Today's anniversaries edit
April 25: Liberation Day in Italy (1945)
USS Triton
- 1643 – First English Civil War: Despite being vastly outnumbered, a Parliamentarian force under James Chudleigh defeated a Royalist army near Okehampton, Devon, at the Battle of Sourton Down.
- 1915 – First World War: The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed at Anzac Cove while British and French troops landed at Cape Helles to begin the Allied invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula in the Ottoman Empire.
- 1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine Triton (pictured) completed the first submerged circumnavigation of the world.
- 1983 – The first issue of The Jakarta Post was published in Indonesia.
- 2015 – Nepal was struck by a magnitude-7.8 earthquake, killing more than 8,000 people, including 22 from avalanches on Mount Everest.
- Naresuan (d. 1605)
- Georg Sverdrup (b. 1770)
- Emmeline B. Wells (d. 1921)
Selected anniversaries for January edit
January 1: Public Domain Day; Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (Roman Rite Catholicism)
"Am I not a man and a brother", emblem used by abolitionists
- 417 – Galla Placidia was forced by her brother Honorius into marriage with his magister militum, Constantius III.
- 1808 – As a result of the lobbying efforts by the abolitionist movement (emblem pictured), the importation of slaves into the United States was officially banned, although slavery itself remained permitted.
- 1914 – The St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line in the U.S. state of Florida became the first scheduled airline using a winged aircraft.
- 1957 – The revised Thai criminal code came into force, strengthening the law on lèse-majesté in Thailand to include insult and treating it as a crime against national security.
- 2019 – The NASA space probe New Horizons flew by the trans-Neptunian object Arrokoth, making it the farthest object visited by a spacecraft.
- Henry of Marcy (d. 1189)
- Marie-Louise Lachapelle (b. 1769)
- Vidya Balan (b. 1979)
- Tusse (b. 2002)
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January 2: Feast day of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Saint Basil of Caesarea (Roman Rite Catholicism, Anglicanism)
Ronald Reagan
- 1777 – American Revolutionary War: American forces under the command of George Washington repulsed a British attack at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek near Trenton, New Jersey.
- 1959 – The Soviet Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon, was launched by a Vostok rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
- 1967 – Ronald Reagan (pictured) began his career in government when he was sworn in as the 33rd governor of California.
- 1976 – An extratropical cyclone began affecting parts of western Europe, resulting in coastal flooding around the southern portions of the North Sea and leading to at least 82 deaths.
- 2009 – Sri Lankan Civil War: The Sri Lankan army captured the town of Kilinochchi from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, concluding the Battle of Kilinochchi.
- William de St-Calais (d. 1096)
- Hester C. Jeffrey (d. 1934)
- Roman Dmowski (d. 1939)
- Norodom Ranariddh (b. 1944)
First issue of Berlingske
- 1749 – The first issue of Berlingske (front page pictured), Denmark's oldest continually operating newspaper, was published.
- 1911 – An earthquake registering 7.7 Mw destroyed Almaty in Russian Turkestan.
- 1938 – The American health charity March of Dimes was founded as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis to help raise money for polio research.
- 1961 – All 25 people on board Aero Flight 311 died in Finland's worst civilian air accident when the aircraft crashed near Kvevlax.
- 2009 – The cryptocurrency network of bitcoin was created when Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first block of the chain.
- Ferdinando Galli-Bibiena (d. 1743)
- Oliver Bosbyshell (b. 1839)
- Mona Best (b. 1924)
- Lynn Hill (b. 1961)
January 4: Colonial Repression Martyrs' Day in Angola (1961)
Artist's depiction of a Mars Exploration Rover
- 1698 – Most of London's Palace of Whitehall, the main residence of English monarchs since 1530, was destroyed by fire.
- 1798 – After his appointment as Prince of Wallachia, Constantine Hangerli arrived in Bucharest to assume the throne.
- 1936 – Billboard published its first music hit parade.
- 1989 – Two American F-14 Tomcats shot down two Libyan MiG-23 Floggers that appeared to be attempting to engage them over the Gulf of Sidra.
- 2004 – Spirit (artist's impression depicted), the first of two rovers of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission, successfully landed on Mars.
- Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy (b. 1334)
- Josef Suk (b. 1874)
- Nellie Cashman (d. 1925)
- Arthur Rose Eldred (d. 1951)
January 5: Twelfth Night (Western Christianity)
Harry S. Truman
- 1757 – King Louis XV survived an assassination attempt by Robert-François Damiens, who later became the last person in France to be executed by drawing and quartering.
- 1869 – Te Kooti's War: After surviving a five-day siege in the pā at Ngātapa, Māori leader Te Kooti escaped from New Zealand's Armed Constabulary.
- 1919 – The German Workers' Party, the precursor of the Nazi Party, was founded by Anton Drexler.
- 1949 – In his State of the Union speech, U.S. president Harry S. Truman (pictured) announced: "Every segment of our population, and every individual, has a right to expect from his government a fair deal."
- 2003 – The Metropolitan Police arrested six people in conjunction with an alleged terrorist plot to release ricin on the London Underground, although no toxin was found.
- Al-Mu'tasim (d. 842)
- Joseph Erlanger (b. 1874)
- Edmund Herring (d. 1982)
- Pierre Boulez (d. 2016)
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Constantine XI Palaiologos
- 1449 – Four years before the fall of Constantinople, Constantine XI Palaiologos (pictured) assumed the throne as the last Byzantine emperor.
- 1724 – Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen, a Bach cantata for Epiphany, was first performed in Leipzig.
- 1912 – German geophysicist Alfred Wegener presented his theory of continental drift, the precursor of plate tectonics.
- 1953 – The inaugural Asian Socialist Conference, an organisation of socialist political parties, opened in Rangoon with 177 delegates, observers and fraternal guests.
- 2014 – The first episode of the documentary series Benefits Street aired on Channel 4, prompting discussion in the United Kingdom about welfare dependency.
- Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros (b. 1756)
- Earl Scruggs (b. 1924)
- Babrak Karmal (b. 1929)
- Sybil Plumlee (d. 2012)
January 7: Christmas (Eastern Christianity); Victory over Genocide Day in Cambodia (1979)
CQD in Morse code
- 1797 – The Italian tricolour was first adopted as an official flag by the government of the Cispadane Republic.
- 1904 – The Marconi International Marine Communication Company specified CQD (audio featured) as the distress signal to be used by its operators.
- 1939 – French physicist Marguerite Perey identified francium, the last element to be discovered in nature rather than by synthesis.
- 1979 – The People's Army of Vietnam captured Phnom Penh, marking the end of large-scale fighting in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War.
- 2020 – After 253 days without an operational government, a second round of investiture votes produced Spain's first coalition government since the Second Republic.
- Francis Poulenc (b. 1899)
- Melly Goeslaw (b. 1974)
- Richard Hamming (d. 1998)
- Run Run Shaw (d. 2014)
January 8: Eugenio María de Hostos's birthday in Puerto Rico (2024)
Blackstone Library
- 1697 – Scottish student Thomas Aikenhead became the last person in Great Britain to be executed for blasphemy.
- 1904 – Blackstone Library (pictured), the first branch of the Chicago Public Library system, was dedicated.
- 1977 – Three bombs attributed to Armenian nationalists exploded across Moscow, killing seven people and injuring 37 people.
- 1981 – In Trans-en-Provence, France, a local farmer reported a UFO sighting claimed to be "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time".
- 2011 – Jared Lee Loughner opened fire at a public meeting held by U.S. representative Gabby Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, killing six people and injuring twelve others.
- Prince Albert Victor (b. 1864)
- Mary Arthur McElroy (d. 1917)
- Joseph Franklin Rutherford (d. 1942)
- T. J. Hamblin (d. 2012)
The plane involved in the Iran Air Flight 277 crash
- 1797 – War of the First Coalition: The siege of Kehl by Habsburg and Württembergian forces ended when French troops withdrew from their fortifications.
- 1917 – First World War: Troops of the British Empire defeated Ottoman forces at the Battle of Rafa on the Sinai–Palestine border in present-day Rafah.
- 1972 – The Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association lost to the Milwaukee Bucks, ending a 33-game winning streak, the longest in major American professional team sports.
- 1975 – In Central and Southeastern United States, a Great Storm formed the first of forty-five tornadoes over a three-day period.
- 2011 – In poor weather conditions, Iran Air Flight 277 (plane pictured) crashed near Urmia Airport, Iran, killing 78 of the 105 people on board.
- T. W. Robertson (b. 1829)
- Carrie Chapman Catt (b. 1859)
- Farhan Akhtar (b. 1974)
- Lei Jieqiong (d. 2011)
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New Orleans
- 236 – Pope Fabian, said to have been chosen by the Holy Spirit when a dove landed on his head, began his papacy.
- 1812 – New Orleans (pictured), the first steamship on the Mississippi River, arrived at New Orleans to complete its maiden voyage.
- 1929 – Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, the first volume of The Adventures of Tintin by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé, began serialisation.
- 1993 – The Braer Storm, the strongest extratropical cyclone ever recorded in the North Atlantic, reached peak intensity.
- Georg Forster (d. 1794)
- Hrithik Roshan (b. 1974)
- Yip Pin Xiu (b. 1992)
- Constantine II of Greece (d. 2023)
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January 11: Prithvi Jayanti in Nepal
Cover of Smoking and Health
- 1654 – Arauco War: The Mapuche-Huilliche of southern Chile defeated a slave-hunting Spanish army at the Battle of Río Bueno.
- 1693 – The most powerful earthquake recorded in Italy, registering 7.4 Mw, struck the island of Sicily.
- 1914 – The Karluk, the flagship of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, sank after being crushed by ice.
- 1964 – In a landmark report (cover pictured), U.S. surgeon general Luther Terry issued a warning that tobacco smoking may be hazardous to health, concluding that it has a causative role in lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, and other illnesses.
- 2003 – After Chicago police detective Jon Burge was discovered to have forced confessions from more than 200 suspects, the governor of Illinois commuted the death sentences of 167 prisoners and pardoned four others.
- Min Bin (d. 1554)
- Socrates Nelson (b. 1814)
- Eva Le Gallienne (b. 1899)
- Eva Tanguay (d. 1947)
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January 12: Zanzibar Revolution Day in Tanzania (1964)
Comet McNaught
- 1659 – The fort at Allahabad was surrendered to the forces of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.
- 1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: Natal Native Contingent and British troops defeated Zulu forces in the Action at Sihayo's Kraal.
- 1899 – During a storm, the crew of Lynmouth Lifeboat Station transported their 10-ton lifeboat 15 mi (24 km) overland in order to rescue a damaged schooner.
- 1969 – British rock band Led Zeppelin released their first album, Led Zeppelin, in the United States.
- 2007 – Comet McNaught (pictured) reached perihelion, becoming the brightest comet in over 40 years, with an apparent magnitude of −5.5.
- Godscall Paleologue (b. 1694)
- Laura Adams Armer (b. 1874)
- Princess Patricia of Connaught (d. 1974)
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January 13: Saint Knut's Day in Finland and Sweden
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William Price
- 1884 – Welsh physician William Price (pictured) was arrested for attempting to cremate his deceased infant son; this eventually led to the United Kingdom cremation act becoming law.
- 1953 – Nine Moscow doctors were accused of a plot to poison members of the Soviet political and military leadership.
- 1968 – American singer Johnny Cash recorded his landmark album At Folsom Prison live at Folsom Prison in California.
- 1972 – Ghanaian military officer Ignatius Kutu Acheampong led a coup to overthrow Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia and President Edward Akufo-Addo.
- 2000 – Steve Ballmer replaced Bill Gates as the chief executive officer of Microsoft.
- Edmund Spenser (d. 1599)
- Art Ross (b. 1885 or 1886)
- Michael Bond (b. 1926)
- Claudia Emerson (b. 1957)
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January 14: Ratification Day in the United States (1784)
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Philip V of Spain
- 1724 – Philip V (pictured), the first Bourbon king of Spain, abdicated in favour of his seventeen-year-old eldest son, who became Louis I.
- 1814 – Sweden and Denmark–Norway signed the Treaty of Kiel, whereby Frederick VI of Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden in return for the Swedish holdings in Pomerania.
- 1969 – A major fire and series of explosions aboard the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Enterprise killed 28 sailors, injured 314 others, and destroyed 15 aircraft.
- 1970 – The self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra in southeastern Nigeria surrendered to the federal government less than three years after declaring independence, ending the Nigerian Civil War.
- 2018 – In the "Minneapolis Miracle", American football player Stefon Diggs caught a 61-yard touchdown pass that secured the Minnesota Vikings' victory in the National Football Conference divisional playoff game.
- Ladislaus II of Hungary (d. 1163)
- Wang Bingzhang (b. 1914)
- Juan Bielovucic (d. 1949)
- Alan Rickman (d. 2016)
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January 15: John Chilembwe Day in Malawi
US Airways Flight 1549 crash and rescue
- 1857 – In British Hong Kong, hundreds of Europeans were non-lethally poisoned by arsenic in bread from a locally owned bakery, leading to geopolitical tension.
- 1934 – At least 10,700 people died when an earthquake registering 8.0 Mw struck Nepal and the Indian state of Bihar.
- 1974 – American serial killer Dennis Rader, also known as the "BTK killer", murdered his first four victims.
- 1991 – The Victoria Cross for Australia was instituted by letters patent; the first Commonwealth realm with a separate Victoria Cross award in its honours system.
- 2009 – US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of Canada geese during its climb out from New York City and made an emergency landing in the Hudson River (featured).
- Theophylact (d. 849)
- Martin Luther King Jr. (b. 1929)
- Regina Margareten (d. 1959)
- Millie Knight (b. 1999)
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Jose Calugas
- 1275 – 750 years ago, Edward I permits his mother Eleanor of Provence to expel the Jews from the towns Worcester, Marlborough, Cambridge and Gloucester.
- 1809 – Peninsular War: French forces under Jean-de-Dieu Soult attacked the British's amphibious evacuation under Sir John Moore at Corunna in Galicia, Spain.
- 1862 – A pumping engine at a colliery in New Hartley, England, broke and fell down the shaft, trapping miners below and resulting in 204 deaths.
- 1942 – World War II: During the Battle of Bataan, U.S. Army sergeant Jose Calugas (pictured) organized a squad of volunteers to man an artillery position under heavy fire, which later earned him the Medal of Honor.
- 1964 – The musical Hello, Dolly! opened at the St. James Theatre on Broadway, and went on to win ten Tony Awards, a record that stood for 37 years.
- 2018 – In Mrauk U, Myanmar, police fired into a crowd protesting the ban of an event to mark the anniversary of the end of the Kingdom of Mrauk U, resulting in seven deaths and twelve injuries.
- Isaac Komnenos (b. 1093)
- Edward Gibbon (d. 1794)
- Cliff Thorburn (b. 1948)
- Gene Cernan (d. 2017)
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Queen Liliʻuokalani of Hawaii
- 1377 – Gregory XI, the last Avignon pope, entered Rome after a four-month journey from Avignon, returning the papacy to its original city.
- 1893 – Lorrin A. Thurston and the Citizens' Committee of Public Safety led the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the government of Queen Liliʻuokalani (pictured).
- 1945 – World War II: Australian troops advanced along the northern part of Bougainville Island (in present-day Papua New Guinea) and began fighting Japanese forces in the Battle of Tsimba Ridge.
- 1948 – Indonesian National Revolution: The Renville Agreement between the Netherlands and Indonesian republicans was ratified, in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to resolve disputes arising from the Linggadjati Agreement of 1946.
- 1999 – In Little Saigon, California, a series of protests began when the owner of a video rental store displayed an image of Ho Chi Minh.
- Ellen Wood (b. 1814)
- Abram Lincoln Harris (b. 1899)
- Michelle Obama (b. 1964)
- Sunanda Pushkar (d. 2014)
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January 18: Laba Festival in China (2024)
United Nations Memorial Cemetery
- 1871 – A number of previously independent states united to form the German Empire, with Wilhelm I as emperor.
- 1951 – Construction began on the United Nations Military Cemetery (pictured), the only United Nations cemetery in the world, in Busan, South Korea.
- 1956 – Navvab Safavi, an Iranian Shia cleric and the founder of the fundamentalist group Fada'iyan-e Islam, was executed with three of his followers for attempting to assassinate Prime Minister Hossein Ala'.
- 1969 – Thousands of Japanese police stormed the University of Tokyo after six months of nationwide leftist university student protests and occupation.
- 1983 – Thirty years after his death, the International Olympic Committee presented commemorative medals to the family of American athlete Jim Thorpe, who had been stripped of his gold medals for playing semi-professional baseball before the 1912 Summer Olympics.
- Isabella Jagiellon (b. 1519)
- Elena Arizmendi Mejía (b. 1884)
- Philippe Starck (b. 1949)
- Bruce Chatwin (d. 1989)
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Iva Toguri
- 1419 – Hundred Years' War: The siege of Rouen ended with English troops capturing the city from Norman French forces.
- 1909 – A deed was recorded for David Hanbury to sell Island No. 2 in northern California to his brother John for $10 ($339.00 in 2023).
- 1977 – Iva Toguri (pictured), convicted of treason for broadcasting Japanese propaganda, was granted a full pardon by U.S. president Gerald Ford.
- 1996 – A tank barge and a tug grounded on a beach in Rhode Island, causing a spill of an estimated 828,000 U.S. gallons (3,130,000 L) of home heating oil.
- 2006 – In the deadliest aviation accident in Slovak history, an Antonov An-24 operated by the Slovak Air Force crashed in northern Hungary, killing 42 of the 43 people on board.
- Giuseppe Millico (b. 1737)
- Sophie Taeuber-Arp (b. 1889)
- Choor Singh (b. 1911)
- Sarah Burke (d. 2012)
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January 20: Day of Nationwide Sorrow in Azerbaijan (1990)
Icelandic financial crisis protesters
- 1156 – According to legend, Lalli slew Bishop Henry of Finland with an axe on the ice of Lake Köyliönjärvi in Köyliö.
- 1843 – Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná, became the de facto first prime minister of the Empire of Brazil.
- 1968 – The Houston Cougars upset the UCLA Bruins in what became known as the "Game of the Century", ending the Bruins' 47-game winning streak, and establishing college basketball as a sports commodity on American television.
- 1969 – Bengali student activist Amanullah Asaduzzaman was shot and killed by East Pakistani police, an event that led to the Bangladesh Liberation War.
- 2009 – During a national financial crisis, thousands of people protested (pictured) at the Icelandic parliament in Reykjavík.
- Li Jitao (d. 924)
- David Wilmot (b. 1814)
- Chandra Khonnokyoong (b. 1909)
- Claudio Abbado (d. 2014)
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January 21: World Religion Day (2024)
Newt Gingrich
- 1757 – French and Indian War: French regulars, Canadien militia and Indigenous forces ambushed Rogers' Rangers forces in the Battle on Snowshoes.
- 1919 – The First Dáil convened at the Mansion House in Dublin and adopted a declaration of independence calling for the establishment of the Irish Republic.
- 1968 – A B-52 bomber carrying four nuclear weapons crashed onto sea ice near Thule Air Base, Greenland, causing localized radioactive contamination.
- 1997 – The U.S. House of Representatives voted 395–28 to reprimand Newt Gingrich (pictured) for ethics violations, making him the first Speaker of the House to be so disciplined.
- 2011 – Demonstrations in Tirana against alleged corruption in the Albanian government led to the killings of four protesters by the Republican Guard.
- Chaim of Volozhin (b. 1749)
- Eusapia Palladino (b. 1854)
- Trương Tấn Sang (b. 1949)
- Frances Gertrude McGill (d. 1959)
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January 22: Day of Unity of Ukraine (1919)
Apollo 5
- 1273 – Muhammad II became Sultan of Granada after his father's death in a riding accident.
- 1924 – Ramsay MacDonald took office as the first prime minister of the United Kingdom from the Labour Party.
- 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Buna–Gona on New Guinea ended with an Allied victory after two months of difficult fighting against well-prepared Japanese defence.
- 1968 – Apollo 5 (pictured), the first flight of NASA's Lunar Module, lifted off from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station.
- 1979 – Uganda–Tanzania War: After surrounding Mutukula the previous day, Tanzanian forces attacked the town in the Battle of Mutukula and caused Ugandan forces to flee.
- Christian Ramsay (d. 1839)
- Vito Cascio Ferro (b. 1862)
- S. Vithiananthan (d. 1989)
- Ursula K. Le Guin (d. 2018)
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A Frisbee brand flying disc
- 1264 – King Louis IX of France issued the Mise of Amiens, a settlement between King Henry III of England and barons led by Simon de Montfort heavily favouring the former, which later led to the Second Barons' War.
- 1789 – Bishop John Carroll purchased a plot of land that would become the home of the future Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic university in the United States.
- 1902 – In the most fatal recorded mountaineering accident, 199 of the 210 members of an Imperial Japanese Army unit perished in a blizzard on the Hakkōda Mountains.
