41 After a night of negotiation, Claudius is accepted as Roman Emperor by the Senate.
1348 A strong earthquake strikes the South Alpine region of Friuli in modern Italy, causing considerable damage to buildings as far away as Rome.
1477 Anne of Brittany (born) (died 1514)
1533 Henry VIII of England secretly marries his second wife Anne Boleyn.
1554 Founding of São Paulo city, Brazil.
1575 Luanda, the capital of Angola, is founded by the Portuguese navigator Paulo Dias de Novais.
1586 Lucas Cranach the Younger (died), German painter (b. 1515)
1627 Robert Boyle (born), Irish chemist (died 1691)
1640 Robert Burton (died), English scholar (b. 1577)
1640 William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire (born), English soldier and politician (died 1707)
1704 The Battle of Ayubale results in the destruction of most of the Spanish missions in Florida.
1726 Guillaume Delisle (died), French cartographer (b. 1675)
1743 Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (born), German philosopher (died 1819)
1759 Robert Burns (born), Scottish poet (died 1796)
1765 Port Egmont, the first British settlement in the Falkland Islands at the southern tip of South America, is founded.
1787 Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts: The rebellion’s largest confrontation, outside the Springfield Armory, results in the killing of four rebels and the wounding of twenty.
1791 The British Parliament passes the Constitutional Act of 1791 and splits the old Province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada.
1792 The London Corresponding Society is founded.
1796 William MacGillivray (born), Scottish ornithologist (died 1852)
1813 James Marion Sims (born), American physician (died 1883)
1822 Charles Reed Bishop (born), American businessman, philanthropist, and politician, founded the Bishop Museum (died 1915)
1825 George Pickett (born), American general (died 1875)
1852 Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen (died), Russian admiral, cartographer, and explorer (b. 1778)
1858 The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn is played at the marriage of Queen Victoria’s daughter, Victoria, and Friedrich of Prussia, and becomes a popular wedding recessional.
1860 Charles Curtis (born), American politician, 31st Vice President of the United States (died 1936)
1874 W. Somerset Maugham (born), French-English author and playwright (died 1965)
1881 Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company.
1882 Virginia Woolf (born), English author and critic (died 1941)
1886 Wilhelm Furtwängler (born), German conductor and composer (died 1954)
1890 Nellie Bly completes her round-the-world journey in 72 days.
1907 René Pottier (died), French cyclist (born 1879)
1908 Mikhail Chigorin (died), Russian chess player (born 1850)
1909 Richard Strauss’s opera Elektra receives its debut performance at the Dresden State Opera.
1915 Alexander Graham Bell inaugurates U.S. transcontinental telephone service, speaking from New York to Thomas Watson in San Francisco.
1919 Edwin Newman (born), American journalist and author (died 2010)
1919 The League of Nations is founded.
1921 Samuel T. Cohen (born), American physicist (died 2010)
1924 The 1924 Winter Olympics opens in Chamonix, in the French Alps, inaugurating the Winter Olympic Games.
1927 Antônio Carlos Jobim (born), Brazilian singer-songwriter and pianist (died 1994)
1928 Eduard Shevardnadze (born), Georgian politician, 2nd President of Georgia
1933 Corazon Aquino (born), Filipino politician, 11th President of the Philippines (died 2009)
1937 The Guiding Light debuts on NBC radio from Chicago. In 1952 it moves to CBS television, where it remains until Sept. 18, 2009.
1938 Etta James (born), American singer-songwriter (died 2012)
1938 Vladimir Vysotsky (born), Russian singer-songwriter, actor, and poet (died 1980)
1941 Buddy Baker (born), American race car driver
1942 World War II: Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom.
1945 World War II: The Battle of the Bulge ends.
1946 Doc Bundy (born), American race car driver
1946 The United Mine Workers rejoins the American Federation of Labor.
1947 Al Capone (died), American mobster (born 1899)
1947 Thomas Goldsmith Jr. files a patent for a cathode ray tubeamusement device
1949 At the Hollywood Athletic Club the first Emmy Awards are presented.
1951 Steve Prefontaine (born), American runner (died 1975)
1960 The National Association of Broadcasters reacts to the “payola” scandal by threatening fines for any disc jockeys who accept money for playing particular records.
1961 In Washington, D.C. John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential television news conference.
1971 Charles Manson and three female “Family” members are found guilty of the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders.
1971 Idi Amin leads a coup deposing Milton Obote and becomes Uganda’s president.
1979 Pope John Paul II starts his first official papal visits outside Italy to the Bahamas, Dominican Republic and Mexico.
1980 Mother Teresa is honored with India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna
1981 Adele Astaire (died), American dancer (born 1897)
1981 Jiang Qing, the widow of Mao Zedong, is sentenced to death.
1986 The National Resistance Movement topples the government of Tito Okello in Uganda.
1990 Ava Gardner (died), American actress (born 1922)
1993 Five people are shot outside the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Two are killed and three wounded.
1994 The Clementine space probe launches.
1995 The Norwegian rocket incident: Russia almost launches a nuclear attack after it mistakes Black Brant XII, a Norwegian research rocket, for a US Trident missile.
1996 Billy Bailey becomes the last person to be hanged in the USA.
1998 During a historic visit to Cuba, Pope John Paul II demands political reforms and the release of political prisoners while condemning US attempts to isolate the country.
1999 A 6.0 Richter scale earthquake hits western Colombia killing at least 1,000.
1999 Robert Shaw (died), American conductor (born 1916)
2003 2003 Invasion of Iraq: A group of people leave London, England, for Baghdad, Iraq, to serve as human shields, intending to prevent the U.S.-ledcoalition troops from bombing certain locations.
2004 Opportunity rover (MER-B) lands on surface of Mars.
2011 The first wave of the Egyptian revolution begins in Egypt, with a series of street demonstrations, marches, rallies, acts of civil disobedience, riots, labour strikes, and violent clashes in Cairo, Alexandria, and throughout other cities in Egypt.
2013 Frank Keating (died), English journalist and author (born 1937)
EO Smith
Latest posts by EO Smith (see all)
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