeats the forces of the Mughal emperor of India, Muhammad Shah.
1805 Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet (born), German mathematician (died 1859)
1831 John Aaron Rawlins (born), American general and politician, 29th United States Secretary of War (died 1869)
1834 Heinrich Caro (born), German chemist (died 1910)
1849 Lord Randolph Churchill (born), English politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (died 1895)
1849 Wilhelm Voigt (born), German impostor (died 1922)
1867 Work begins on the covering of the Zenne, burying Brussels’s primary river and creating the modern central boulevards.
1870 Leopold Godowsky (born), Polish-American pianist and composer (died 1938)
1880 Dimitrie Gusti (born), Romanian sociologist, ethnologist, historian, and philosopher (died 1955)
1881 The feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is first published in Paris by the activist Hubertine Auclert.
1883 Richard Wagner (died), German director and composer (born 1813)
1885 Bess Truman (born) American wife of Harry S. Truman, 35th First Lady of the United States (died 1982)
1891 Grant Wood (born), American painter (died 1942)
1900 Roy Harrod (born), English economist (died 1978)
1901 Paul Lazarsfeld (born), American sociologist (died 1976)
1902 Harold Lasswell (born), American political scientist (died 1978)
1906 Albert Gottschalk (died), Danish painter (born 1866)
1914 American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.
1919 Tennessee Ernie Ford (born), American singer and actor (died 1991)
1920 Eileen Farrell (born), American soprano (died 2002)
1920 The Negro National League is formed.
1923 Chuck Yeager (born), American pilot and general
1930 Ernst Fuchs (born), Austrian painter and sculptor
1931 New Delhi becomes the capital of India.
1934 George Segal (born), American actor
1935 A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the son of Charles Lindbergh.
1935 Don Panoz (born), American businessman
1942 Peter Tork (born), American singer-songwriter, bass player, and actor (The Monkees)
1944 Jerry Springer (born), English-American television host, actor, and politician, 56th Mayor of Cincinnati
1944 Stockard Channing (born), American actress
1945 World War II: Royal Air Force bombers are dispatched to Dresden, Germany to attack the city with a massive aerial bombardment.
1945 World War II: The siege of Budapest concludes with the unconditional surrender of German and Hungarian forces to the Red Army.
1950 Peter Gabriel (born), English singer-songwriter and producer (Genesis)
1950 Rafael Sabatini (died), Italian author (born 1875)
1951 Korean War: Battle of Chipyong-ni, which represented the “high-water mark” of the Chinese incursion into South Korea, commences.
1951 Lloyd C. Douglas (died), American author (born 1877)
1954 Frank Selvy becomes the only NCAA Division I basketball player ever to score 100 points in a single game.
1955 Israel obtains 4 of the 7 Dead Sea scrolls.
1960 Black college students stage the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee.
1960 With the success of a nuclear test codenamed “Gerboise Bleue”, France becomes the fourth country to possess nuclear weapons.
1967 American researchers discover the Madrid Codices by Leonardo da Vinci in the National Library of Spain.
1971 Vietnam War: Backed by American air and artillery support, South Vietnamese troops invade Laos.
1978 Hilton bombing: a bomb explodes in a refuse truck outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, Australia, killing two refuse collectors and a policeman.
1979 An intense windstorm strikes western Washington and sinks a 1/2-mile-long section of the Hood Canal Bridge.
1980 David Janssen (died), American actor (born 1931)
1981 A series of sewer explosions destroys more than two miles of streets in Louisville, Kentucky.
1984 Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1990 German reunification: An agreement is reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany.
1991 Gulf War: Two laser-guided “smart bombs” destroy the Amiriyah shelter in Baghdad. Allied forces said the bunker was being used as a military communications outpost, but over 400 Iraqi civilians inside were killed.
1996 Martin Balsam (died), American actor (born 1919)
2000 James Cooke Brown (died), American sociologist and author (born 1921)
2000 The last original “Peanuts” comic strip appears in newspapers one day after Charles M. Schulz dies.
2001 An earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter Scale hits El Salvador, killing at least 400.
2002 Waylon Jennings (died), American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Highwaymen) (born 1937)
2004 The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announces the discovery of the universe’s largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star “Lucy” after The Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”.
2008 Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes a historic apology to the Indigenous Australians and the Stolen Generations.
2011 For the first time in more than 100 years the Umatilla, an American Indian tribe, are able to hunt and harvest a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park, restoring a centuries-old tradition guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1855.
2012 The European Space Agency (ESA) conducted the first launch of the European Vega rocket from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
EO Smith
Latest posts by EO Smith (see all)
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