- 1957 – American inventor Fred Morrison sold the rights to his "flying disc" to the Wham-O toy company, who later renamed it the "Frisbee" (example pictured).
- 2001 – Five people attempted to set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, an act that many later claimed to have been staged by the Chinese Communist Party to frame Falun Gong and thus escalate their persecution.
- Hai Rui (b. 1514)
- Tom Denning (b. 1899)
- Marguerite Gautier-van Berchem (d. 1984)
- Salvador Dalí (d. 1989)
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January 24: Day of the Unification of the Romanian Principalities (1859)
Henry VIII
- 914 – The Fatimid Caliphate began their first invasion of Egypt, against the Abbasids, which eventually ended in failure.
- 1536 – King Henry VIII of England (pictured) suffered a serious accident while jousting, receiving injuries which may have caused his later obesity and erratic personality.
- 1848 – James W. Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California, leading to the California gold rush.
- 1972 – Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi was found in the jungles of Guam, where he had been hiding since the end of World War II.
- 1977 – During the Spanish transition to democracy, neo-fascists attacked an office in Madrid, killing five people and injuring four others.
- Pope Stephen IV (d. 817)
- Charles James Fox (b. 1749)
- Luis Suárez (b. 1987)
- Rosemary Bryant Mariner (d. 2019)
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January 25: Feast day of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus (Eastern Christianity) and Dwynwen
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Protester during the 2011 Egyptian revolution
- 1792 – Thomas Hardy founded the London Corresponding Society to seek a "radical reform of parliament", later influencing the reform movements of early-19th-century England.
- 1944 – Representatives of the Chetnik movement began a four-day congress to organise political opposition to the Allied support of the communist-led Yugoslav Partisans in Yugoslavia.
- 1971 – Idi Amin seized power from Ugandan president Milton Obote in a coup d'état, beginning eight years of military rule.
- 1993 – Pakistani national Mir Aimal Kansi shot five people outside the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, killing two.
- 2011 – The Egyptian revolution began with protests (protester pictured) on the "Day of Anger", eventually leading to the removal of President Hosni Mubarak after nearly 30 years of rule.
- J. Marion Sims (b. 1813)
- Ernst Alexanderson (b. 1878)
- Volodymyr Zelenskyy (b. 1978)
- Adele Astaire (d. 1981)
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January 26: Australia Day (1788); Republic Day in India (1950)
The dome over the Hale Telescope
- 1564 – Livonian War: A Lithuanian surprise attack resulted in a decisive defeat of numerically superior Russian forces.
- 1808 – William Bligh, the governor of New South Wales, was deposed in the only military coup in Australian history.
- 1949 – The Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory (pictured) in California, the largest aperture optical telescope in the world for 28 years, saw first light.
- 1974 – Turkish Airlines Flight 301 crashed while taking off from İzmir Adnan Menderes Airport, killing 67 people.
- 2009 – Rioting broke out in Antananarivo, Madagascar, sparking a political crisis that led to the deposal of President Marc Ravalomanana.
- Manuel do Cenáculo (d. 1814)
- Seán MacBride (b. 1904)
- Wayne Gretzky (b. 1961)
- Lindy Delapenha (d. 2017)
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Mahamane Ousmane
- 1799 – French Revolutionary Wars: In the Macau Incident, French and Spanish warships encountered a British Royal Navy escort squadron in the Wanshan Archipelago; subsequent events, including which side retreated, were disputed by the commanders present.
- 1996 – Mahamane Ousmane (pictured), the first democratically elected president of Niger, was deposed by Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara in a military coup d'état.
- 2003 – The first selections for the United States National Recording Registry were announced by the Library of Congress.
- 2011 – Astronomers documented H1504+65, a white dwarf in Ursa Minor with the hottest surface temperature known at the time, at 200,000 kelvins (360,000 °F).
- Titumir (b. 1782)
- Mohamed Al-Fayed (b. 1929)
- Victoria Ocampo (d. 1979)
- Paul Zorner (d. 2014)
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Horace Walpole
- 1069 – Robert de Comines, Earl of Northumbria, was killed in Durham, causing William the Conqueror to embark on a campaign to subjugate northern England.
- 1754 – The word serendipity, derived from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, was coined by Horace Walpole (pictured) in a letter to a friend.
- 1933 – Choudhry Rahmat Ali published a pamphlet in which he called for the creation of a Muslim state in north-western India that he termed "Pakstan".
- 1964 – Three U.S. Air Force pilots aboard an unarmed T-39 Sabreliner were killed when the aircraft was shot down over Erfurt, East Germany, by a Soviet MiG-19.
- William H. Prescott (d. 1859)
- W. B. Yeats (d. 1939)
- Eddie Buczynski (b. 1947)
- Astrid Lindgren (d. 2002)
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Mantra-Rock Dance poster
- 1814 – War of the Sixth Coalition: At the Battle of Brienne, both sides' commanders, Napoleon and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, were nearly captured.
- 1967 – The Mantra-Rock Dance (poster pictured), called the "ultimate high" of the hippie era, took place in San Francisco, featuring Swami Bhaktivedanta, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and Allen Ginsberg.
- 1991 – The first major ground engagement of the Gulf War began with the Iraqi invasion of Khafji, Saudi Arabia, recaptured three days later by Coalition forces.
- 2013 – Twenty-one people died when SCAT Airlines Flight 760 crashed near Almaty, Kazakhstan.
- Salih ibn Wasif (d. 870)
- George III (d. 1820)
- Teresa Teng (b. 1953)
- Jarell Quansah (b. 2003)
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January 30: Martyrs' Day in India (1948)
Former Cabanatuan POWs in celebration
- 1287 – Wareru created the Hanthawaddy Kingdom in today's Lower Burma and declared himself king following the collapse of the Pagan Empire.
- 1661 – Two years after his death, Oliver Cromwell's remains were exhumed for a posthumous execution and his head was placed on a spike above Westminster Hall in London, where it remained until 1685.
- 1945 – World War II: Allied forces liberated more than 500 prisoners of war (pictured) from a Japanese POW camp near Cabanatuan in the Philippines.
- 2020 – The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic to be a public health emergency of international concern.
- Livia (b. 59 BC)
- Giovanni Pietro Francesco Agius de Soldanis (d. 1770)
- Christian Bale (b. 1974)
- Arthur Chu (b. 1984)
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January 31: Independence Day in Nauru (1968)
Bust of Sylvester I
- 314 – Sylvester I (bust depicted), during whose pontificate many churches in Rome were constructed by Constantine the Great, began his reign as pope.
- 1919 – Intense rioting over labour conditions broke out in Glasgow, Scotland.
- 1997 – Final Fantasy VII, the first video game in the Final Fantasy franchise to use 3-D computer graphics, was released.
- 2007 – Emergency officials in Boston mistakenly identified LED placards depicting characters from Aqua Teen Hunger Force as IEDs, causing a panic.
- John Francis Regis (b. 1597)
- Franz Schubert (b. 1797)
- Jackie Robinson (b. 1919)
- Adelaide Tambo (d. 2007)
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Selected anniversaries / On this day archive
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Selected anniversaries for February edit
February 1: Imbolc / Saint Brigid's Day in Ireland; the Fajr decade begins in Iran; Black History Month begins in Canada and the United States
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir
- 1329 – The Teutonic Knights successfully besieged the hillfort of Medvėgalis in Samogitia, Lithuania, and baptised the defenders in the Catholic rite.
- 1814 – More than 1,200 people died in the most destructive recorded eruption of Mayon in the Philippines.
- 1979 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile and soon led the Iranian Revolution to overthrow the Pahlavi dynasty.
- 2009 – Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir (pictured) became the first female prime minister of Iceland.
- Menas of Ethiopia (d. 1563)
- Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (d. 1761)
- Mary Shelley (d. 1851)
- Harry Styles (b. 1994)
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February 2: Candlemas (Western Christianity); Groundhog Day in Canada and the United States
F-16 Fighting Falcon
- 1709 – Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk was rescued by English captain Woodes Rogers and his crew after spending four years as a castaway on an uninhabited island in the Pacific, providing the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe.
- 1934 – The Export–Import Bank of the United States, the country's official export credit agency, was established.
- 1974 – The F-16 Fighting Falcon (pictured), the most numerous fixed-wing aircraft currently in military service, made its first flight.
- 2004 – Swiss tennis player Roger Federer became the top-ranked men's singles player, a position he held for a record 237 consecutive weeks.
- William Stanley (b. 1829)
- Likelike (d. 1887)
- Marian Cruger Coffin (d. 1957)
- Philip Seymour Hoffman (d. 2014)
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February 3: Feast day of Saint Laurence of Canterbury (Western Christianity); Four Chaplains' Day in the United States (1943)
British bomber flying to join the Battle of Keren
- 1813 – Argentine War of Independence: José de San Martín and the Mounted Grenadiers Regiment defeated Spanish royalist forces in the Battle of San Lorenzo.
- 1941 – Second World War: Free French and British forces (aircraft pictured) began the Battle of Keren to capture the strategic town of Keren in Italian East Africa.
- 1953 – Hundreds of native creoles known as Forros were massacred on São Tomé Island by the colonial administration and Portuguese landowners.
- 2023 – A freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, releasing hazardous materials into the surrounding area.
- Coloman, King of Hungary (d. 1116)
- Abu Bakar of Johor (b. 1833)
- Simone Weil (b. 1909)
- Kanna Hashimoto (b. 1999)
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February 4: Lichun begins in East Asia (2024)
Yasser Arafat
- 1169 – A strong earthquake struck the eastern coast of Sicily, causing at least 15,000 deaths.
- 1969 – Yasser Arafat (pictured) was elected chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
- 1974 – American newspaper heiress and socialite Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, which she later joined, in one of the most well-known cases of Stockholm syndrome.
- 1999 – Amadou Diallo, a 23-year-old immigrant from Guinea, was shot and killed by four New York City Police Department plain-clothed officers, prompting outrage both within and outside the city.
- Bill Haywood (b. 1869)
- Virginia M. Alexander (b. 1899)
- Jean Bolikango (b. 1909)
- Hilda Hilst (d. 2004)
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February 5: Constitution Day in Mexico (1917)
A device for producing Bakelite
- 1909 – Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland announced his invention of Bakelite (production device pictured), the world's first synthetic plastic.
- 1913 – Claudio Monteverdi's last opera, L'incoronazione di Poppea, was performed theatrically for the first time in more than 250 years.
- 1958 – After a mid-air collision with a fighter plane during a practice exercise off Tybee Island, Georgia, a U.S. Air Force bomber jettisoned a Mark 15 nuclear bomb, which was presumed lost.
- 1985 – The mayors of Carthage and Rome signed a symbolic peace treaty to officially end the Third Punic War, 2,134 years after it began.
- 2019 – Pope Francis became the first pope to celebrate a papal Mass in the Arabian Peninsula.
- Marcus Ward Lyon Jr. (b. 1875)
- William Bostock (b. 1892)
- Margaret Oakley Dayhoff (d. 1983)
- Bhuvneshwar Kumar (b. 1990)
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February 6: Sámi National Day (1917); Waitangi Day in New Zealand (1840)
News reel of the Munich air disaster
- 1788 – Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the constitution of the United States.
- 1819 – British official Stamford Raffles signed a treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor, establishing Singapore as a trading post for the East India Company.
- 1919 – More than 65,000 workers in Seattle began a five-day general strike to gain higher wages after two years of U.S. World War I wage controls.
- 1958 – The aircraft carrying the Manchester United football team crashed while attempting to take off from Munich-Riem Airport in West Germany, killing 8 players and 23 people in total (news reel featured).
- Joseph Priestley (d. 1804)
- Barbara W. Tuchman (d. 1989)
- Jack Kirby (d. 1994)
- Gary Moore (d. 2011)
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Bruce McCandless II untethered in space
- 1497 – Supporters of the Dominican preacher Girolamo Savonarola collected and publicly burned thousands of vanity items such as cosmetics, art and books in Florence, Italy.
- 1914 – Kid Auto Races at Venice, featuring the first appearance of comedy actor Charlie Chaplin's character the Tramp, was released.
- 1984 – During the Space Shuttle Challenger mission STS-41-B, astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart performed the first untethered spacewalk (pictured).
- 2005 – President Ilham Aliyev issued a decree on the redenomination of Azerbaijan's currency, with 1 new manat equal to 5000 old manats.
- 2014 – An inquiry report of the United Nations Human Rights Council found systematic and wide-ranging violations of human rights in North Korea.
- Bartholomäus Sastrow (d. 1603)
- John Deere (b. 1804)
- Desmond Doss (b. 1919)
- Steve Nash (b. 1974)
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Mary, Queen of Scots
- 1587 – Mary, Queen of Scots (pictured), was executed at Fotheringhay Castle for her involvement in the Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Elizabeth I of England.
- 1879 – Angered by a controversial umpiring decision, cricket spectators rioted and attacked the England team during a match in Sydney, Australia.
- 1924 – Gee Jon became the first person in the United States to be executed by lethal gas.
- 1948 – The closing ceremony of the first Olympics held after World War II was held in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
- 1968 – Local police in Orangeburg, South Carolina, fired into a crowd of people who were protesting segregation, killing three and injuring twenty-seven others.
- 1983 – The Irish-bred race horse Shergar was stolen by gunmen, who demanded a £2 million ransom.
- Daniele Barbaro (b. 1514)
- Marina de Escobar (b. 1554)
- Neila Sathyalingam (b. 1938)
- Walther Bothe (d. 1957)
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February 9: Chinese New Year's Eve (2024)
Participants in the Mud March
- 1799 – Quasi-War: USS Constellation captured the French frigate Insurgente in a single-ship action in the Caribbean Sea.
- 1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis was named the provisional president of the Confederate States of America.
- 1907 – More than 3,000 women in London participated in the Mud March (pictured), the first large procession organised by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies.
- 1976 – The Australian Defence Force was formed by the integration of the Australian Army, the Royal Australian Navy, and the Royal Australian Air Force.
- 2016 – Two commuter trains collided head-on at Bad Aibling in southeastern Germany, killing 12 people and injuring 85.
- Judith Quiney (d. 1662)
- Aletta Jacobs (b. 1854)
- Howard Martin Temin (d. 1994)
- Masatoshi Gündüz Ikeda (d. 2003)
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February 10: Feast day of Saint Scholastica (Christianity); Chinese New Year (2024); National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe in Italy
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Delegates at the Inter-Allied Women's Conference
- 1355 – A tavern dispute between University of Oxford students and townspeople became a riot that left about 90 people dead.
- 1919 – The Inter-Allied Women's Conference opened as a counterpart to the Paris Peace Conference, marking the first time that women were allowed formal participation in an international treaty negotiation.
- 1939 – Spanish Civil War: The Nationalists concluded their conquest of Catalonia and sealed the border with France.
- 2009 – The first accidental hypervelocity collision between two intact satellites in low Earth orbit took place when Iridium 33 and Kosmos 2251 destroyed each other.
- Ira Remsen (b. 1846)
- Edith Clarke (b. 1883)
- Joseph Lister (d. 1912)
- Joan Curran (d. 1999)
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February 11: National Foundation Day (Japan) (660 BC)
- 1826 – London University, later University College London (pictured), was founded as the first secular university in England.
- 1851 – As part of celebrations marking the separation of Victoria from New South Wales, the inaugural first-class cricket match in Australia began at the Launceston Racecourse in Tasmania.
- 1976 – The Frente de Liberación Homosexual made their final public appearance, shortly before the group's dissolution due to political repression after the 1976 Argentine coup d'état.
- 2001 – The computer worm Anna Kournikova, which would affect millions of users worldwide, was released by a 20-year-old Dutch student.
- Thomas Edison (b. 1847)
- Helene Kröller-Müller (b. 1869)
- Keith Holyoake (b. 1904)
- Jennifer Aniston (b. 1969)
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February 12: Red Hand Day; Shrove Monday (Western Christianity, 2024)
Edvard Munch's The Scream
- 1691 – A papal conclave convened to select a new pope after the death of Pope Alexander VIII.
- 1924 – George Gershwin's composition Rhapsody in Blue premiered at Aeolian Hall in New York.
- 1994 – Edvard Munch's painting The Scream (pictured) was stolen from the National Gallery of Norway.
- 2003 – Protesters in La Paz and the Bolivian government brokered a deal to end two days of rioting against a proposed salary tax.
- Ethan Allen (d. 1789)
- Charles Darwin (b. 1809)
- Bill Russell (b. 1934)
- Anna Anderson (d. 1984)
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February 13: Shrove Tuesday (Western Christianity, 2024)
Coso artifact
- 1891 – Frances Coles was killed in the last of eleven unsolved murders of women that took place in or near the impoverished Whitechapel district in the East End of London.
- 1961 – Geode prospectors near Olancha, California, discovered what they claimed to be a 500,000-year-old rock with a 1920s-era spark plug encased within (pictured).
- 2017 – Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was assassinated using VX nerve agent in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
- Muhammad ibn Ra'iq (d. 942)
- Isabella d'Este (d. 1539)
- Dorothy Bliss (b. 1916)
- Balu Mahendra (d. 2014)
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February 14: Valentine's Day; Ash Wednesday (Western Christianity, 2024)
Part of the Pale Blue Dot photograph
- 1655 – Arauco War: A series of coordinated Mapuche attacks took place against Spanish settlements and forts in colonial Chile, beginning a ten-year period of warfare.
- 1779 – Native Hawaiians killed the English explorer Captain James Cook after he attempted to kidnap Kalaniʻōpuʻu, the ruling chief of the island of Hawaii.
- 1924 – The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company was renamed as International Business Machines (IBM), later growing into one of the world's largest companies by market capitalization.
- 1990 – NASA's Voyager 1 space probe took the Pale Blue Dot photograph of Earth (cropped version pictured) from a record distance of 40.5 au (6.06 billion km; 3.76 billion mi).
- 2007 – The first of several bombings in Zahedan, Iran, killed 18 members of the Revolutionary Guards.
- Valentin Friedland (b. 1490)
- Eleanora Atherton (b. 1782)
- Nadezhda Krupskaya (b. 1869)
- Vito Genovese (d. 1969)
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February 15: National Flag of Canada Day (1965); Statehood Day in Serbia (1804)
Don Dunstan in 1968
- 438 – The Codex Theodosianus, a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire, was published.
- 1763 – Prussia, Saxony and the Habsburg monarchy signed the Treaty of Hubertusburg, ending the Third Silesian War.
- 1949 – Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux began excavations at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves in the West Bank, the location of the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls.
- 1979 – Don Dunstan (pictured) resigned as Premier of South Australia, ending a decade of sweeping social liberalisation.
- 1999 – Abdullah Öcalan, one of the founding members of the militant organization the Kurdistan Workers' Party, was arrested by Turkish security forces in Nairobi, Kenya.
- Gisela of Swabia (d. 1043)
- Matt Groening (b. 1954)
- Mo Tae-bum (b. 1989)
- Dawa Dem (d. 2018)
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February 16: Day of the Shining Star in North Korea; Elizabeth Peratrovich Day in Alaska
Act of Independence of Lithuania
- 1249 – King Louis IX dispatched André de Longjumeau as the French ambassador to the Mongol Empire.
- 1918 – The Council of Lithuania signed the Act of Independence (pictured), proclaiming the restoration of an independent Lithuania.
- 1922 – A landslide in Byblos revealed a sarcophagus in an underground tomb, later discovered to be part of a large Bronze Age necropolis.
- 1996 – Eleven people died in a train collision in Silver Spring, Maryland, leading to the creation of comprehensive U.S. federal rules for the design of passenger cars.
- Richard of Dover (d. 1184)
- Coluccio Salutati (b. 1331)
- Michael Holding (b. 1954)
- Elizabeth Olsen (b. 1989)
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Helicopter stolen in the 1974 White House incident
- 1859 – Cochinchina campaign: French Navy forces captured the Citadel of Saigon, defended by 1,000 Vietnamese soldiers of the Nguyễn dynasty.
- 1904 – Italian composer Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly premiered at La Scala in Milan to poor reviews, forcing him to revise the opera.
- 1964 – Gabonese military officers overthrew President Léon M'ba, but French forces, honouring a 1960 treaty, forcibly reinstated him two days later.
- 1974 – A U.S. Army soldier stole a Bell UH-1 helicopter (pictured) and landed it on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C.
- 2011 – Arab Spring: Bahraini security forces killed four protesters in a pre-dawn raid at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, while the "Day of Rage" took place in Libya with nationwide protests against Muammar Gaddafi's government.
- Jovian (d. 364)
- Joseph Favre (b. 1849)
- María de las Mercedes Barbudo (d. 1849)
- Don Tallon (b. 1916)
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Protesters during the Revolution of Dignity
- 3102 BCE – According to Hindu scriptures, Kali Yuga, the last of the four stages that the world goes through as part of the cycle of yugas, began.
- 1814 – War of the Sixth Coalition: French troops led by Napoleon forced the Army of Bohemia to retreat after it advanced dangerously close to Paris.
- 1977 – The Xinjiang 61st Regiment Farm fire started during Chinese New Year when a firecracker ignited the wreaths of late Mao Zedong, killing 694 personnel.
- 2014 – A series of violent events (pictured) involving protesters, riot police, and unknown shooters began in Kyiv that culminated in the ousting of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych five days later.
- Angilbert (d. 814)
- Per Brahe the Younger (b. 1602)
- Ōyama Sutematsu (d. 1919)
- J. Robert Oppenheimer (d. 1967)
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February 19: Family Day in Canada (2024)
A depiction of the Venezuelan crisis of 1902–1903
- 1811 – Peninsular War: Outnumbered French forces under Édouard Mortier routed and nearly destroyed Spanish troops at the Battle of the Gebora near Badajoz, Spain.
- 1903 – A blockade against Venezuela (depicted), caused by President Cipriano Castro's refusal to pay foreign debts, was lifted.
- 1942 – World War II: U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the forcible relocation of over 112,000 Japanese Americans to internment camps.
- 1948 – The Southeast Asian Youth Conference, which is believed to have inspired armed communist rebellions in different Asian countries, opened in Calcutta, India.
- Nicolaus Copernicus (b. 1473)
- Choekyi Gyaltsen, 10th Panchen Lama (b. 1938)
- Jennifer Doudna (b. 1964)
- Harper Lee (d. 2016)
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February 20: Day of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes in Ukraine (2014)
Avro CF-105 Arrow
- 1685 – The French colonization of Texas began with the landing of colonists led by Robert de La Salle near Matagorda Bay.
- 1959 – Canadian prime minister John Diefenbaker cancelled the Avro CF-105 Arrow (pictured) interceptor-aircraft program amid much political debate.
- 1970 – The Wat Phra Dhammakaya in Pathum Thani province, one of the largest Buddhist temples in Thailand, was founded.
- 1998 – At the age of 15, American figure skater Tara Lipinski became the youngest gold-medal winner in the history of the Winter Olympic Games at the time.
- Wulfric of Haselbury (d. 1154)
- Elizabeth Holloway Marston (b. 1893)
- Gail Kim (b. 1977)
- Tōru Takemitsu (d. 1996)
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Malcolm X
- 1746 – Jacobite rising of 1745: The siege of Inverness ended with British forces surrendering to the Jacobite army.
- 1862 – American Civil War: The Confederate Army began an attempt to gain control of the Southwest with a major victory in the Battle of Valverde.
- 1952 – A number of student protesters demanding the establishment of Bengali as an official language were killed by police in Dhaka, East Pakistan.
- 1965 – American Black nationalist Malcolm X (pictured) was assassinated while giving a speech in New York City's Audubon Ballroom.
- 1973 – After accidentally straying into Israeli-occupied airspace, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 was shot down by two fighter aircraft, killing 108 of the 113 people on board.
- Gaius Caesar (d. AD 4)
- Léo Delibes (b. 1836)
- Incas (parakeet) (d. 1918)
- Elliot Page (b. 1987)
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Daytona International Speedway
- 1371 – Robert II became King of Scots as the first monarch of the House of Stewart.
- 1959 – Lee Petty won the first Daytona 500 NASCAR auto race at the Daytona International Speedway (pictured) in Daytona Beach, Florida.
- 1974 – Samuel Byck attempted to hijack an aircraft at Baltimore/Washington International Airport with the intention of crashing it into the White House to assassinate Richard Nixon, but he was stopped by police.
- 2019 – A group broke into the North Korean embassy in Madrid and stole several mobile telephones and digital storage devices.
- Peder Syv (b. 1631)
- James Russell Lowell (b. 1819)
- Clarence 13X (b. 1928)
- Bronwyn Oliver (b. 1959)
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February 23: The Emperor's Birthday in Japan (1960)
Aluminium
- 1854 – The Orange River Convention was signed in Bloemfontein, with the United Kingdom agreeing to recognise the independence of the Orange Free State in present-day South Africa.
- 1886 – American inventor Charles Martin Hall discovered an inexpensive method of producing aluminium (sample pictured).
- 1944 – In response to an insurgency in Chechnya, the Soviet Union began the forced deportation of the native Chechen and Ingush of North Caucasus.
- 1987 – SN 1987A, a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, was observed from Earth.
- 2021 – Caused by gang rivalries, riots in four Ecuadorian prisons resulted in the deaths of 79 inmates.
- al-Zafir (b. 1133)
- Allan MacLeod Cormack (b. 1924)
- Edward Elgar (d. 1934)
- Shiena Nishizawa (b. 1997)
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February 24: Lantern Festival in China (2024); Independence Day in Estonia
George Frideric Handel
- 1711 – Rinaldo by George Frideric Handel (pictured), the first Italian-language opera written specifically for the London stage, premiered.
- 1809 – Napoleonic Wars: French admiral Villaret de Joyeuse unconditionally surrendered to the British, which ended the British invasion of Martinique and began a five-year occupation of the island.
- 1979 – Uganda–Tanzania War: Ugandan government forces fled Masaka, Uganda, as the Tanzania People's Defence Force bombarded and captured the town.
- 1989 – United Airlines Flight 811 experienced uncontrolled decompression after leaving Honolulu International Airport, Hawaii, blowing seats out of the aircraft and killing nine passengers.
- Æthelberht of Kent (d. 616)
- Judah Folkman (b. 1933)
- Nina Simonovich-Efimova (d. 1948)
- Leo Ornstein (d. 2002)
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February 25: Soviet Occupation Day in Georgia (1921); National Day in Kuwait (1961)
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USS Ranger
- 1843 – Royal Navy captain Lord George Paulet began a five-month occupation of the Hawaiian Islands.
- 1933 – USS Ranger (pictured), the United States Navy's first purpose-built aircraft carrier, was launched.
- 1951 – After being postponed due to World War II, the inaugural Pan American Games opened in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 1994 – Israeli physician Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Palestinian Muslims praying at the mosque in Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs, killing 29 people and wounding 125 others.
- 2009 – At their headquarters in Pilkhana, members of the Bangladesh Rifles began a mutiny that resulted in 82 deaths.
- Emma Catherine Embury (b. 1806)
- Elizabeth Gertrude Britton (d. 1934)
- Divya Bharti (b. 1974)
- Don Bradman (d. 2001)
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Nabonassar's name in Akkadian
- 747 BC – According to Ptolemy, the reign of the Babylonian king Nabonassar (name in Akkadian pictured) began, marking a new era characterized by the systematic maintenance of chronologically precise historical records.
- 1914 – RMS Britannic, the third and largest Olympic-class ocean liner of the White Star Line after RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic, was launched at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast.
- 1979 – The Superliner railcar entered revenue service with Amtrak.
- 2014 – Former editor-in-chief of Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao Kevin Lau was stabbed, prompting concerns and protests about media freedom.
- Fatima bint al-Ahmar (d. 1349)
- Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll (b. 1629)
- Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (b. 1954)
- Jennie Smillie Robertson (d. 1981)
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February 27: Feast day of Saint Gregory of Narek (Catholicism)
Memorial to the victims of the Sumgait pogrom
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: A Patriot victory at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge resulted in the arrests of 850 Loyalists over the following days.
- 1814 – Peninsular War: In the south of France, Spanish, British and Portuguese soldiers under the command of Arthur Wellesley defeated French soldiers in the Battle of Orthez, causing the French to retreat east.
- 1988 – The Armenian community of Sumgait in Azerbaijan was the target of a violent pogrom (memorial pictured).
- 1996 – The multimedia franchise Pokémon was launched with the release of the video games Pocket Monsters Red and Green.
- Robert of Melun (d. 1167)
- Alice Hamilton (b. 1869)
- Ganesh Vasudev Mavalankar (d. 1956)
- Leah Poulton (b. 1984)
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February 28: Kalevala Day / Finnish Culture Day
The first team of S.L. Benfica
- 1874 – In one of the longest cases ever heard in an English court, the claimant in the Tichborne case was convicted of perjury for attempting to assume the identity of the missing heir to the Tichborne baronetcy.
- 1904 – The most successful football club in Portugal, S.L. Benfica (first team pictured), was founded in Lisbon as Sport Lisboa.
- 1914 – In the aftermath of the Balkan Wars, Greeks living in southern Albania proclaimed the short-lived Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus.
- 1939 – In one of the most famous errors in lexicography, the erroneous word "dord" was discovered in Webster's New International Dictionary by an editor.
- 1974 – The British election ended in a hung parliament after the Liberal Party, under Jeremy Thorpe, achieved their highest ever number of votes.
- Hortense Allart (d. 1879)
- William Zorach (b. 1889)
- Christopher C. Kraft Jr. (b. 1924)
- Fernando Cajías (b. 1949)
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February 29: Beginning of the Nineteen-Day Fast (Baháʼí Faith, 2024)
A damaged building from the 1960 Agadir earthquake
- 1704 – Queen Anne's War: French and Native American forces raided the English settlement of Deerfield, Massachusetts, killing more than 50 colonists.
- 1944 – World War II: The Admiralty Islands campaign began when American forces assaulted Los Negros Island, the third largest of the Admiralty Islands.
- 1960 – The deadliest earthquake in Moroccan history (damaged building pictured) struck the city of Agadir, killing at least 12,000 people.
- 2004 – Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown following popular rebel uprising.
- 2012 – Construction of Tokyo Skytree, the world's tallest tower and third-tallest structure, was completed.
- Oswald of Worcester (d. 992)
- Kamil Tolon (b. 1912)
- Oswaldo Payá (b. 1952)
- Carmel Busuttil (b. 1964)
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Selected anniversaries / On this day archive
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Selected anniversaries for March edit
March 1: Disability Day of Mourning; Saint David's Day; Independence Day in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992); Yap Day in Yap State, Federated States of Micronesia
Dmitri Mendeleev
- 1562 – An attempt by Francis, Duke of Guise, to disperse a church service by Huguenots in Wassy, France, turned into a massacre, resulting in 50 dead, and starting the French Wars of Religion.
- 1869 – The Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev (pictured) finished his design of the first periodic table.
- 1921 – The Australian cricket team, led by Warwick Armstrong, became the first team to complete a whitewash in the Ashes, an achievement that would not be repeated for 86 years.
- 1936 – Hoover Dam, straddling the Arizona–Nevada border on the Colorado River, was completed.
- 1992 – A Bosnian-Serb wedding procession was attacked in Sarajevo, resulting in what is widely considered the first casualty of the Bosnian War.
- Roger North (d. 1734)
- Deke Slayton (b. 1924)
- Nick Griffin (b. 1959)
- Mustafa Barzani (d. 1979)
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Wilt Chamberlain
- 1484 – The College of Arms, one of the few remaining official heraldic authorities in Europe, was incorporated by royal charter in the City of London.
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Patriot militiamen from Georgia and South Carolina attempted to resist the British action to seize and remove supply ships anchored at Savannah, Georgia.
- 1949 – The B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II landed in Fort Worth, Texas, to complete the first non-stop circumnavigation of the world by airplane.
- 1962 – Playing for the Philadelphia Warriors, American basketball player Wilt Chamberlain (pictured) scored 100 points in a game against the New York Knicks, which remains an NBA record.
- 2022 – Russian forces captured the city of Kherson, the only regional capital to be taken during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- Pope Adrian VI (b. 1459)
- Alexander Bullock (b. 1816)
- Bedřich Smetana (b. 1824)
- Ida Maclean (d. 1944)
March 3: Liberation Day in Bulgaria (1878); Hinamatsuri in Japan
Program for the woman suffrage parade
- 1284 – The Statute of Rhuddlan was enacted, introducing English common law to the Principality of Wales.
- 1891 – Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming was established as the first national forest in the United States.
- 1913 – Thousands of women marched in Washington, D.C. (program cover pictured) "in a spirit of protest" against the exclusion of women from American society.
- 1924 – The Ottoman Caliphate, the world's last widely recognized caliphate, was abolished.
- 1991 – Motorist Rodney King was beaten by Los Angeles Police Department officers during an arrest, causing public outrage that increased tensions between the African-American community and the police department over police brutality and social inequality.
- Antony Bek (d. 1311)
- Bonnie J. Dunbar (b. 1949)
- Xavier Bettel (b. 1973)
- May Cutler (d. 2011)
March 4: Feast day of Saint Casimir (Catholicism)
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Władysław II Jagiełło
- 1386 – Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, was crowned King of Poland as Władysław II Jagiełło (pictured), beginning the Jagiellonian dynasty.
- 1773 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart departed Italy after the last of his three journeys there.
- 1899 – Cyclone Mahina struck Bathurst Bay, Queensland, killing over 300 people in one of the deadliest natural disasters in Australian history.
- 1918 – A case of influenza was recorded at Camp Funston, Kansas, conventionally marking the beginning of the Spanish flu pandemic.
- 2017 – Construction began on a 69-metre (226 ft) statue of the Buddha at Wat Paknam Bhasicharoen in Bangkok.
- Hindal Mirza (b. 1519)
- Rosalind Pitt-Rivers (b. 1907)
- Harold Barrowclough (d. 1972)
- Gary Gygax (d. 2008)
March 5: Learn from Lei Feng Day in China; St Piran's Day in Cornwall, England
Prototype Spitfire K5054
- 1811 – Peninsular War: At the Battle of Barrosa, Anglo-Iberian forces trying to lift the Siege of Cádiz defeated a French attack but could not break the siege itself.
- 1825 – Roberto Cofresí, one of the last Caribbean pirates, was apprehended after his flagship sloop Anne was captured by authorities.
- 1936 – The prototype (pictured) of the Supermarine Spitfire flew for the first time.
- 1960 – Cuban photographer Alberto Korda took his iconic photograph Guerrillero Heroico of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara.
- 1981 – The ZX81, a pioneering British home computer, was launched by Sinclair Research, and went on to sell more than 1.5 million units around the world.
- Edward Cornwallis (b. 1713)
- J. R. Kealoha (d. 1877)
- Anna Akhmatova (d. 1966)
- Ailsa McKay (d. 2014)
William Speirs Bruce
- 845 – The Abbasid Caliphate executed 42 Byzantine officials who had been captured in the sack of Amorium of 838 for refusing to convert to Islam.
- 1447 – Tommaso Parentucelli was elected as Pope Nicholas V in Rome.
- 1904 – Scottish National Antarctic Expedition: Led by William Speirs Bruce (pictured), the Antarctic region of Coats Land was discovered by the Scotia.
- 1988 – The Troubles: In Operation Flavius, the Special Air Service killed three volunteers of the Provisional Irish Republican Army conspiring to bomb a parade of British military bands in Gibraltar.
- 2000 – The Marine Parade Community Building, the mural cladding of which is the largest installation art in Singapore, was opened.
- Clark Shaughnessy (b. 1892)
- Joseph Berchtold (b. 1897)
- Shaukat Aziz (b. 1949)
- Cyprien Ntaryamira (b. 1955)
March 7: Feast day of Saints Perpetua and Felicity (Catholicism, Anglicanism, Lutheranism)
Police attacking civil rights activists outside Selma, Alabama
- 1573 – A peace treaty brought the Ottoman–Venetian War to an end, ceding Cyprus from the Republic of Venice to the Ottoman Empire.
- 1871 – José Paranhos, Viscount of Rio Branco, began a four-year premiership as Prime Minister of the Empire of Brazil, the longest in the state's history.
- 1941 – The German submarine U-47, one of the most successful U-boats of World War II, disappeared with 45 men on board.
- 1965 – Unarmed civil rights activists marching from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, were attacked by police (pictured) on "Bloody Sunday".
- 2021 – A series of four explosions at a military barracks in Bata, Equatorial Guinea caused at least 107 deaths.
- Ludwig Mond (b. 1839)
- Masako Katsura (b. 1913)
- Mochtar Lubis (b. 1922)
- Divine (d. 1988)
March 8: International Women's Day; Aurat March in Pakistan
Io with two volcanic plumes
- 1576 – A Spanish colonial officer wrote a letter to King Philip II containing the first mention of the Maya ruins of Copán in present-day Honduras.
- 1910 – French aviator Raymonde de Laroche became the first woman to receive a pilot's licence.
- 1963 – The Ba'ath Party came to power in a coup d'état by a clique of quasi-leftist Syrian Army officers calling themselves the National Council for the Revolutionary Command.
- 1966 – Nelson's Pillar, a large granite pillar topped by a statue of Lord Nelson in Dublin, Ireland, was severely damaged by a bomb.
- 1979 – Images taken by Voyager 1 proved the existence of volcanoes on Io (pictured), a moon of Jupiter.
- Adela of Normandy (d. 1137)
- Louie Nunn (b. 1924)
- Alfons Rebane (d. 1976)
- Haseeb Ahsan (d. 2013)
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Princess Kaʻiulani
- 1776 – Scottish political economist Adam Smith's book The Wealth of Nations, the first modern work in economics, was published.
- 1891 – Kaʻiulani (pictured) was appointed heir apparent to the throne of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
- 1925 – The Royal Air Force began a bombardment and strafing campaign against the mountain strongholds of Mahsud tribesmen in South Waziristan, in what is now Pakistan.
- 1956 – In Tbilisi, Georgia, Soviet troops suppressed mass demonstrations against Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization policy.
- 1957 – The Mw 8.6 Andreanof Islands earthquake struck Hawaii and the Aleutian Islands, causing over $5 million in damage from ground movement and a destructive tsunami.
- Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (d. 886)
- Catherine of Bologna (d. 1463)
- Friederike Caroline Neuber (b. 1697)
- Lill-Babs (b. 1938)
March 10: Mothering Sunday (Western Christianity, 2024)
Eliot Spitzer
- 1695 – Nine Years' War: At the Battle of Sant Esteve d'en Bas, Catalan miquelets attacked a column of French regular infantry and caused them to surrender.
- 1959 – An anti-Chinese uprising began as thousands of Tibetans surrounded the Potala Palace in Lhasa to prevent the Dalai Lama from leaving or being removed by the Chinese army.
- 1968 – Vietnam War/Laotian Civil War: North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao forces overwhelmed the American, Laotian, Thai, and Hmong defenders of Lima Site 85.
- 1977 – Astronomers using NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory discovered a faint ring system around Uranus.
- 2008 – The New York Times revealed that Eliot Spitzer (pictured), Governor of New York, had patronized a prostitution ring.
- Tvrtko I of Bosnia (d. 1391)
- Lillian Wald (b. 1867)
- Marie-Eugénie de Jésus (d. 1898)
- Rupert Bruce-Mitford (d. 1994)
March 11: Commonwealth Day in the Commonwealth of Nations (2024); National Heroes and Benefactors Day in Belize (2024); Longtaitou Festival in China (2024)
Dale Dyke Dam in Sheffield, after its rupture
- 1864 – The Great Sheffield Flood killed at least 240 people and damaged more than 600 homes, after a crack in the Dale Dike Reservoir (pictured) caused it to fail.
- 1993 – The U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed Janet Reno as the country's first female attorney general.
- 2007 – Georgian authorities accused Russia of orchestrating a helicopter attack in the Kodori Valley of the breakaway territory of Abkhazia.
- 2009 – A teenage gunman engaged in a shooting spree at a secondary school in Winnenden, Germany, killing 16, including himself.
- Mary of Woodstock (b. 1278)
- Stanisław Koniecpolski (d. 1646)
- Ralph Abernathy (b. 1926)
- Gladys Pearl Baker (d. 1984)
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Andrew Watson
- 1537 – Croatian–Ottoman wars: After the execution of feudal lord Petar Kružić, Croatian forces at Klis surrendered to the Ottoman forces in exchange for their safe passage to northern locations.
- 1881 – Andrew Watson (pictured) captained the Scotland national football team against England, becoming the world's first black international footballer.
- 1947 – Cold War: U.S. president Harry S. Truman proclaimed the Truman Doctrine to help stem the spread of communism.
- 1952 – British diplomat Lord Ismay was appointed the first secretary general of NATO.
- 1971 – The Turkish Armed Forces executed a "coup by memorandum", forcing the resignation of Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel.
- 2006 – U.S. Army soldiers gang-raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdered her along with her family members.
- William Henry Perkin (b. 1838)
- Gemma Galgani (b. 1878)
- Zhao Wei (b. 1976)
- Arina Tanemura (b. 1978)
British attack on Cartagena de Indias
- 1567 – A Spanish mercenary army surprised a band of rebels at the Battle of Oosterweel in the Habsburg Netherlands, beginning the Eighty Years' War.
- 1741 – War of Jenkins' Ear: The British began an assault against Spanish forts in the Caribbean in the Battle of Cartagena de Indias (depicted).
- 1964 – Kitty Genovese was murdered in New York City, prompting research into the bystander effect due to the false story that neighbors witnessed the killing and did nothing to help her.
- 1996 – A mass shooting at a school occurred in Dunblane, Scotland, killing 17 people and prompting tighter gun control in the UK.
- John Griffin, 4th Baron Howard de Walden (b. 1719)
- Adolf Anderssen (d. 1879)
- Meinhard Michael Moser (b. 1924)
- Jan Howard (b. 1929)
March 14: New Year's Day (Sikhism); White Day in parts of East Asia; Pi Day
Gioachino Rossini
- 1309 – On Eid al-Fitr, the citizens of Granada stormed palaces in the city, deposing Sultan Muhammad III and placing his half-brother Nasr on the throne.
- 1864 – The Petite messe solennelle was first performed in Paris, 34 years after Gioachino Rossini (pictured) retired as a composer.
- 1931 – Alam Ara, the first Indian sound film, premiered at the Majestic Cinema in Bombay.
- 1988 – China defeated Vietnam in a naval altercation while attempting to establish oceanographic observation posts on the Spratly Islands.
- 2021 – The Burmese military and police forces killed at least 65 civilians during the Hlaingthaya massacre in Yangon, including those protesting a recent coup d'état.
- Albert Einstein (b. 1879)
- Zita of Bourbon-Parma (d. 1989)
- Piri (b. 1999)
- Ieng Sary (d. 2013)
Julius Caesar
- 44 BC – Julius Caesar (bust pictured), the dictator of the Roman Republic, was stabbed to death by a group of senators led by Marcus Junius Brutus.
- 1823 – Sailor Benjamin Morrell erroneously reported the existence of the island of New South Greenland near Antarctica.
- 1916 – Six days after Pancho Villa and his cross-border raiders attacked Columbus, New Mexico, U.S. General John J. Pershing led a punitive expedition into Mexico to pursue Villa.
- 1917 – Russian Revolution: Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate in the February Revolution, ending three centuries of Romanov rule.
- 1943 – The deportation of 50,000 Jews from the Greek city of Thessaloniki began.
- 1951 – The Iranian oil industry was nationalized in a movement led by Mohammad Mosaddegh.
- Albert of Schwarzburg (d. 1327)
- Matthew Charlton (b. 1866)
- Ignace Tonené (d. 1916)
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg (b. 1933)
March 16: Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires
Cap badge of the Royal Welch Fusiliers
- 934 – Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period: Chinese general Meng Zhixiang proclaimed himself emperor and established Later Shu as a new state independent of Later Tang.
- 1689 – The Royal Welch Fusiliers (cap badge pictured), one of the oldest line-infantry regiments of the British Army, was founded.
- 1819 – The Bank for Savings in the City of New-York, the first savings bank in New York City, was incorporated.
- 1984 – William Buckley, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Beirut, Lebanon, was kidnapped by Islamic fundamentalists.
- 1988 – Michael Stone, an Ulster loyalist, attacked the funeral of three Provisional IRA members, killing three attendees and injuring at least sixty others.
- Alaric Alexander Watts (b. 1797)
- Don Blasingame (b. 1932)
- Virginia Randolph (d. 1958)
- Jean Bellette (d. 1991)
March 17: Saint Patrick's Day (Christianity); Anniversary of the Unification of Italy (1861)
Dorchester Heights Monument
- 1864 – Second Schleswig War: In an attempt to end a Danish blockade, Eduard von Jachmann led a Prussian squadron in an attack against a Danish fleet led by Edvard van Dockum.
- 1902 – The Dorchester Heights Monument (pictured), memorializing the siege of Boston during the American Revolutionary War, was dedicated.
- 1957 – A plane crash on the slopes of Mount Manunggal killed Philippine president Ramon Magsaysay and 24 others.
- 1979 – The Penmanshiel Tunnel in the Scottish Borders region of Scotland collapsed during refurbishing construction, killing two workers, and leading to the abandonment of the tunnel.
- 2004 – Unrest in Kosovo broke out, resulting in the deaths of 28, the wounding of more than 600 others, and the destruction of several Serb Orthodox churches and shrines.
- Jocelin of Glasgow (d. 1199)
- Menno van Coehoorn (d. 1704)
- Pattie Boyd (b. 1944)
- Shu Xiuwen (d. 1969)
March 18: Feast day of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (Christianity)
Traian Vuia's monoplane
- 363 – A fire began in Rome that resulted in the destruction of the Temple of Apollo Palatinus.
- 1277 – Charles I of Anjou acquired a claim on the Kingdom of Jerusalem in exchange for a significant sum of money.
- 1906 – Romanian inventor Traian Vuia became the first person to fly a heavier-than-air monoplane (pictured) with an unassisted takeoff.
- 1959 – Tibetan uprising: After the 14th Dalai Lama sought refuge at Sera Monastery in Lhasa, Tibet, Chinese forces bombarded the monastery, inflicting severe destruction and killing hundreds of Buddhist monks.
- 1977 – The punk group the Clash released their first single, "White Riot", described as their "most controversial song" due to its lyrics about class economics and race.
- 2019 – Syrian civil war: The U.S. Air Force carried out an airstrike in al-Baghuz Fawqani, killing 64 civilians.
- Edward the Martyr (d. 978)
- Clem Hill (b. 1877)
- Johnny Papalia (b. 1924)
- Wali Mohammad Itoo (d. 1994)
March 19: Saint Joseph's Day (Western Christianity); Nowruz (2024)
Zhao Bing, Emperor of Song
- 1279 – Mongol conquest of Song China: Zhao Bing (pictured), the last emperor of the Song dynasty, drowned at the end of the Battle of Yamen, bringing the dynasty to an end after three centuries.
- 1824 – American explorer Benjamin Morrell departed Antarctica after a voyage later plagued by claims of fraud.
- 1944 – The secular oratorio A Child of Our Time by Michael Tippett premiered at the Adelphi Theatre in London.
- 1998 – An unscheduled Ariana Afghan Airlines flight crashed into a mountain on approach into Kabul, killing all 45 people aboard.
- 2011 – First Libyan Civil War: The French Air Force launched Opération Harmattan, beginning foreign military intervention in Libya.
- Lord Edmund Howard (d. 1539)
- Greville Wynne (b. 1919)
- Joe Gaetjens (b. 1924)
- Lise Østergaard (d. 1996)
Chemical structure of zidovudine
- 1724 – Following the death of Pope Innocent XIII, a papal conclave convened in Rome to elect a new pope.
- 1861 – An earthquake occurred in the Argentine province of Mendoza, causing at least 6,000 deaths and destroying most of the buildings in the province's capital city.
- 1922 – The United States Navy commissioned its first aircraft carrier, USS Langley.
- 1944 – World War II: U.S. Marines made a landing on Emirau Island in the Bismarck Archipelago to develop an airbase as part of Operation Cartwheel.
- 1987 – The antiretroviral drug zidovudine (chemical structure pictured) became the first treatment approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for HIV/AIDS.
- 2014 – Taliban militants killed nine civilians in a mass shooting at the Kabul Serena Hotel in Afghanistan.
- Maud Menten (b. 1879)
- Willie Brown (b. 1934)
- Fernando Torres (b. 1984)
- Christel Boom (d. 2004)
March 21: Fast of Esther (Judaism, 2024); Oltenia Day in Romania
Scottish Cup
- 1874 – Queen's Park defeated Clydesdale 2–0 in the final of the inaugural Scottish Cup (trophy pictured).
- 1913 – More than 360 were killed and 20,000 homes were destroyed in the Great Dayton Flood in Dayton, Ohio, U.S.
- 1968 – War of Attrition: The Battle of Karameh took place between the Israel Defense Forces and allied troops of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Jordanian Armed Forces.
- 1980 – The American soap opera Dallas aired the episode "A House Divided", which led to eight months of international speculation on "Who shot J.R.?"
- 2019 – A major explosion at a chemical plant in Yancheng, China, killed 78 people and injured 640 others.
- Ælla of Northumbria and Osberht of Northumbria (d. 867)
- Alice Henry (b. 1857)
- Al Williamson (b. 1931)
- Chinua Achebe (d. 2013)
Charilaos Vasilakos (center) training for the marathon
- 106 – The Bostran era, the official era of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, began.
- 1638 – Anne Hutchinson was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for her participation in the Antinomian Controversy.
- 1896 – Charilaos Vasilakos (pictured) won the first modern marathon in preparation for the inaugural Summer Olympics.
- 1913 – Phan Xích Long, the self-proclaimed emperor of Vietnam, was arrested for organising a revolt against the colonial rule of French Indochina, which was nevertheless carried out by his supporters the following day.
- 1984 – Teachers at a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were falsely charged with the sexual abuse of schoolchildren, leading to the longest and costliest criminal trial in United States history.
- 1995 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returned from the space station Mir aboard Soyuz TM-20 after 437 days in space, setting a record for the longest spaceflight.
- John Kemp (d. 1454)
- Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929)
- Abolhassan Banisadr (b. 1933)
- Rob Ford (d. 2016)
March 23: Earth Hour (20:30 local time, 2024)
Bhagat Singh
- 1888 – Chaired by William McGregor, a meeting of ten English football clubs was held in London, which would eventually result in the establishment of the Football League.
- 1931 – Bhagat Singh (pictured), one of the most influential revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement, and two others were executed by the British authorities.
- 1989 – Two researchers announced the discovery of cold fusion, a claim which was later discredited.
- 1994 – Aeroflot Flight 593 crashed into a hillside in Russia's Kemerovo Oblast, killing all 75 people on board, after the pilot's 15-year-old son had unknowingly disabled the autopilot while seated at the controls.
- 2005 – A fire and explosion at the third-largest oil refinery in the United States killed 15 workers and kicked off process safety programs throughout the world.
- Henry of Grosmont (d. 1361)
- Pierre-Simon Laplace (b. 1749)
- Akira Kurosawa (b. 1910)
- Kangana Ranaut (b. 1987)
March 24: Purim (Judaism 2024), World Tuberculosis Day
Flag of Prince Edward Island
- 1387 – Hundred Years' War: An English fleet led by Richard Fitzalan attacked 250–360 French, Flemish and Castilian vessels in the Battle of Margate.
- 1934 – The Tydings–McDuffie Act came into effect, which provided for self-government of the Philippines and for Filipino independence from the United States after a period of ten years.
- 1939 – Members of the German National Movement in Liechtenstein attempted to overthrow the government and provoke Liechtenstein's annexation into Nazi Germany.
- 1964 – Royal assent was given to Prince Edward Island's Provincial Flag Act, which outlined the design of its provincial flag (pictured).
- 2006 – Hannah Montana, starring Miley Cyrus as an actress whose alter ego is the titular character, premiered.
- Wulfred (d. 832)
- Theodora Kroeber (b. 1897)
- John Millington Synge (d. 1909)
- Chris Bosh (b. 1984)
March 25: Bangladesh Genocide Remembrance Day
Enrico Fermi in 1943
- 1458 – Wars of the Roses: A formal reconciliation ceremony between the Lancastrians and Yorkists led to a brief period of peace.
- 1799 – War of the Second Coalition: In their second battle in seven days, the French Army of the Danube and Habsburg forces battled for control of the Hegau region.
- 1934 – Enrico Fermi (pictured) published his discovery of neutron-induced radioactivity, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.
- 1949 – The Soviet Union began mass deportations of more than 90,000 "undesirable" people from the Baltic states to Siberia.
- Kō no Moronao (d. 1351)
- Melita Norwood (b. 1912)
- Marie-Alphonsine Danil Ghattas (d. 1927)
- Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)
Elbridge Gerry
- 1344 – Reconquista: The Muslim city of Algeciras surrendered after a 21-month siege and was incorporated into the Kingdom of Castile.
- 1651 – The Spanish ship San José ran aground onto coasts controlled by the indigenous Cunco people, who subsequently killed the crew.
- 1697 – The Safavid Empire began a four-year occupation of the Ottoman city of Basra on the Persian Gulf.
- 1812 – The Boston Gazette printed a cartoon coining the term "gerrymander", named after Governor Elbridge Gerry (pictured), who approved the legislation that created oddly shaped electoral districts.
- 1939 – Spanish Civil War: Nationalists began their final offensive of the war, at the end of which they controlled almost the entire country.
- 1999 – A jury began deliberations in the trial of Jack Kevorkian, an American practitioner of physician-assisted suicide who was charged with murder in the death of a terminally ill patient.
- 'Adud al-Dawla (d. 983)
- Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (b. 1794)
- Julie-Victoire Daubié (b. 1824)
- D. M. Thomas (d. 2023)
March 27: Day of the Union of Bessarabia with Romania (1918)
Ball-and-stick model of sildenafil
- 1884 – Outraged by a jury's decision to convict a man of manslaughter instead of murder, a mob in Cincinnati, Ohio, began three days of rioting.
- 1899 – Philippine–American War: American forces defeated troops commanded by Philippine president Emilio Aguinaldo at the Battle of Marilao River.
- 1998 – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug sildenafil (chemical structure pictured), better known by the trade name Viagra, for use as a treatment for erectile dysfunction, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States.
- 1999 – During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, an Army of Yugoslavia unit shot down a U.S. Air Force F-117 stealth aircraft.
- 2020 – North Macedonia became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
- Jonathan Jennings (b. 1784)
- Doug Wilkerson (b. 1947)
- Elisheva Bikhovski (d. 1949)
- T. Sailo (d. 2015)
HMS Campbeltown during the St Nazaire Raid
- 1802 – German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers discovered Pallas, the second asteroid to be identified, but at the time considered to be a planet.
- 1935 – The Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will, directed by Leni Riefenstahl, premiered in Berlin.
- 1942 – Second World War: The port of Saint-Nazaire in German-occupied France was disabled by British naval forces (ship pictured).
- 1946 – The US Department of State released the Acheson–Lilienthal Report, a proposal for the international control of nuclear weapons.
- 1979 – British prime minister James Callaghan was defeated by one vote in a vote of no confidence after his government struggled to cope with widespread strikes during the Winter of Discontent.
- 1999 – Kosovo War: Serbian police and special forces killed around 93 Kosovo Albanians in the village of Izbica.
- Ernst Lindemann (b. 1894)
- Nasser Hussain (b. 1968)
- Lady Gaga (b. 1986)
- Charles Schepens (d. 2006)
March 29: Boganda Day in the Central African Republic (1959); Martyrs' Day in Madagascar (1947)
Mariner 10
- 1461 – Wars of the Roses: The Yorkists defeated the Lancastrian army at the Battle of Towton, allowing Edward IV to secure the English throne.
- 1882 – The Knights of Columbus, the world's largest Catholic fraternal service organization, was founded by Michael J. McGivney in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
- 1974 – NASA's Mariner 10 (pictured) became the first space probe to make a flyby of Mercury.
- 1999 – The Chamoli earthquake, one of the strongest to hit the foothills of the Himalayas in more than 90 years, killed at least 100 people.
- 2014 – The first same-sex marriages in England and Wales took place following the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013.
- Thomas Coram (d. 1751)
- Emilia Baeyertz (b. 1842)
- Sam Loxton (b. 1921)
- Ruth A. M. Schmidt (d. 2014)
March 30: Land Day in Palestinian communities (1976)
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Depiction of the signing of the Treaty of Fes
- 1822 – The United States merged East Florida and West Florida to create the Florida Territory.
- 1912 – Sultan Abd al-Hafid signed the Treaty of Fes (depicted), making Morocco a French protectorate.
- 1977 – Annie Hall had its first screening at the LA Film Festival; it would later be voted the funniest screenplay ever by members of the Writers Guild of America.
- 2009 – The Manawan Police Academy in Lahore, Pakistan, was attacked and held for several hours by 12 gunmen, resulting in 16 deaths and 95 injuries.
- Nicolae Rădescu (b. 1874)
- William Hoapili Kaʻauwai (d. 1874)
- DJ AM (b. 1973)
- Chrisye (d. 2007)
March 31: Easter (Western Christianity, 2024); Cesar Chavez Day in various U.S. states (1927); International Transgender Day of Visibility
Woodcut picture of Matthew C. Perry
- 1854 – U.S. Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry (Japanese depiction pictured) and the Tokugawa shogunate signed the Convention of Kanagawa, forcing the opening of Japanese ports to American trade.
- 1959 – After a two-week escape journey from Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama reached the Tawang Monastery in Arunachal Pradesh in India.
- 1964 – The Brazilian Armed Forces overthrew President João Goulart, establishing a military dictatorship that lasted 21 years.
- 2004 – The Old National Library Building in Singapore was closed to make way for a tunnel, despite widespread protests.
- Guru Angad (b. 1504)
- J. P. Morgan (d. 1913)
- Ewan McGregor (b. 1971)
- Ahmad Sayyed Javadi (d. 2013)
Selected anniversaries / On this day archive
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Selected anniversaries for April edit
April 1: April Fools' Day; Iranian Islamic Republic Day (1979)
Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
- 1871 – The Duke of Buckingham (pictured) opened the first section of the Brill Tramway, a short railway line to transport goods between his lands and the national rail network.
- 1952 – Israel enacted a citizenship law, prior to which the country technically had no citizens.
- 1969 – The Hawker Siddeley Harrier, the first operational fighter aircraft with V/STOL capabilities, entered service with the Royal Air Force.
- 2001 – Same-sex marriage in the Netherlands was legalised, with the country becoming the first to do so.
- Aimery of Cyprus (d. 1205)
- Sophie Germain (b. 1776)
- Shivakumara Swami (b. 1907)
- Scott Joplin (d. 1917)
April 2: World Autism Awareness Day; feast day of Saint Francis of Paola (Catholicism); Malvinas Day in Argentina (1982)
Southern bread riots
- 1863 – About 5,000 people in Richmond, Virginia, mostly poor women, rioted in protest of the high price of bread (depicted).
- 1979 – Spores of anthrax were accidentally released from a military research facility near the city of Sverdlovsk, causing at least 68 deaths.
- 1982 – Argentine special forces invaded the Falkland Islands, sparking the Falklands War against the United Kingdom.
- 1992 – Bosnian War: At least 48 civilians were massacred in the town of Bijeljina in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- 2012 – A gunman shot at people inside Oikos University, a Korean Christian college in Oakland, California, leaving seven people dead and three injured.
- Prince George of Denmark (b. 1653)
- Wilhelmine Reichard (b. 1788)
- Sir James Montgomery, 1st Baronet (d. 1803)
- Elizabeth Catlett (d. 2012)
Rakesh Sharma
- 1043 – Edward the Confessor, usually considered to be the last king of the House of Wessex, was crowned King of England.
- 1984 – Aboard Soyuz T-11, Rakesh Sharma (pictured) became the first Indian to be launched into space.
- 1996 – A U.S. Air Force CT-43 crashed into a mountainside while attempting an instrument approach to Dubrovnik Airport in Croatia, killing all 35 people on board, including Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown.
- 2009 – A gunman opened fire at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, New York, U.S., killing thirteen and wounding four before committing suicide.
- 2013 – The northeastern section of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, experienced several flash floods that killed at least 100 people.
- Mukhtar al-Thaqafi (d. 687)
- Mary Carpenter (b. 1807)
- Reginald Heber (d. 1826)
- Gus Grissom (b. 1926)
April 4: Hansik in Korea (2024); Qingming Festival (traditional Chinese, 2024)
Alexios I Komnenos
- 503 BC – Roman consul Agrippa Menenius Lanatus celebrated a triumph for a military victory over the Sabines.
- 1081 – The Komnenos dynasty came to full power with the coronation of Alexios I Komnenos (pictured) as Byzantine emperor.
- 1859 – Bryant's Minstrels premiered the minstrel song "Dixie" in New York City as part of their blackface show.
- 1949 – Twelve nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty, establishing NATO, an international military alliance whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party.
- A. Thomas Bradbury (b. 1902)
- Martin Rundkvist (b. 1972)
- Xu Lai (d. 1973)
- Inez Robb (d. 1979)
April 5: Feast day of Saint Vincent Ferrer (Catholicism)
Pocahontas
- 919 – The Fatimid Caliphate began a second unsuccessful invasion of Egypt, then under Abbasid rule.
- 1614 – Pocahontas (pictured), a Native American woman, married English colonist John Rolfe, leading to a period of peace between the Powhatan people and the inhabitants of Jamestown, Virginia.
- 1944 – Siegfried Lederer, a Czech Jew, escaped from Auschwitz with the aid of an SS officer who opposed the Holocaust.
- 1986 – The Libyan secret service bombed a discotheque in West Berlin, resulting in three deaths and 229 others injured.
- 2009 – The North Korean satellite Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 was launched from the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground and passed over Japan, sparking concerns it may have been a trial run of technology that could be used to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles.
- al-Nuwayri (b. 1279)
- Thure de Thulstrup (b. 1848)
- Marie-Rosalie Cadron-Jetté (d. 1864)
- Judith Resnik (b. 1949)
ABBA
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Ships of the Continental Navy unsuccessfully attempted to capture HMS Glasgow near Block Island.
- 1808 – John Jacob Astor founded the American Fur Company, the profits from which made him the first multi-millionaire in the United States.
- 1974 – ABBA (pictured) won the Eurovision Song Contest representing Sweden with the song "Waterloo".
- 1994 – The aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down in Kigali; the event became the catalyst for the Rwandan genocide.
- 2008 – Egyptian workers staged an illegal general strike, two days before key municipal elections.
- 2009 – Mass protests began across Moldova against the results of the parliamentary election.
- James Mill (b. 1773)
- Donald Wills Douglas Sr. (b. 1892)
- Rose O'Neill (d. 1944)
- Ng Ser Miang (b. 1949)
April 7: National Beer Day in the United States
Artist's conception of the 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft
- 1862 – American Civil War: Union forces defeated Confederate troops at the Battle of Shiloh, the bloodiest battle in U.S. history at the time, in Hardin County, Tennessee.
- 1949 – The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific, based on Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener, opened on Broadway.
- 1964 – Reverend Bruce W. Klunder was killed by a bulldozer while he was protesting the construction of a segregated school in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
- 1994 – Rwandan Civil War: The Rwandan genocide began a few hours after the assassination of President Juvénal Habyarimana, with hundreds of thousands killed in the following 100 days.
- 2001 – NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey (artist's conception pictured), the longest-surviving continually active spacecraft in orbit around a planet other than Earth, launched from Cape Canaveral.
- Berengar I of Italy (d. 924)
- Martha Ray (d. 1779)
- Joseph Lyons (d. 1939)
- Dave Arneson (d. 2009)
Little Nemo
- 1271 – Crusades: The Knights Hospitaller surrendered the Krak des Chevaliers, a castle in present-day Syria, to the army of the Mamluk sultan Baybars.
- 1904 – France and the United Kingdom signed the Entente Cordiale, agreeing to a peaceful coexistence after centuries of intermittent conflict.
- 1911 – American cartoonist Winsor McCay released the silent short film Little Nemo (featured), one of the earliest animated films.
- 1933 – The Australian state of Western Australia voted to secede from the federation, but efforts to implement the result proved to be unsuccessful.
- 1973 – The Progress Party was founded in a movie theater in Oslo, Norway.
April 9: Vimy Ridge Day in Canada (1917); Day of Valor in the Philippines (1942)
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National Gallery
- 193 – Year of the Five Emperors: Septimius Severus was proclaimed Roman emperor by his troops at Carnuntum in modern-day Austria.
- 1388 – Despite being vastly outnumbered, forces of the Old Swiss Confederacy defeated an Austrian army at the Battle of Näfels.
- 1838 – The National Gallery (pictured) opened in its current building in Trafalgar Square, London.
- 1939 – After being denied permission to perform at Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution, African-American singer Marian Anderson gave an open-air concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
- al-Muqtafi (b. 1096)
- Isambard Kingdom Brunel (b. 1806)
- Mary Jackson (b. 1921)
April 10: Eid al-Fitr (Islam, 2024)
M87* imaged by the Event Horizon Telescope
- 1809 – Napoleonic Wars: The War of the Fifth Coalition began with the Austrian invasion of Bavaria, then a client state of France.
- 1925 – The novel The Great Gatsby by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald was first published by Scribner's.
- 1970 – In the midst of business disagreements with his bandmates, Paul McCartney announced his departure from the Beatles.
- 1973 – In the deadliest aviation accident in Swiss history, Invicta International Airlines Flight 435 crashed into a hillside near Hochwald, killing 108 people of 145 on board.
- 2019 – Scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope project released the first image of a black hole (depicted), located at the center of the galaxy M87.
- Gabrielle d'Estrées (d. 1599)
- Lew Wallace (b. 1827)
- Jagjit Singh Lyallpuri (b. 1917)
Mary II and William III
- 1689 – William III and Mary II (both pictured) were crowned joint sovereigns of England in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey.
- 1809 – Napoleonic Wars: A hastily assembled Royal Navy fleet launched an assault against the main strength of the French Atlantic Fleet; an incomplete victory led to political turmoil in Britain.
- 1951 – U.S. president Harry S. Truman relieved General of the Army Douglas MacArthur of his commands for making public statements about the Korean War that contradicted the administration's policies.
- 2001 – In a FIFA World Cup qualifying match, Australia defeated American Samoa 31–0, the largest margin of victory recorded in international football.
- Romanos III Argyros (d. 1034)
- Ewelina Hańska (d. 1882)
- Trevor Linden (b. 1970)
April 12: Cosmonautics Day in Russia (1961); Yuri's Night
NATO F-15 fighter aircraft during Operation Deny Flight
- 1807 – The Froberg mutiny of Greek and Albanian troops in British service ended with the explosion of the gunpowder magazine at Fort Ricasoli, Malta.
- 1831 – The Broughton Suspension Bridge near Manchester, England, collapsed reportedly because of mechanical resonance induced by troops marching in step across it.
- 1993 – Bosnian War: NATO forces began Operation Deny Flight (aircraft pictured) to enforce a no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina ordered by the United Nations Security Council.
- 2012 – The Guinea-Bissau military seized control in a coup amid a presidential election, later handing power to a transitional administration under Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo.
- 2013 – Four Chadian soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing by jihadist rebels in Kidal, Mali.
- Alexander Ostrovsky (b. 1823)
- Keiko Fukuda (b. 1913)
- Karim Fakhrawi (d. 2011)
April 13: Vaisakhi (Sikhism, 2024)
Jefferson Memorial
- 1742 – The first performance of George Frideric Handel's celebrated oratorio Messiah took place in Dublin.
- 1943 – The Neoclassical Jefferson Memorial (pictured) in Washington, D.C., was formally dedicated on the 200th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's birth.
- 1946 – Nakam, a Jewish organization seeking revenge for the Holocaust, attempted to poison thousands of SS prisoners at Langwasser internment camp, but did not kill anyone.
- 2009 – Andrew Hussie's webcomic Homestuck debuted, and concluded on the same day in 2016.
- 2017 – War in Afghanistan: In an airstrike in Nangarhar Province, the U.S. military dropped the most powerful conventional bomb used in combat.
- Arthur Matthew Weld Downing (b. 1850)
- Joe Hewitt (b. 1901)
- Evelyne Daitz (b. 1936)
April 14: Tamil New Year and other New Year festivals in South and Southeast Asia (2024); Day of the Georgian Language (1978)
"Houston, we've had a problem here"
- 43 BC – War of Mutina: Despite initial success, troops loyal to Mark Antony were defeated near the Via Aemilia in northern Italy by legions loyal to the Roman Senate.
- 1944 – The freighter Fort Stikine, carrying cotton bales, gold and ammunition, exploded in the harbour of Bombay, India, sinking surrounding ships and causing about 800 deaths.
- 1970 – After an oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 exploded, disabling the spacecraft's electrical and life-support systems, astronaut Jack Swigert reported: "Houston, we've had a problem here" (audio featured).
- 1983 – Let's Dance, English musician David Bowie's best-selling album, was released.
- 1994 – Iraqi no-fly zones conflict: In a friendly-fire incident during Operation Provide Comfort, two U.S. Air Force aircraft mistakenly shot down two U.S. Army helicopters over northern Iraq, killing 26 people.
- Anne Sullivan (b. 1866)
- John Gielgud (b. 1904)
- Yakov Dzhugashvili (d. 1943)
April 15: Day of the Sun in North Korea; Jackie Robinson Day in the United States
Hillsborough Memorial
- 1632 – Thirty Years' War: A Swedish–German army defeated the forces of the Catholic League at the Battle of Rain, mortally wounding their commander Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly.
- 1923 – Ten Japanese-American children were killed in a racially motivated arson attack on a school in Sacramento, California.
- 1936 – Two Jews were killed near Tulkarm in Mandatory Palestine, an act widely viewed as the beginning of violence within the Arab revolt.
- 1989 – The Hillsborough disaster (memorial pictured), a human crush that caused 97 deaths in the worst disaster in British sporting history, occurred during an FA Cup match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in Sheffield.
- 2019 – A fire severely damaged Notre-Dame de Paris, destroying the cathedral's timber spire and much of the roof.
- Leonardo da Vinci (b. 1452)
- Nikita Khrushchev (b. 1894)
- Claudia Cardinale (b. 1938)
- Emma Watson (b. 1990)
MV Sewol
- 1520 – A revolt of citizens in Toledo, Castile, opposed to the rule of the foreign-born Charles I began when the royal government attempted to unseat radical city councilors.
- 1862 – Slavery in Washington, D.C., ended when the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act became law.
- 1945 – Second World War: British and Canadian forces concluded the Liberation of Arnhem in the Netherlands from German occupation.
- 1948 – The Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, headquartered in Paris, was founded.
- 2014 – The ferry MV Sewol (pictured) capsized and sank off Donggeochado, South Korea, killing 306 people, mainly students from Danwon High School.
- Frederick I, Duke of Austria (d. 1198)
- Molly Brant (d. 1796)
- Ponnambalam Ramanathan (b. 1851)
April 17: Evacuation Day in Syria (1946)
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Modern reconstruction of Kaunas Castle
- 1362 – Lithuanian Crusade: After a month-long siege, forces of the Teutonic Order captured and destroyed Kaunas Castle (reconstruction pictured), which was defended by troops of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
- 1783 – The Mechanical Turk, a fraudulent chess-playing "machine" by Wolfgang von Kempelen that was secretly controlled by a hidden human, began a tour of Europe.
- 1809 – Napoleonic Wars: After a three-day chase, the French ship D'Hautpoul was captured off Puerto Rico by a British squadron under Alexander Cochrane.
- 1973 – George Lucas began writing a 13-page film treatment that later formed the basis of Star Wars.
- 1984 – Metropolitan Police officer Yvonne Fletcher was shot and killed while on duty during a protest outside the Libyan embassy in London, resulting in an 11-day police siege of the building and a breakdown of Libya–United Kingdom relations.
- Eliza Acton (b. 1799)
- Sirimavo Bandaranaike (b. 1916)
- Ralph Abernathy (d. 1990)
Robert Mugabe
- 1775 – American Revolutionary War: Colonists Paul Revere and William Dawes, later joined by Samuel Prescott, began a midnight ride to warn residents of Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, about the impending arrival of British troops.
- 1938 – Superman, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster of DC Comics, made his debut in Action Comics #1, the first true superhero comic book.
- 1946 – The final session of the League of Nations concluded in Geneva, with delegates agreeing to transfer much of its assets to the United Nations.
- 1980 – Robert Mugabe (pictured) became the first prime minister of Zimbabwe, beginning a 37-year period in power.
- 2007 – A ladle spilled 30 tonnes (33 tons) of molten steel in a factory in Liaoning, China, killing 32 workers.
- Theobald of Bec (d. 1161)
- Clara Elsene Peck (b. 1883)
- Universo 2000 (b. 1963)
April 19: Feast day of Saint Alphege of Canterbury (Catholicism, Anglicanism), Education and Sharing Day in the United States (2024), Primrose Day in London
Mae West
- 1773 – The Polish Partition Sejm met to discuss the First Partition of Poland, carried out the previous year by Russia, Prussia and Austria.
- 1809 – War of the Fifth Coalition: French general Louis-Nicolas Davout defeated an Austrian force in Lower Bavaria, allowing him to rejoin the main French army.
- 1927 – American actress Mae West (pictured) was sentenced to ten days in jail for "corrupting the morals of youth" with her play Sex.
- 1989 – A gun turret exploded on board the United States Navy battleship Iowa, killing 47 sailors.
- Uesugi Kenshin (d. 1578)
- Elizabeth Dilling (b. 1894)
- Denis O'Brien (b. 1958)
April 20: First day of Ridván (Baháʼí Faith, 2024); 420 (cannabis culture)
Vädersolstavlan
- 1535 – Sun dogs were observed over Stockholm, Sweden, inspiring the painting Vädersolstavlan (depicted), the oldest coloured depiction of the city.
- 1818 – Four days after the Court of King's Bench upheld an English murder suspect's right to a trial by battle in Ashford v Thornton, the plaintiff declined to fight, allowing the defendant to go free.
- 1942 – World War II: German and Italian forces began a large-scale counter-insurgency operation in occupied Yugoslavia.
- 1968 – South African Airways Flight 228 crashed shortly after take-off from Windhoek in South West Africa, resulting in 123 deaths.
- 2010 – An explosion on Deepwater Horizon, an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico, resulted in the largest marine oil spill in history.
- Peter Bartholomew (d. 1099)
- Allegra Byron (d. 1822)
- Toller Cranston (b. 1949)
Wignacourt Aqueduct
- 900 – A debt was pardoned by the chief of Tondo on the island of Luzon and recorded on the Laguna Copperplate Inscription, the earliest known calendar-dated document found in the Philippines.
- 1615 – The Wignacourt Aqueduct (pictured) in Malta was inaugurated and was used to carry water to Valletta for about 300 years.
- 1836 – Forces of the Republic of Texas led by Sam Houston defeated the Mexican troops of General Antonio López de Santa Anna in the Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive and final battle of the Texas Revolution.
- 1975 – South Vietnamese president Nguyễn Văn Thiệu resigned on hearing of the fall of Xuân Lộc, the last battle of the Vietnam War.
- 2021 – The Indonesian Navy submarine Nanggala sank, resulting in the deaths of all 53 people on board.
- Pope Alexander II (d. 1073)
- Antonín Kammel (b. 1730)
- Cheryl Gillan (b. 1952)
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Pedro Álvares Cabral
- 1500 – A fleet commanded by Pedro Álvares Cabral (pictured) anchored off present-day Brazil; he later claimed the land for the Portuguese Empire.
- 1885 – The first meeting of the Colonial Defence Committee, a standing committee of the British Colonial Office, was held to discuss the defence of Barbados.
- 1918 – The short-lived Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic was established on territory formerly part of the Russian Empire.
- 1951 – Korean War: The Chinese People's Volunteer Army attacked positions occupied mainly by Australian and Canadian forces, starting the Battle of Kapyong.
- 2016 – The Paris Agreement, an international treaty on climate change, opened for signature and was signed by 175 parties.
- Philip of Poitou (d. 1208)
- Robert Ludwig Kahn (b. 1923)
- Regine Velasquez (b. 1970)
April 23: First day of Passover (Judaism); National Sovereignty and Children's Day in Turkey; the Third Month Fair begins in Dali City, China (2024)
Liberation of Flossenbürg
- 1467 – Ottoman wars in Europe: Albanian leader Skanderbeg defeated an Ottoman army under Ballaban Badera to raise the siege of Krujë.
- 1945 – World War II: The US Army's 90th Infantry Division liberated Flossenbürg concentration camp (pictured) in Germany, freeing 1,500 prisoners.
- 1976 – The American band the Ramones released their debut album, which became highly influential on the emerging punk rock movement.
- 1979 – Blair Peach, a New Zealand teacher, was fatally injured after being knocked unconscious during an Anti-Nazi League demonstration against a National Front election meeting in Southall, London.
- 2018 – A man intentionally struck pedestrians with a van on Yonge Street in Toronto, Canada, leading to 11 deaths.
- Joan of France (b. 1464)
- Pandita Ramabai (b. 1858)
- Satyajit Ray (d. 1992)
April 24: Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day (1915); Administrative Professionals Day in various countries (2024)
Hubble Space Telescope
- 1837 – A fire broke out in Surat, India, which went on to destroy about 75% of the city.
- 1914 – The Franck–Hertz experiment, the first electrical measurement to clearly demonstrate quantum mechanics, was presented to the German Physical Society.
- 1916 – Irish republicans led by Patrick Pearse began the Easter Rising against British rule in Ireland, and proclaimed the Irish Republic an independent state.
- 1990 – The Hubble Space Telescope (pictured) was launched aboard STS-31 by Space Shuttle Discovery.
- 1993 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a truck bomb in London's financial district in Bishopsgate, killing one person, injuring forty-four others, and causing damage that cost £350 million to repair.
- Mellitus (d. 624)
- Kumar Dharmasena (b. 1971)
- Estée Lauder (d. 2004)
April 25: Liberation Day in Italy (1945)
USS Triton
- 1643 – First English Civil War: Despite being vastly outnumbered, a Parliamentarian force under James Chudleigh defeated a Royalist army near Okehampton, Devon, at the Battle of Sourton Down.
- 1915 – First World War: The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed at Anzac Cove while British and French troops landed at Cape Helles to begin the Allied invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula in the Ottoman Empire.
- 1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine Triton (pictured) completed the first submerged circumnavigation of the world.
- 1983 – The first issue of The Jakarta Post was published in Indonesia.
- 2015 – Nepal was struck by a magnitude-7.8 earthquake, killing more than 8,000 people, including 22 from avalanches on Mount Everest.
- Naresuan (d. 1605)
- Georg Sverdrup (b. 1770)
- Emmeline B. Wells (d. 1921)
Lorenzo de' Medici
- 1478 – In a conspiracy to replace the Medici family as rulers of the Republic of Florence, the Pazzi family attacked Lorenzo de' Medici (pictured) and killed his brother Giuliano at Florence Cathedral.
- 1915 – First World War: Britain, France and Russia signed a secret treaty promising territory to Italy if it joined the war on their side.
- 1933 – The Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, was established.
- 1989 – A tornado struck the Manikganj District of Bangladesh and killed an estimated 1,300 people, making it the deadliest tornado in history.
- 1994 – Just before landing at Nagoya Airport, Japan, the copilot of China Airlines Flight 140 inadvertently triggered the takeoff/go-around switch, causing the aircraft to crash and killing 264 of the 271 people on board.
- Marcus Aurelius (b. 121)
- Alice Ayres (d. 1885)
- S. J. V. Chelvanayakam (d. 1977)
April 27: Koningsdag in the Netherlands
Raising the Flag on the Three-Country Cairn
- 630 – Shahrbaraz usurped the throne of the Sasanian Empire from Ardashir III, but was himself killed six weeks later.
- 1650 – Wars of the Three Kingdoms: Covenanter forces defeated the Royalists at the Battle of Carbisdale near the village of Culrain, Scotland.
- 1945 – World War II: The photograph Raising the Flag on the Three-Country Cairn (pictured) was taken after German troops withdrew to Norway at the end of the Lapland War.
- 1965 – Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation: British forces repelled a surprise Indonesian attack on a base at Plaman Mapu in Sarawak.
- 2005 – The Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger airliner, made its maiden flight from Toulouse, France.
- Ulysses S. Grant (b. 1822)
- Sheila Scott (b. 1922)
- Olivier Messiaen (d. 1992)
April 28: Workers' Memorial Day
Mounted police maintaining order at the 1923 FA Cup final
- 1253 – The Japanese monk Nichiren declared the mantra Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō, now a central part of Nichiren Buddhism.
- 1789 – Fletcher Christian, the acting lieutenant on board the Royal Navy ship Bounty, led a mutiny against the commander William Bligh in the South Pacific.
- 1923 – The 1923 FA Cup final (crowd and police pictured) between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United was held on the opening day of the Empire Stadium in London.
- 1945 – World War II: Benito Mussolini, the deposed fascist dictator of Italy, was executed by partisans in Giulino.
- 1983 – The West German news magazine Stern published excerpts from the purported diaries of Adolf Hitler, later revealed to be forgeries.
- Bajirao I (d. 1740)
- Jane Cobden (b. 1851)
- Regina Martínez Pérez (d. 2012)
HMS Endeavour
- 1770 – On his first voyage, British explorer James Cook and the crew of HMS Endeavour (pictured) landed at Botany Bay, making the first recorded European landfall on the eastern coast of Australia.
- 1863 – Confederate forts at Grand Gulf survived a bombardment by Union gunboats, preventing Ulysses S. Grant's troops from crossing the Mississippi River at that point.
- 1903 – A rockslide buried part of the Canadian mining town of Frank under 110 million tonnes of rock, killing around 70 people.
- 1975 – Vietnam War: North Vietnam concluded its East Sea Campaign by capturing all of the Spratly Islands held by South Vietnam.
- 2006 – Cyclone Mala made landfall near Thandwe, Myanmar, causing 37 deaths.
- George Farquhar (d. 1707)
- Marietta Blau (b. 1894)
- Giacomo dalla Torre (d. 2020)
Evacuees on the USS Midway
- 311 – The Diocletianic Persecution of Christians officially ended in the eastern Roman Empire.
- 1943 – Second World War: The Royal Navy submarine HMS Seraph began Operation Mincemeat to deceive Germany about the upcoming invasion of Sicily.
- 1963 – A refusal by the Bristol Omnibus Company and the Transport and General Workers' Union to permit the employment of black bus crews led to a bus boycott in Bristol, England.
- 1975 – American forces completed a helicopter evacuation (aircraft and evacuees pictured) of U.S. citizens, South Vietnamese civilians and others from Saigon, just before North Vietnamese troops captured the city, ending the Vietnam War.
- 2021 – A crowd crush killed 45 people during the annual pilgrimage to the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in Israel.
- Marie of the Incarnation (d. 1672)
- Emily Stowe (d. 1903)
- Kirsten Dunst (b. 1982)
Selected anniversaries / On this day archive
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Selected anniversaries for May edit
May 1: Beltane and Samhain in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, respectively; Maharashtra Day in Maharashtra, India (1960); Loyalty Day in the United States
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Empire State Building
- 305 – Diocletian and Maximian retired as co-rulers of the Roman Empire, being succeeded by Galerius and Constantius Chlorus.
- 1625 – Dutch–Portuguese War: Portuguese and Spanish forces recaptured the Brazilian city of Bahia, which had previously been captured by the Dutch Republic.
- 1931 – New York City's Empire State Building, at the time the tallest building in the world, opened.
- 1941 – Citizen Kane, a widely acclaimed film by actor and director Orson Welles, premiered.
- 1945 – Second World War: British and Indian forces conducted a successful airborne assault on a Japanese artillery battery during the advance to liberate Rangoon, Burma.
- Paul I Šubić of Bribir (d. 1312)
- Adelsteen Normann (b. 1848)
- Aram Khachaturian (d. 1978)
May 2: National Day of Prayer in the United States (2024)
Aerial view of Old Portsmouth
- 1194 – King Richard I of England gave the city of Portsmouth (Old Portsmouth pictured) its first royal charter.
- 1559 – Presbyterian clergyman John Knox returned from exile to lead the Scottish Reformation.
- 1670 – A royal charter granted the Hudson's Bay Company a monopoly in the fur trade in Rupert's Land (present-day Canada).
- 1999 – Mireya Moscoso became the first woman to be elected President of Panama.
- 2003 – Cyclone Manou formed in the Indian Ocean; over the next two weeks it struck Madagascar and left more than 100,000 people homeless.
- 2011 – Osama bin Laden was shot and killed by U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 in a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
- Blanche of Artois (d. 1302)
- Ichiyō Higuchi (b. 1872)
- Dwayne Johnson (b. 1972)
May 3: World Press Freedom Day; Constitution Memorial Day in Japan (1947); Constitution Day in Poland (1791)
Benty Grange helmet
- 1491 – Nkuwu Nzinga, the ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo, was baptised as João I by Portuguese missionaries.
- 1848 – The Benty Grange helmet (pictured), a boar-crested Anglo-Saxon helmet similar to those mentioned in the contemporary epic poem Beowulf, was discovered in Derbyshire, England.
- 1921 – Under the British Government of Ireland Act, Ireland was partitioned into two self-governing territories, Northern and Southern Ireland.
- 1963 – Police in Birmingham, Alabama, used high-pressure water hoses and dogs against civil-rights protesters, bringing scrutiny on racial segregation in the southern United States.
- 2007 – Three-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann disappeared from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal; she has never been found.
- Catherine of St. Augustine (b. 1632)
- Jacob Riis (b. 1849)
- Len Shackleton (b. 1922)
May 4: Youth Day in China; Literary Day in Taiwan; Star Wars Day
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Margaret Thatcher
- 1677 – Trunajaya rebellion: Dutch East India Company forces under Cornelis Speelman began an attack on Surabaya, Java.
- 1886 – During a labor rally in Chicago, a bomb explosion and gunfire led to the deaths of eight police officers and four members of the public.
- 1974 – An all-female Japanese team reached the summit of Manaslu in the Himalayas, becoming the first women to climb a peak higher than 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) above sea level.
- 1979 – Margaret Thatcher (pictured) became the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom.
- Herman II of Swabia (d. 1003)
- Franklin Carmichael (b. 1890)
- Amos Oz (b. 1939)
May 5: Lixia begins in China (2024); Children's Day in Japan; Cinco de Mayo in Mexico and the United States
A depiction of the Battle of the Wilderness
- 1646 – First English Civil War: Charles I surrendered himself to Scottish Covenanter leader David Leslie near Newark, England.
- 1864 – American Civil War: Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign in Virginia began with the inconclusive Battle of the Wilderness (pictured) in Spotsylvania County.
- 1945 – World War II: The citizens of Prague spontaneously rose up against the city's German occupiers.
- 1980 – The British Special Air Service recaptured the Iranian embassy in London after a six-day siege by Iranian Arab separatists.
- 2007 – Kenya Airways Flight 507 crashed immediately after takeoff from Douala International Airport in Cameroon, resulting in the deaths of all 114 people aboard.
- Samuel Cooper (d. 1672)
- William George Beers (b. 1841)
- Irene Gut Opdyke (b. 1922)
The Grand Palace in the 1860s
- 1536 – Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire: Sapa Inca emperor Manco Inca Yupanqui's army began a ten-month siege of Cusco against a garrison of Spanish conquistadors and Indian auxiliaries led by Hernando Pizarro.
- 1782 – Construction began on the Grand Palace (pictured) in Bangkok, the official residence of the king of Thailand.
- 1915 – Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition: SY Aurora, anchored in McMurdo Sound, broke loose during a gale, beginning a 312-day ordeal in the Ross Sea and Southern Ocean for her 18-man crew.
- 2004 – The final episode of the television sitcom Friends was aired.
- 2013 – Amanda Berry escaped from the Cleveland, Ohio, home of her captor, Ariel Castro, having been held there with two other women for ten years.
- Henry David Thoreau (d. 1862)
- Martin Brodeur (b. 1972)
- Reg Grundy (d. 2016)
Maximilien Robespierre
- 1487 – Granada War: Forces of Aragon and Castile began a siege of Málaga, a Muslim city in the south of the Iberian Peninsula.
- 1794 – French Revolution: Maximilien Robespierre (pictured) established the Cult of the Supreme Being as the new state religion of the French First Republic.
- 1798 – War of the First Coalition: A British garrison repelled a French attack on the Îles Saint-Marcouf off the Normandy coast, inflicting heavy losses.
- 1937 – Employees at Fleischer Studios in New York City went on strike in the animation industry's first major labor strike.
- 1946 – Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita founded the telecommunications corporation Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, later renamed Sony.
- Mary of Modena (d. 1718)
- Philip Baxter (b. 1905)
- Willard Boyle (d. 2011)
- Tore Wretman (b. 1916)
May 8: Anniversary of the birth of Miguel Hidalgo in Mexico (1753); Victory in Europe Day (1945)
Lady Blanche Arundell
- 1643 – First English Civil War: The first siege of Wardour Castle ended after six days with the surrender of the Royalist garrison under Lady Blanche Arundell (pictured).
- 1842 – A train derailed and caught fire near Versailles, France, killing at least 52 people.
- 1945 – A parade in Sétif, French Algeria, celebrating the end of World War II in Europe became a riot and was followed by reprisals, carried out by colonial authorities over the following weeks, that killed thousands.
- 1963 – In Huế, South Vietnam, soldiers opened fire into a crowd of Buddhists protesting against a government ban on the flying of the Buddhist flag on Phật Đản, killing nine and sparking the Buddhist crisis.
- 1972 – Four members of Black September hijacked Sabena Flight 571 to demand the release of 315 Palestinians convicted on terrorism charges.
- Thomas Drury (b. 1551)
- Helena Blavatsky (d. 1891)
- Beatrice Worsley (d. 1972)
May 9: Europe Day in the European Union; Liberation Day in the Channel Islands (1945)
Hotel Polen fire
- 1877 – An earthquake struck northern Chile, leading to the deaths of 2,385 people, mostly victims of the ensuing tsunami, as far away as Hawaii and Fiji.
- 1944 – World War II: The Japanese Take Ichi convoy arrived at Halmahera in the Dutch East Indies after losing many ships and thousands of troops to Allied attacks while attempting to carry two divisions of troops from China to New Guinea.
- 1977 – The Hotel Polen in Amsterdam was destroyed by fire (pictured), leaving 33 people dead.
- 1980 – Part of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Florida collapsed after a pier was struck by the MV Summit Venture, killing 35 people.
- 2001 – Police at the Ohene Djan Stadium in Accra, Ghana, fired tear gas to quell unrest at a football match, leading to a stampede that killed 126 people.
- Al-Adid (b. 1151)
- John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair (d. 1747)
- Yukiya Amano (b. 1947)
One World Trade Center
- 28 BC – Chinese astronomers during the Han dynasty made the first precisely dated observation of a sunspot.
- 1833 – Siamese–Vietnamese wars: Lê Văn Khôi escaped from prison to begin a revolt against Emperor Minh Mạng, primarily to avenge his adoptive father, Vietnamese general Lê Văn Duyệt.
- 1916 – Ernest Shackleton and five companions arrived at South Georgia, completing a 1,300 km (800 mi) lifeboat voyage over 16 days to obtain rescue for the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.
- 1940 – World War II: German forces commenced their invasion of Belgium.
- 2013 – One World Trade Center in New York City, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, was topped out at a height of 1,776 feet (541 m).
- Leonhart Fuchs (d. 1566)
- Karl Barth (b. 1886)
- Arthur Kopit (b. 1937)
Frontispiece of the Diamond Sutra
- 868 – A copy of the Diamond Sutra was printed in Tang-dynasty China, making it the world's oldest dated printed book (frontispiece pictured).
- 1889 – Bandits attacked a U.S. Army paymaster's escort in the Arizona Territory, stealing more than $28,000.
- 1970 – Lubbock, Texas, was struck by a tornado that left 26 people dead.
- 2010 – Gordon Brown resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party after failing to strike a coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats.
- 2022 – Myanmar civil war: Government troops killed 37 unarmed civilians in Mondaingbin.
- Juliette Récamier (d. 1849)
- William Grant Still (b. 1895)
- Abel Goumba (d. 2009)
B-17 bombers intercepting the Rex
- 1743 – War of the Austrian Succession: Habsburg ruler Maria Theresa was crowned Queen of Bohemia after driving French troops from the territory.
- 1938 – During an exercise to demonstrate air power, United States Army Air Corps bomber aircraft intercepted the Italian ocean liner SS Rex (pictured) 620 nautical miles (1,100 km) off the US Atlantic coast.
- 1948 – The United Kingdom publicly announced that it was independently developing nuclear weapons, after the US Atomic Energy Act of 1946 ended cooperation on the matter.
- 1968 – Vietnam War: The 1st Australian Task Force began the defence of Fire Support Base Coral in the largest unit-level action of the war for the Australian Army.
- 1998 – Four students were shot and killed by Indonesian soldiers at Trisakti University in Jakarta, which led to widespread riots and the resignation of President Suharto nine days later.
- Thomas Palaiologos (d. 1465)
- Otto Frank (b. 1889)
- Moto Hagio (b. 1949)
May 13: Yom HaZikaron in Israel (2024)
Aftermath of the Enschede explosion
- 1909 – The first edition of the Giro d'Italia, a long-distance multiple-stage bicycle race, began in Milan; the Italian cyclist Luigi Ganna was the eventual winner.
- 1958 – US vice president Richard Nixon's motorcade was attacked by a mob in Caracas, Venezuela.
- 2000 – An explosion (aftermath pictured) at a fireworks factory in Enschede, Netherlands, resulted in 23 deaths and approximately €450 million in damage.
- 2008 – Nine bombs placed by the Indian Mujahideen, then an unknown terrorist group, exploded in a 15-minute period in Jaipur, India, killing 80 people and injuring more than 200 others.
- Maria Theresa (b. 1717)
- John Littlejohn (d. 1836)
- Alicja Iwańska (b. 1918)
- Gary Cooper (d. 1961)
May 14: Feast day of Saint Matthias (Catholicism); Independence Day in Israel (2024)
Monument to the Battle of Lewes
- 1264 – Second Barons' War: King Henry III was defeated at the Battle of Lewes (monument pictured) and forced to sign the Mise of Lewes, making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England.
- 1857 – Mindon Min was crowned as King of Burma.
- 1863 – American Civil War: Union troops captured Jackson, the capital of Mississippi.
- 1931 – Five people were killed in Ådalen, Sweden, as soldiers opened fire on an unarmed trade union demonstration.
- 1948 – David Ben-Gurion publicly read the Israeli Declaration of Independence at Independence Hall in Tel Aviv.
- Fanny Imlay (b. 1794)
- Mary Seacole (d. 1881)
- Miranda Cosgrove (b. 1993)
- Taruni Sachdev (b. 1998; d. 2012)
May 15: Feast day of Saint Carthage (Catholicism); Nakba Day in Palestinian communities
Statue of Valentinian II
- 392 – Roman emperor Valentinian II (pictured) was found hanged in his residence in Vienne, in present-day France.
- 1855 – Thieves stole 224 pounds (102 kg) of gold from a train travelling from London to Folkestone, England.
- 1864 – American Civil War: A small Confederate force, which included cadets from the Virginia Military Institute, forced the Union Army out of the Shenandoah Valley.
- 1904 – Russo-Japanese War: The Japanese battleships Hatsuse and Yashima sank after striking several mines off Port Arthur, China.
- 1916 – Jesse Washington, a teenage African-American farmhand, was lynched in Waco, Texas.
- Hilary of Galeata (d. 558)
- Emily Dickinson (d. 1886)
- K. M. Cariappa (d. 1993)
May 16: Global Accessibility Awareness Day (2024)
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Junko Tabei
- 1426 – Mohnyin Thado captured Sagaing to become King of Ava.
- 1605 – After a scuffle in which one cardinal received broken bones, the papal conclave elected Camillo Borghese as Pope Paul V.
- 1929 – The 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held at The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles.
- 1960 – American physicist Theodore Maiman operated the first working laser at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California.
- 1975 – Japanese climber Junko Tabei (pictured) became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
- John Komnenos Vatatzes (d. 1182)
- Margaret Ursula Jones (b. 1916)
- Janet Jackson (b. 1966)
May 17: International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia; Sanja Matsuri begins in Tokyo, Japan (2024)
Anne of Denmark
- 1590 – Anne of Denmark (pictured) was crowned queen consort of Scotland in a ceremony at Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh.
- 1863 – American Civil War: at the Battle of Big Black River Bridge in Mississippi, Union forces under John McClernand defeated a Confederate rearguard, capturing around 1,700 men.
- 1900 – The first copies of the children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum were printed.
- 1954 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, outlawing racial segregation in public schools because "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" and therefore unconstitutional.
- 1987 – An Iraqi jet aircraft fired two Exocet missiles at the American frigate USS Stark leaving 37 personnel of the warship dead and 21 others injured.
- Mary, Queen of Hungary (d. 1395)
- Chen-Lu Tsou (b. 1923)
- Little Gerhard (b. 1934)
- Jeannette Piccard (d. 1981)
May 18: Haitian Flag Day in Haiti (1803); Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Crimean Tatar Genocide in Ukraine
Sada Abe
- 1388 – At the Battle of Buir Lake, a Ming Chinese army led by general Lan Yu defeated the forces of Tögüs Temür, the Mongol khan of Northern Yuan.
- 1936 – In a crime that captivated Japan, Sada Abe (pictured) strangled her lover, cut off his genitals, and carried them around with her for several days until her arrest.
- 1952 – First Indochina War: Viet Minh forces overran a French and Laotian garrison at Muong Khoua, leaving only four survivors.
- 1965 – Eli Cohen, a spy who is credited with gathering significant intelligence used by Israel during the Six-Day War, was publicly hanged in Syria.
- 1996 – Ireland won the Eurovision song contest for the seventh time, the highest number of wins for any country before Sweden tied it in 2023.
- Omar Khayyam (b. 1048)
- Thomas Midgley Jr. (b. 1889)
- Mary McLeod Bethune (d. 1955)
May 19: Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day in Turkey (1919)
John Franklin
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: A Continental Army garrison west of Montreal surrendered to British troops at the Battle of the Cedars.
- 1845 – Captain John Franklin (pictured) departed Greenhithe, England, on an expedition to the Canadian Arctic in search of the Northwest Passage; all 129 men were later lost when their ships became icebound in Victoria Strait.
- 1915 – First World War: Australian and New Zealand troops repelled the third attack on Anzac Cove, inflicting heavy casualties on the attacking Ottoman forces.
- 1991 – Breakup of Yugoslavia: With the local Serb population boycotting the referendum, Croatians voted in favour of independence from Yugoslavia.
- 2015 – A corroded pipeline near Refugio State Beach, California, spilled 142,800 gallons (3,400 barrels) of crude oil onto the Gaviota Coast.
- Dunstan (d. 988)
- Mariam-uz-Zamani (d. 1623)
- Erin Phillips (b. 1985)
May 20: National Day of Remembrance in Cambodia (1975); National Awakening Day in Indonesia (1908); Victoria Day in Canada (2024)
The Luttra Woman's skull
- 685 – The Picts defeated the Northumbrians at the Battle of Dun Nechtain, severely weakening the latter's power in northern Great Britain.
- 1811 – A British squadron under Charles Marsh Schomberg defeated a French force off Tamatave, Madagascar, that was attempting to reinforce the French garrison on Mauritius.
- 1943 – The Luttra Woman (skull pictured), a bog body from the Early Neolithic period, was discovered near Luttra, Sweden.
- 1947 – The first session of the National Diet opened in Tokyo, Japan.
- 2013 – A tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma, United States, killing 24 people and causing an estimated $2 billion of damage.
- Honoré de Balzac (b. 1799)
- Astrid Kirchherr (b. 1938)
- Cher (b. 1946)
May 21: World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development
Capture of Syracuse
- 878 – Arab–Byzantine wars: The city of Syracuse was captured by the Aghlabids (pictured) as part of the Muslim conquest of Sicily.
- 1703 – English writer Daniel Defoe was imprisoned for seditious libel after publishing a pamphlet that was perceived to satirise the Tory publications about Dissenters.
- 1864 – American Civil War: The inconclusive Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in Virginia ended with combined Union and Confederate casualties totaling around 31,000.
- 1991 – Former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a suicide bomber in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu.
- 1998 – Indonesian president Suharto resigned after a collapse of support for his presidency amid economic and political crises, ending 32 years in power.
- Feng Dao (d. 954)
- Tommaso Campanella (d. 1639)
- Linda Laubenstein (b. 1947)
Preston Brooks caning Charles Sumner
- 1629 – Albrecht von Wallenstein and King Christian IV of Denmark signed the Treaty of Lübeck to end Danish intervention in the Thirty Years' War.
- 1816 – A riot broke out in Littleport, England, over high unemployment and rising grain costs, spreading to Ely the next day before being quelled by troops.
- 1856 – Senator Charles Sumner (pictured) was assaulted by Representative Preston Brooks in the United States Senate chamber in retaliation for a speech in which Sumner fiercely criticized slaveholders.
- 1939 – Germany and Italy signed the Pact of Steel, a military and political alliance.
- 2010 – Upon landing in Mangalore, Air India Express Flight 812 overshot the runway and fell down a hillside, killing 158 of the 166 people on board.
- T. Boone Pickens (b. 1928)
- Lady Gregory (d. 1932)
- Myrtle Bachelder (d. 1997)
May 23: Aromanian National Day
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Catherine of Aragon
- 1533 – Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, annulled Henry VIII's marriage to his first wife Catherine of Aragon (pictured), beginning events that would culminate in the English Reformation.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Confederate troops under Stonewall Jackson defeated a Union force at the Battle of Front Royal in Virginia, taking around 700 prisoners.
- 1895 – Backed by Samuel J. Tilden, the Astor Library and the Lenox Library agreed to merge and form the New York Public Library.
- 1939 – The U.S. Navy submarine Squalus sank off Portsmouth, New Hampshire, during tests, causing 26 men to drown.
- 1974 – The Airbus A300, the first twin-engined wide-body airliner, went into service with Air France.
- C. R. M. F. Cruttwell (b. 1887)
- Ruth Fernández (b. 1919)
- Florence Violet McKenzie (d. 1982)
May 24: Aldersgate Day (Methodism)
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Operation Solomon evacuees arriving in Israel
- 1667 – Led by King Louis XIV, the French army invaded the Spanish Netherlands, beginning the War of Devolution.
- 1883 – New York City's Brooklyn Bridge opened as the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time.
- 1913 – Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia married Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover; the occasion was one of the last great social events of European royalty before World War I began.
- 1986 – A stationary front began over the central Caribbean Sea, leading to severe floods that over two weeks killed dozens of people in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.
- 1991 – The Israel Defense Forces began Operation Solomon, a covert operation to bring thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel (evacuees pictured).
- Cathinka Buchwieser (b. 1789)
- Henry Sandham (b. 1842)
- Fanny Searls (d. 1939)
May 25: Africa Day (1963); Independence Day in Jordan (1946)
1878 poster for H.M.S. Pinafore
- 1782 – American Revolutionary War: US Colonel William Crawford began a failed expedition to destroy British-allied American Indian towns along the Sandusky River in the Ohio Country.
- 1878 – Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore (poster featured) premiered at the Opera Comique in London.
- 1955 – Joe Brown and George Band, members of the British Kangchenjunga expedition, made the first ascent of the world's third-highest mountain but deliberately did not set foot on the summit.
- 1979 – During takeoff from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, an engine detached from American Airlines Flight 191, causing a crash that killed 273 people, the deadliest aviation accident in United States history.
- 2013 – Naxalite insurgents of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) attacked a convoy of Indian National Congress leaders in the state of Chhattisgarh, causing at least 27 deaths.
- Flann Sinna (d. 916)
- Naim Frashëri (b. 1846)
- Elisabeth Geleerd (d. 1969)
May 26: National Sorry Day in Australia; Independence Day in Georgia (1918)
Jimmie Rodgers
- 946 – King Edmund I of England was murdered at Pucklechurch on the feast day of St Augustine.
- 1933 – American singer Jimmie Rodgers (pictured) died at the Taft Hotel in New York City.
- 1967 – The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, one of the first progressive rock albums, was released.
- 1989 – Tropical Storm Cecil dissipated over Laos after devastating Quảng Nam province, Vietnam, and causing the deaths of 751 people.
- Edmond de Goncourt (b. 1822)
- Jyoti Gogte (b. 1956)
- Mufti Abdul Razzaq (d. 2021)
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Bob Dylan
- 1923 – French drivers André Lagache and René Léonard completed the most laps during the first edition of the sports car race the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
- 1963 – American singer Bob Dylan (pictured) released The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, his first album to include a significant number of original songs.
- 1983 – An explosion at an illegal fireworks factory near Benton, Tennessee, killed eleven people.
- 1995 – Bosnian War: Forces of the Army of Republika Srpska captured a United Nations post at Vrbanja Bridge in Sarajevo; six soldiers of both sides were killed when French forces retook the post later in the day.
- 2001 – Twenty tourists were kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf militants in Palawan, Philippines, triggering a hostage crisis that lasted for more than a year.
- Diego Ramírez de Arellano (d. 1624)
- John Cockcroft (b. 1897)
- Henry Kissinger (b. 1923)
- Abram Hoffer (d. 2009)
May 28: Republic Day in Armenia (1918); Independence Day in Azerbaijan (1918)
John Muir
- 621 – Tang forces led by Li Shimin defeated and captured Dou Jiande at the Battle of Hulao in the civil war that followed the collapse of the Sui dynasty.
- 1892 – Scottish-American preservationist John Muir (pictured) founded the environmental organization Sierra Club in California.
- 1940 – Second World War: Belgium surrendered to Nazi Germany, ending the Battle of Belgium.
- 1987 – Mathias Rust, a West German aviator, flew his Cessna 172 from Helsinki, Finland, through Soviet air defences, landing illegally near Red Square in Moscow.
- 2010 – A train derailment and collision in the West Midnapore district of West Bengal, India, caused the deaths of at least 148 passengers.
- Wulfstan (d. 1023)
- Carl Larsson (b. 1853)
- Maeve Binchy (b. 1939)
May 29: Feast day of Saint Paul VI (Catholicism); Memorial Day in the United States
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay
- 1176 – Wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines: Troops of the Lombard League defeated forces of the Holy Roman Empire near Legnano in present-day Italy.
- 1792 – The Great Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was disbanded following the Russian invasion of Poland.
- 1935 – A strike by copper miners in Northern Rhodesia ended after six workers were shot and killed by police.
- 1953 – The mountaineers Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay (both pictured) became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
- 1954 – Diane Leather became the first woman to run a mile in less than five minutes.
- Louise-Adéone Drölling (b. 1797)
- Erich Wolfgang Korngold (b. 1897)
- John Barrymore (d. 1942)
May 30: Statehood Day in Croatia (1990)
Johann Sebastian Bach
- 1431 – Hundred Years' War: After being convicted of heresy, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in Rouen, France.
- 1723 – Johann Sebastian Bach (pictured) assumed the office of Thomaskantor in Leipzig, presenting the cantata, Die Elenden sollen essen, BWV 75, in the St. Nicholas Church.
- 1943 – The first game of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the forerunner of women's professional league sports in the United States, was played.
- 1963 – Buddhist crisis: A protest against pro-Catholic discrimination was held outside South Vietnam's National Assembly, the first open demonstration against President Ngô Đình Diệm.
- 1998 – An earthquake registering 6.5 Mw struck northern Afghanistan, killing at least 4,000 people, destroying more than 30 villages, and leaving 45,000 people homeless.
- Antonina Houbraken (b. 1686)
- Wyndham Halswelle (b. 1882)
- Marcel Bich (d. 1994)
Bessarion
- 455 – Petronius Maximus, ruler of the Western Roman Empire, was stoned to death by a mob as he fled Rome ahead of the arrival of a Vandal force that sacked the city.
- 1223 – Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus': Mongol forces defeated a Kievan Rus' army at the Kalka River in present-day Ukraine.
- 1468 – Cardinal Bessarion (pictured) announced his donation of 746 Greek and Latin codices to the Republic of Venice, forming the Biblioteca Marciana.
- 1935 – An earthquake registering 7.7 Mw struck Balochistan in British India, now part of Pakistan, killing between 30,000 and 60,000 people.
- 2013 – A tornado struck Central Oklahoma, killing 8 people and injuring more than 150.
- Géza II of Hungary (d. 1162)
- Walter Sickert (b. 1860)
- Jørgen Jensen (d. 1922)
Selected anniversaries / On this day archive
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Selected anniversaries for June edit
The Defence at the Battle of the First of June, 1794
- 1794 – French Revolutionary Wars: A British fleet captured six ships of the line from the French in a battle off Ushant (pictured) that came to be known as the Glorious First of June.
- 1857 – The Revolution of the Ganhadores, the first general strike in Brazil, began in Salvador, Bahia.
- 1868 – The Navajo tribe and the U.S. government signed an agreement, allowing those interned at Fort Sumner to return to their ancestral lands.
- 1974 – In an informal article in a medical journal, Henry Heimlich introduced the concept of abdominal thrusts, commonly known as the Heimlich maneuver, to treat choking victims.
- 1988 – The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was ratified, banning all American and Soviet land-based missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 km (310 to 3,420 mi).
- Marguerite Porete (d. 1310)
- Lady Clementina Hawarden (b. 1822)
- Parveen Kumar (b. 1942)
June 2: Festa della Repubblica in Italy (1946)
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Elizabeth II on her coronation day
- 1805 – Napoleonic Wars: A Franco-Spanish fleet recaptured the British-held Diamond Rock, an uninhabited island at the entrance to the bay leading to Fort-de-France, Martinique.
- 1886 – The wedding of Grover Cleveland and Frances Folsom took place in the White House, the only time a U.S. president used that building for the ceremony.
- 1953 – Queen Elizabeth II (pictured) was crowned at Westminster Abbey in London.
- 1967 – Benno Ohnesorg, a German university student, was killed in West Berlin while protesting against the visit of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran; the anarchist militant 2 June Movement was later named after the incident.
- 1983 – After an emergency landing due to an in-flight fire, 23 passengers aboard Air Canada Flight 797 were killed when a flashover occurred as the aircraft's doors opened.
- Ogata Kōrin (d. 1716)
- Adelaide Casely-Hayford (b. 1868)
- Fazal Ilahi Chaudhry (d. 1982)
June 3: Anniversary of Khomeini's Death in Iran (1989); Martyrs Day in Uganda
One of the last two great auks
- 1602 – Anglo-Spanish War: An English naval force defeated a Spanish-Portuguese fleet off Sesimbra, Portugal, and captured a carrack.
- 1844 – The last known pair of great auks (one pictured), the only modern species in the genus Pinguinus of flightless birds, were killed on Eldey, Iceland.
- 1968 – American radical feminist Valerie Solanas shot and wounded visual artist Andy Warhol and two others at Warhol's New York City studio, The Factory.
- 1973 – At the Paris Air Show, a Tupolev Tu-144 broke up in mid-air, killing all six members of its crew and eight bystanders on the ground.
- 1979 – Having invaded Uganda and deposed President Idi Amin, Tanzanian forces secured Uganda's western border, ending a seven-month war.
- Staurakios (d. 800)
- Georges Bizet (d. 1875)
- Susannah Constantine (b. 1962)
June 4: Trianon Treaty Day in Romania (1920)
Emily Davison
- 1561 – The spire of Old St Paul's Cathedral in London was destroyed by fire.
- 1913 – Emily Davison (pictured), an activist for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, was fatally injured after being trampled by a horse owned by King George V at the Epsom Derby.
- 1916 – World War I: Russian forces began their successful Brusilov offensive against the Central Powers.
- 1979 – Jerry Rawlings came to power in Ghana as chairman of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council.
- 1989 – The People's Liberation Army suppressed the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, leaving hundreds of people dead and wounded.
- Johan Rudolph Thorbecke (d. 1872)
- W. H. R. Rivers (d. 1922)
- Rodolfo Quezada Toruño (d. 2012)
June 5: World Environment Day; King's Official Birthday in New Zealand (2023); Western Australia Day (2023)
Antonio Luna
- 1899 – Filipino general Antonio Luna (pictured) was assassinated in the midst of the Philippine–American War.
- 1968 – U.S. senator Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot by Palestinian immigrant Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
- 1976 – The Teton Dam in eastern Idaho, U.S., collapsed as its reservoir was being filled for the first time, resulting in the deaths of eleven people and 13,000 cattle, and causing up to $2 billion in damage.
- 2004 – Noël Mamère, mayor of the Bordeaux suburb of Bègles, conducted a marriage ceremony for two men, even though same-sex marriage in France had not yet been legalised.
- 2009 – After almost two months of civil disobedience, at least 31 people were killed in clashes between the National Police and indigenous people in Peru's Bagua Province.
- Ya'qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar (d. 879)
- John Couch Adams (b. 1819)
- Megumi Nakajima (b. 1989)
June 6: National Day of Sweden
Shivaji
- 1513 – War of the League of Cambrai: Milanese forces with Swiss mercenaries defeated the French in Novara, forcing them to withdraw from the Duchy of Milan and Italy.
- 1674 – Shivaji (pictured), who led a resistance to free the Maratha from the Bijapur Sultanate and the Mughal Empire, was crowned the first chhatrapati of the Maratha Empire.
- 1882 – The Shewan army defeated Gojjame forces at the Battle of Embabo, an event that contributed to the supremacy of Shewa within the Ethiopian Empire.
- 1971 – Hughes Airwest Flight 706 collided with a US Marine Corps jet near Duarte, California, killing 50 people.
- 1985 – The remains of Josef Mengele, a Nazi physician notorious for performing human experiments on Auschwitz inmates, were exhumed in Embu das Artes, Brazil.
- Regiomontanus (b. 1436)
- Jean Pouliot (b. 1923)
- Carl Jung (d. 1961)
- Maria Alyokhina (b. 1988)
Mosaic of Aelia Eudocia
- 421 – Roman emperor Theodosius II married Aelia Eudocia (pictured), who later helped to protect Greek pagans and Jews from persecution.
- 1832 – The Reform Act, which is widely credited with launching modern democracy in the United Kingdom, received royal assent.
- 1892 – Homer Plessy, a mixed-race man from New Orleans, was arrested for refusing to leave his seat in the "whites-only" car of a train; he lost the resulting court case, Plessy v. Ferguson.
- 1981 – The Israeli Air Force attacked a nuclear reactor under the assumption that it was about to start producing plutonium to further an Iraqi nuclear-weapons program.
- 1998 – White supremacists murdered James Byrd Jr., an African American, by chaining him behind a pickup truck and dragging him along an asphalt road in Jasper, Texas.
- Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr (d. 1618)
- Chief Seattle (d. 1866)
- Knud Rasmussen (b. 1879)
- Alice Gray (b. 1914)
Laki, as of July 2012
- 1783 – Laki, a volcanic fissure in Iceland (pictured), began an eight-month eruption, triggering a major famine and causing widespread fluoride poisoning.
- 1950 – Thomas Blamey became the only Australian to attain the rank of field marshal.
- 1967 – The Israeli Air Force attacked the U.S. Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty in international waters, killing 34 people and wounding 171 others.
- 2007 – A major storm caused the bulk carrier Pasha Bulker to run aground in New South Wales, Australia.
- 2009 – Two American journalists, having been arrested for illegal entry into North Korea, were sentenced to twelve years hard labor before being pardoned two months later.
- William of York (d. 1154)
- Suharto (b. 1921)
- Lauren Burns (b. 1974)
- Kim Clijsters (b. 1983)
Meadow Stables racing colors
- 747 – Abu Muslim initiated an open revolt against Umayyad rule, eventually leading to the establishment of the Abbasid Caliphate under the Black Standard.
- 1863 – American Civil War: Union and Confederate forces fought the Battle of Brandy Station, the largest cavalry engagement to take place on American soil.
- 1928 – Australian aviator Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew landed the Southern Cross in Brisbane, completing the first transpacific flight.
- 1973 – The racehorse Secretariat, of Meadow Stables (racing colors pictured), won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, achieving the first American Triple Crown victory in a quarter of a century.
- 1982 – Lebanon War: The Israeli Air Force carried out Operation Mole Cricket 19, successfully suppressing Syrian air defenses in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon.
- Claudia Octavia (d. AD 62)
- Princess Helena of the United Kingdom (d. 1923)
- Michael J. Fox (b. 1961)
- Wolfdietrich Schnurre (d. 1989)
June 10: Dragon Boat Festival in China (2024)
John Diefenbaker
- 1624 – Thirty Years' War: France and the Dutch Republic concluded the Treaty of Compiègne, a mutual defence alliance.
- 1782 – King Rama I moved into the Grand Palace in Bangkok, which has remained the royal residence of Siam and Thailand since then.
- 1957 – Led by John Diefenbaker (pictured), the Progressive Conservative Party won a plurality of House of Commons seats in the Canadian federal election.
- 1968 – The Royal New Zealand Navy adopted a unique white ensign, to distinguish its vessels from those of the Royal Navy.
- 1991 – Eleven-year-old Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped in South Lake Tahoe, California; she remained a captive until 2009.
- Abu al-Wafa' al-Buzjani (b. 940)
- Aud Blegen Svindland (b. 1928)
- Henryk Stażewski (d. 1988)
- Alexandra Stan (b. 1989)
Catherine of Aragon
- 806 – Arab–Byzantine wars: The Abbasid army departed Raqqa in northern Syria to begin an invasion of Byzantine-controlled Asia Minor.
- 1509 – Catherine of Aragon (pictured) married King Henry VIII of England, becoming the first of his six wives.
- 1923 – Kitosh, an African labourer, died after having been flogged by his British employer, in a case that eventually led to reform of the legal system of the Kenya Colony.
- 1963 – Vietnamese monk Thích Quảng Đức burned himself to death in Saigon to protest the persecution of Buddhists by Catholic South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem's administration.
- 2008 – Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper apologised to the First Nations for past governments' policies of forced assimilation.
- Amadeus IV, Count of Savoy (d. 1253)
- Julia Margaret Cameron (b. 1815)
- Gene Wilder (b. 1933)
- Sandra Schmirler (b. 1963)
June 12: First day of Shavuot (Judaism, 2024); Dia dos Namorados in Brazil; Loving Day in the United States (1967)
Reagan speaking at the Brandenburg Gate
- 1775 – Thomas Gage, the governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, offered a general pardon to colonists who remained loyal to Britain.
- 1914 – As part of the Ottoman Empire's policies of ethnic cleansing, Turkish irregulars began a six-day massacre of the predominantly Greek town of Phocaea.
- 1921 – Soviet politician Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko authorised the use of chemical weapons against a peasant rebellion in the Tambov Governorate.
- 1963 – The premiere was held in New York of the historical drama film Cleopatra, the most expensive film made to that point.
- 1987 – Cold War: During a speech at the Brandenburg Gate by the Berlin Wall, US president Ronald Reagan challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!" (speech featured).
- Æthelflæd (d. 918)
- Adriaen van Stalbemt (b. 1580)
- Daisy Yen Wu (b. 1902)
- Philippe Coutinho (b. 1992)
- 1514 – Henry Grace à Dieu, the largest warship ever built at the time, was launched from Woolwich Dockyard, England.
- 1916 – World War I: The Battle of Mont Sorrel in the Ypres Salient came to an end as a Canadian assault led German forces to withdraw to their original lines.
- 2007 – Insurgents carried out a second bombing at the al-Askari Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam.
- 2011 – A 6.0 Mw earthquake caused up to NZ$6 billion of additional damage to Christchurch, New Zealand, which was still recovering from an earthquake four months earlier.
- Charles the Bald (b. 823)
- Augusto Roa Bastos (b. 1917)
- Marianne Means (b. 1934)
- Mitsuharu Misawa (d. 2009)
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Killing of Sudbury and Hales
- 1381 – During the Peasants' Revolt in England, rebels stormed the Tower of London, killing Simon Sudbury, Lord Chancellor, and Robert Hales, Lord High Treasurer (both pictured).
- 1646 – Franco-Spanish War: French and Spanish fleets fought the inconclusive Battle of Orbetello, with sailing vessels of both sides having to be towed into action by galleys due to light winds.
- 1846 – Settlers in Sonoma began rebelling against Mexico, later proclaiming the California Republic and raising a homemade flag with a bear and a star.
- 1940 – The Soviet Union issued an ultimatum to Lithuania demanding that the Red Army be allowed to enter the country and form a pro-Soviet government.
- 1949 – Albert II became the first monkey in space, reaching an altitude of 134 km (83 mi) in a V-2 rocket.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe (b. 1811)
- Anna B. Eckstein (b. 1868)
- Jang Jin-young (b. 1972)
- Burhanuddin Harahap (d. 1987)
Bessie Coleman
- 1215 – King John of England and a group of rebel barons agreed on the text of Magna Carta, an influential charter of rights.
- 1520 – Pope Leo X issued the papal bull Exsurge Domine, censuring 41 propositions from Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses and subsequent writings, and threatening him with excommunication unless he recanted.
- 1921 – Bessie Coleman (pictured) became the first Black person to earn an international pilot's license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.
- 1995 – Western Greece was struck by an earthquake registering 6.4–6.5 Mw that killed 26 people.
- 2006 – US president George W. Bush designated 140,000 square miles (360,000 km2) around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands as the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, now one of the world's largest protected areas.
- Lisa del Giocondo (b. 1479)
- Mehmed Rashid Pasha (d. 1876)
- Miriam Soljak (b. 1879)
- Xi Jinping (b. 1953)
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Valentina Tereshkova
- 1407 – Ming forces conquered Đại Ngu in modern-day northern Vietnam, capturing Hồ dynasty emperor Hồ Quý Ly and bringing the country under Chinese rule.
- 1632 – The Plymouth Company granted a land patent to Thomas Purchase, who became the first permanent European settler of Pejepscot, Maine.
- 1936 – A Junkers Ju 52 aircraft of Norwegian Air Lines crashed into a mountainside near Hyllestad, Norway, killing all seven people on board.
- 1963 – Aboard Vostok 6, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova (pictured) became the first woman in space.
- 2016 – Jo Cox, a British Member of Parliament, was murdered in her constituency.
- Tomás Yepes (d. 1674)
- Barbara McClintock (b. 1902)
- Margaret Bondfield (d. 1953)
- Helmut Kohl (d. 2017)
June 17: King's Official Birthday in the United Kingdom (2023)
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Mumtaz Mahal
- 653 – Pope Martin I was arrested in the Lateran Palace, Rome, and taken to Constantinople.
- 1631 – Mumtaz Mahal (pictured), wife of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, died in childbirth; Jahan spent the next seventeen years constructing her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal.
- 1913 – In Detroit, autoworkers for car manufacturer Studebaker went on strike in the American auto industry's first major strike action.
- 1963 – Riots broke out in Saigon one day after the signing of the Joint Communiqué, an attempt to resolve the Buddhist crisis in South Vietnam.
- 2017 – Wildfires erupted across central Portugal, eventually causing the deaths of 66 people.
- Bolesław I the Brave (d. 1025)
- J. H. Hobart Ward (b. 1823)
- Carmen Casco de Lara Castro (b. 1918)
- Ankita Bhakat (b. 1998)
Li Yuan
- 618 – Sui–Tang transition: Chinese governor Li Yuan (pictured) declared himself emperor, establishing the Tang dynasty.
- 860 – Rus' forces sailed into the Bosporus in a fleet of about 200 vessels and started pillaging the suburbs of Constantinople.
- 1858 – Charles Darwin received a manuscript by fellow naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace on natural selection, which encouraged him to publish his own theory of evolution.
- 1953 – A Douglas C-124 Globemaster II aircraft crashed just after takeoff from Tachikawa, Japan, killing all 129 people on board.
- 1983 – Iranian teenager Mona Mahmudnizhad and nine other women were hanged in Shiraz because of their membership in the Baháʼí Faith.
- William Lassell (b. 1799)
- Abdollah Mirza Qajar (d. 1846)
- Queen Olga of Greece (d. 1926)
- Gail Godwin (b. 1937)
June 19: Juneteenth in the United States (1865)
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg
- 1718 – An earthquake on the Tibetan Plateau led to the deaths of more than 73,000 people.
- 1838 – The Jesuits' Maryland province contracted to sell 272 slaves to buyers in Louisiana in one of the largest slave sales in American history.
- 1953 – Americans Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (pictured) were executed as spies for passing nuclear weapons secrets to the Soviet Union.
- 1965 – Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, the commander of the South Vietnam Air Force, was appointed prime minister at the head of a military regime.
- 1987 – Basque separatist group ETA detonated a car bomb at the Hipercor shopping centre in Barcelona, killing 21 people and injuring 45 others.
- Piers Gaveston, 1st Earl of Cornwall (d. 1312)
- Wallis Simpson (b. 1896)
- Doris Sands Johnson (b. 1921)
- Jörg Widmann (b. 1973)
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Obverse of the Great Seal of the United States
- 1782 – The Congress of the Confederation adopted the Great Seal of the United States (obverse pictured), used to authenticate documents issued by the U.S. federal government.
- 1900 – Boxer Rebellion: The Imperial Chinese Army began a 55-day siege of the Legation Quarter in Peking.
- 1943 – World War II: The Royal Air Force began Operation Bellicose, a four-day shuttle-bombing mission that included raids on Germany and Italy and a refuelling and rearming stop in Algeria.
- 1975 – Steven Spielberg's film Jaws was released; it became a summer blockbuster and the first film to earn $100 million in U.S. theatrical rentals.
- 2019 – Iranian aircraft shot down an American drone over the Strait of Hormuz amid heightened tensions between the two countries.
- Sigismund III Vasa (b. 1566)
- Mary R. Calvert (b. 1884)
- Ulrich Mühe (b. 1953)
- Chanchal Kumar Majumdar (d. 2000)
June 21: Fête de la Musique; International Day of Yoga; National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada; Xiazhi in China (2024)
Charles Davis Lucas
- 1575 – French Wars of Religion: Catholic forces defeated an armed group of Huguenots attempting to capture Besançon, from which they had previously been expelled.
- 1854 – Crimean War: During the Battle of Bomarsund, Irish sailor Charles Davis Lucas (pictured) threw an artillery shell off his ship before it exploded, earning him the first Victoria Cross.
- 1890 – Rudyard Kipling's poem Mandalay was published.
- 1921 – Irish War of Independence: Most of the village of Knockcroghery in County Roscommon was burned by British forces.
- 1957 – Ellen Fairclough became the first woman to be appointed to the cabinet of Canada.
- Niccolò Machiavelli (d. 1527)
- Joko Widodo (b. 1961)
- Kathleen O'Kelly-Kennedy (b. 1986)
- Soad Hosny (d. 2001)
HMS Leopard (right) fires on USS Chesapeake
- 1593 – Habsburg troops defeated a larger Ottoman force at the Battle of Sisak in the Kingdom of Croatia, triggering the Long Turkish War.
- 1807 – The British warship HMS Leopard pursued and attacked the American frigate USS Chesapeake (pictured) in the belief that the crew of the latter included deserters from the Royal Navy.
- 1941 – World War II: German minister of foreign affairs Joachim von Ribbentrop presented a declaration of war to the Soviet ambassador Vladimir Dekanozov in Berlin.
- 1979 – Former British Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe was acquitted of conspiracy to murder Norman Scott, who had accused Thorpe of having a relationship with him.
- 2022 – An earthquake registering 6.2 Mw caused the deaths of at least 1,000 people in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
- Aymon, Count of Savoy (d. 1343)
- Lucrezia Tornabuoni (b. 1427)
- Lee Min-ho (b. 1987)
- Pat Nixon (d. 1993)
June 23: Grand Duke's Official Birthday in Luxembourg
Gamal Abdel Nasser
- 1266 – War of Saint Sabas: In an action off Trapani, Sicily, a Venetian fleet captured all 27 opposing Genoese vessels.
- 1956 – In a nationwide referendum, Gamal Abdel Nasser (pictured) was elected President of Egypt, a post he held until his death in 1970.
- 1991 – The first installment of the video-game series Sonic the Hedgehog was released.
- 1992 – Croatian War of Independence: The Battle of the Miljevci Plateau ended after a failed counterattack by forces of the Republic of Serbian Krajina against the Croatian Army who had captured the plateau.
- 2016 – Citizens of the United Kingdom voted in favour of leaving the European Union.
- Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (d. 1324)
- Michèle Mouton (b. 1951)
- Doug Ring (d. 2003)
- Nguyễn Chánh Thi (d. 2007)
Jiang Zemin
- 1374 – An outbreak of dancing mania, in which crowds of people danced themselves to exhaustion, began in Aachen (in present-day Germany) before spreading to other parts of Europe.
- 1939 – The first of the Thai cultural mandates was issued, officially changing the country's name from Siam to Thailand.
- 1943 – Amid racial tensions, U.S. Army military police shot and killed a black serviceman after a confrontation at a pub in Bamber Bridge, England.
- 1989 – Following the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre the 13th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party appointed Jiang Zemin (pictured) as general secretary in place of Zhao Ziyang.
- 2010 – John Isner defeated Nicolas Mahut at the Wimbledon Championships, concluding the longest match in tennis history, which lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes over three days.
- Jean-Baptiste de Boyer (b. 1704)
- Kapiʻolani (d. 1899)
- Lisa (b. 1987)
- Mick Aston (d. 2013)
1978 rainbow flag
- 1658 – Anglo-Spanish War: The largest battle ever fought on Jamaica, the three-day Battle of Rio Nuevo, began.
- 1944 – World War II: U.S. Navy and Royal Navy ships bombarded Cherbourg, France, to support U.S. Army units engaged in the Battle of Cherbourg.
- 1950 – The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 82 condemning the North Korean invasion of South Korea.
- 1978 – The rainbow flag (original version pictured) representing gay pride was first flown at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day parade.
- 2022 – Russian invasion of Ukraine: Russian forces captured the city of Sievierodonetsk, Ukraine, after six weeks of fighting.
- Girolamo Corner (b. 1632)
- Eloísa Díaz (b. 1866)
- Rose O'Neill (b. 1874)
- Ernest Walton (d. 1995)
Alexander V
- 1409 – The Council of Pisa elected Peter of Candia as Pope Alexander V (pictured), becoming the third simultaneous claimant of the title of leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
- 1889 – Bangui, the capital and largest city of the present-day Central African Republic, was founded in French Congo.
- 1906 – The 1906 French Grand Prix, the first Grand Prix motor racing competition, began near Le Mans.
- 1945 – At a conference in San Francisco, delegates from 50 nations signed a charter establishing the United Nations.
- 2013 – The U.S. Supreme Court granted federal recognition to same-sex marriage when it overturned the Defense of Marriage Act.
- Robert the Lotharingian (d. 1095)
- Elizabeth Pierce Blegen (b. 1888)
- Pommie Mbangwa (b. 1976)
- Joel Campbell (b. 1992)
June 27: Day of Arafah (Islam, 2023)
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Jacobo Árbenz
- 1571 – Queen Elizabeth I issued a royal charter establishing Jesus College, the first Protestant college at the University of Oxford.
- 1800 – War of the Second Coalition: French forces won a victory at the Battle of Neuburg, ending Austrian control over the River Danube.
- 1869 – The military phase of the Meiji Restoration in Japan was completed with an imperial victory in the Boshin War.
- 1954 – Jacobo Árbenz (pictured) resigned as President of Guatemala following a CIA-led coup against his administration.
- 2008 – Robert Mugabe was re-elected as President of Zimbabwe with an overwhelming majority after his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew, citing violence against his party's supporters.
- Conan I of Rennes (d. 992)
- Eugenia Washington (b. 1838)
- Mary McAleese (b. 1951)
- Sam Manekshaw (d. 2008)
June 28: First day of Eid al-Adha (Islam, 2023); Vidovdan in Serbia
Fragments of the Nakhla meteorite
- 1461 – Edward IV was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: The militia of the Province of South Carolina repelled a British attack on Charleston.
- 1911 – The Nakhla meteorite (fragments pictured), the first meteorite to suggest signs of aqueous processes on Mars, fell to Earth in Abu Hummus, Egypt.
- 1950 – Korean War: South Korean forces began the Bodo League massacre, summarily executing tens of thousands of suspected North Korean sympathizers.
- 2016 – Gunmen attacked Istanbul's Atatürk Airport, killing 45 people and injuring more than 230 others.
- Pope Leo II (d. 683)
- Elizabeth Ann Linley (d. 1792)
- Yvonne Sylvain (b. 1907)
- Kiichi Miyazawa (d. 2007)
June 29: Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (Western Christianity)
Woldegk tornado
- 1613 – The original Globe Theatre in London burned to the ground after a cannon employed for special effects misfired during a performance of Henry VIII and ignited the roof.
- 1764 – One of the strongest tornadoes in history (pictured) struck Woldegk (in present-day northeastern Germany), killing one person.
- 1864 – A passenger train fell through an open swing bridge into the Richelieu River near present-day Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Quebec, killing as many as 99 people and injuring 100 others in Canada's worst railway accident.
- 1913 – More than 50,000 Union and Confederate veterans gathered at the Gettysburg Battlefield, the largest combined reunion of American Civil War veterans ever held.
- 2003 – An overloaded balcony collapsed in Chicago, United States, killing 13 people and injuring 57 others.
- Óláfr Guðrøðarson (d. 1153)
- Ernest Fanelli (b. 1860)
- Jorge Basadre (d. 1980)
- Katharine Hepburn (d. 2003)
Coronation of Pope Paul VI
- 1559 – During a jousting match, King Henry II of France was mortally wounded when fragments of Gabriel Montgomery's lance pierced his eye.
- 1598 – Anglo-Spanish War: After a 15-day siege Spanish troops in San Juan, modern-day Puerto-Rico, surrendered to an English force under Sir George Clifford.
- 1859 – French acrobat Charles Blondin crossed Niagara Gorge, making him one of the world's most famous tightrope walkers.
- 1963 – The coronation of Pope Paul VI (pictured) took place, the last such ceremony before its abandonment by later popes.
- 2009 – Yemenia Flight 626 crashed into the Indian Ocean near the Comoros, killing 152 people, with French schoolgirl Bahia Bakari the sole survivor.
- Erentrude (d. 718)
- Toyohara Kunichika (b. 1835)
- Assia Djebar (b. 1936)
- Nancy Mitford (d. 1973)
Selected anniversaries / On this day archive
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Selected anniversaries for July edit
July 1: Canada Day (1867); Republic Day in Ghana (1960); Independence Day in Rwanda (1962)
The burning of van Essen and Vos
- 1523 – Jan van Essen and Hendrik Vos were burnt at the stake in Brussels, becoming the first Lutherans executed by the Council of Brabant.
- 1643 – The Westminster Assembly of Divines first assembled to restructure the Church of England.
- 1874 – The Remington No. 1, the first commercially successful typewriter, went on sale.
- 1935 – The first Grant Park Music Festival was held in Chicago's Grant Park.
- 1983 – A North Korean Ilyushin Il-62M jet crashed into the Fouta Djallon mountains in Guinea, killing all 23 people on board.
- Lady Saigō (d. 1589)
- DeLancey W. Gill (b. 1859)
- Ropata Wahawaha (d. 1897)
- Abdul Hamid (b. 1933)
Aftermath of the Jerusalem ramming attack
- 706 – The bodies of Emperor Gaozong of Tang and Empress Wu Zetian were interred in the Qianling Mausoleum.
- 1644 – First English Civil War: The combined forces of Scottish Covenanters and English Parliamentarians defeated Royalist troops at the Battle of Marston Moor.
- 1941 – A German SS unit arrived in Vilnius, Lithuania, and began the systematic execution of up to 100,000 people over the next three years.
- 2008 – Israeli–Palestinian conflict: An Arab man rammed a loader into traffic in Jerusalem, killing three people and injuring 40 others (damage pictured).
- 2013 – The International Astronomical Union announced that the fourth and fifth moons of Pluto to be discovered would be named Kerberos and Styx, respectively.
- Fumiko Hori (b. 1918)
- Wisława Szymborska (b. 1923)
- Carlos Menem (b. 1930)
- Douglas Engelbart (d. 2013)
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Battle of Gettysburg
- 324 – Civil wars of the Tetrarchy: Roman emperor Constantine the Great defeated his former colleague Licinius at the Battle of Adrianople.
- 1863 – Confederate forces were defeated by the Union Army on the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg (pictured), a turning point in the American Civil War.
- 1940 – Second World War: The Royal Navy attacked the French fleet at Mers El Kébir, fearing that the ships would fall into Axis hands after the French–German armistice.
- 1973 – British singer David Bowie retired his stage persona Ziggy Stardust in a surprise announcement on the last day of a 17-month tour.
- 2013 – General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi led a coalition to depose President Mohamed Morsi in a coup d'état in Cairo, suspending the Egyptian Constitution of 2012.
- Dong Chang (d. 896)
- Susan Peters (b. 1921)
- Peter van Geersdaele (b. 1933)
- Lisa Kahn (d. 2013)
July 4: Republic Day in the Philippines (1946); Independence Day in the United States (1776)
The Brazilian cruiser Bahia
- 1054 – Chinese astronomers recorded the sudden appearance of a "guest star", later identified as the supernova that created the Crab Nebula.
- 1643 – First English Civil War: Royalist forces defeated the Parliamentarians at the Battle of Burton Bridge, securing a crossing of the River Trent for a convoy of supplies travelling with Queen Henrietta Maria.
- 1943 – The aircraft carrying Władysław Sikorski, prime minister of the Polish government-in-exile, crashed off Gibraltar, killing him and fifteen others and leading to several conspiracy theories.
- 1945 – The Brazilian cruiser Bahia (pictured) was accidentally sunk by one of its own crewmen, killing more than 300 people.
- 1988 – Kylie Minogue's first album, Kylie, was released, and went on to top the charts in the UK and New Zealand.
- Brian Twyne (d. 1644)
- Suzanne Lenglen (d. 1938)
- Swastima Khadka (b. 1995)
- Barthélemy Mukenge (d. 2018)
July 5: Fifth of July in New York
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Juvénal Habyarimana
- 1841 – Thomas Cook, the founder of the British travel company Thomas Cook & Son, organised his first excursion, escorting about 500 people from Leicester to Loughborough.
- 1922 – Brazilian Army rebels took over Fort Copacabana and launched a rebellion in Rio de Janeiro against the president of Brazil.
- 1944 – Second World War: Canadian troops defeated the last German counterattacks against Carpiquet, Normandy, France.
- 1946 – Named after Bikini Atoll, the site of the nuclear-weapons test Operation Crossroads in the Marshall Islands, the modern bikini was introduced at a fashion show in Paris.
- 1973 – Juvénal Habyarimana (pictured) orchestrated a bloodless coup d'état of the Rwandan government and began a totalitarian dictatorship.
- 2009 – A series of violent riots broke out in Ürümqi, the capital city of Xinjiang in China.
- Joan of the Tower (b. 1321)
- Kenji Ito (b. 1968)
- Lambert Jackson Woodburne (d. 2013)
- Raffaella Carrà (d. 2021)
July 6: Independence Day in Malawi (1964)
Richard III of England
- 1483 – The last monarch of the House of York and the Plantagenet dynasty, Richard III (pictured), was crowned King of England.
- 1916 – First World War: Russian troops won a victory in the Battle of Kostiuchnówka, with the Polish Legions playing a key role on the Austro-Hungarian side.
- 1941 – Second World War: After a three-month siege, the Italian garrison of Saïo (in modern-day Ethiopia) surrendered to Belgian, British and Ethiopian troops.
- 1971 – After visiting several Asian communist countries, Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu gave a speech on a number of neo-Stalinist and socialist-realist ideals, which became known as the July Theses.
- 2013 – Gunmen attacked a secondary school in Mamudo, Yobe State, Nigeria, killing 42 people, mostly students.
- Goar of Aquitaine (d. 649)
- Sophie Blanchard (d. 1819)
- 14th Dalai Lama (b. 1935)
- Bessie Head (b. 1937)
Samantha Smith
- 1575 – A dispute between Sir John Forster and Sir John Carmichael led to a Scottish raid on Northumberland, England, in which 27 men were killed.
- 1911 – Four countries signed the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention, which banned the hunting of seals in the pelagic zone.
- 1963 – The secret police of Ngô Đình Nhu, brother and chief political adviser of South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm, attacked a group of American journalists who were covering a protest during the Buddhist crisis.
- 1983 – After writing a letter to Soviet premier Yuri Andropov, American schoolgirl Samantha Smith (pictured) visited the Soviet Union as Andropov's personal guest, becoming known as "America's Youngest Ambassador".
- 1991 – Yugoslav Wars: The signing of the Brioni Agreement ended the Ten-Day War between SFR Yugoslavia and Slovenia.
- Guru Har Krishan (b. 1656)
- Keanolani (b. 1847)
- Gustav Mahler (b. 1860)
- Fernande Sadler (b. 1869)
Head of a Bear
- 1709 – Great Northern War: Swedish forces under Charles XII were defeated by Russian troops led by Peter the Great at the Battle of Poltava.
- 1776 – The United States Declaration of Independence received its first formal public reading, in Philadelphia.
- 1950 – Korean War: American troops withdrew from Cheonan, in modern-day South Korea, after suffering heavy casualties from a North Korean attack.
- 2014 – German citizen Lars Mittank disappeared from Varna Airport, Bulgaria; his last known movements have been widely watched on YouTube.
- 2021 – Head of a Bear (pictured) sold at auction in London for a total of £8.8 million, a record for a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci.
- Qatr al-Nada (d. 900)
- Saprang Kalayanamitr (b. 1948)
- Etta Lemon (d. 1953)
- Abul Kalam Qasmi (d. 2021)
Donkey Kong cabinet
- 551 – An estimated 30,000 people died when a massive earthquake struck the Roman province of Phoenice.
- 1745 – War of the Austrian Succession: French victory at the Battle of Melle enabled their subsequent capture of Ghent from the Austrian Netherlands.
- 1868 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, including the Citizenship Clause and the Equal Protection Clause, was ratified by the minimum required twenty-eight states.
- 1981 – Nintendo released the arcade game Donkey Kong (cabinet pictured), which featured the debut of Mario, one of the most famous characters in video-game history.
- 2008 – Under the belief that Israel and the United States were planning to attack its nuclear program, Iran conducted the Great Prophet III missile test and war games exercise.
- Anastasius I Dicorus (d. 518)
- Mercedes Sosa (b. 1935)
- Svetolik Dragačevac (d. 1942)
- Toshi Seeger (d. 2013)
July 10: Independence Day in the Bahamas (1973)
Lady Jane Grey
- 1553 – Lady Jane Grey (pictured) was proclaimed the successor to King Edward VI of England, beginning her disputed reign as the "Nine Days' Queen".
- 1806 – Indian sepoys mutinied against the East India Company at Vellore Fort.
- 1913 – The air temperature in Furnace Creek, California, reached 134 °F (56.7 °C), recognized by the World Meteorological Organization as the highest recorded on Earth.
- 1973 – John Paul Getty III, a grandson of the American oil magnate J. Paul Getty, was kidnapped in Rome.
- 2018 – The last members of a junior association football team and their coach were rescued from Tham Luang Nang Non, a flooded cave in northern Thailand.
- Hadrian (d. 138)
- Catherine Cornaro (d. 1510)
- Pong Tiku (d. 1907)
- Dorothy Olsen (b. 1916)
July 11: Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Genocide in Poland (1943)
Sculpture of Zheng He
- 1302 – Franco-Flemish War: Flemish infantry defeated a large French army near Kortrijk at the Battle of the Golden Spurs.
- 1405 – Marking the start of Ming China's treasure voyages, an expeditionary fleet led by Zheng He (depicted) set sail for foreign regions of the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.
- 1792 – The Belfast Harp Festival, an early event in the Gaelic revival, began at the Assembly Rooms.
- 1960 – To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel by Harper Lee featuring themes of racial injustice and the loss of innocence in the Deep South of America, was published.
- 1991 – Shortly after taking off from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 caught fire and crashed, killing all 261 people on board.
- Bardaisan (b. 154)
- Kitty O'Brien Joyner (b. 1916)
- Eusebia Cosme (d. 1976)
- Satoru Iwata (d. 2015)
July 12: Eid al-Mubahalah (Shia Islam, 2023)
Saint Basil's Cathedral
- 1561 – Saint Basil's Cathedral (pictured), located in Red Square, Moscow, was consecrated.
- 1918 – An explosion in the ammunition magazine of the Japanese battleship Kawachi resulted in the deaths of more than 600 officers and crewmen.
- 1963 – Sixteen-year-old Pauline Reade, the first victim of serial killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, disappeared in Gorton, England.
- 1979 – Rowdy fans at Comiskey Park in Chicago stormed the field during a Major League Baseball promotional event at which a crate of disco records was blown up.
- 2006 – Hezbollah forces crossed the Israel–Lebanon border and attacked Israeli military positions while firing rockets and mortars at Israeli towns, sparking a five-week war.
- Bertrada of Laon (d. 783)
- John Komnenos (d. 1067)
- Malala Yousafzai (b. 1997)
- Mau Piailug (d. 2010)
A tape recorder from Nixon's Oval Office
- 1260 – Livonian Crusade: Samogitian forces defeated Teutonic knights and the Livonian Order at the Battle of Durbe.
- 1643 – English Civil War: Royalist forces defeated the Parliamentarians at the Battle of Roundway Down near Devizes, Wiltshire.
- 1913 – While on a campaign in Bulgaria, the Romanian Army suffered a cholera outbreak that led to around 1,600 deaths.
- 1973 – Watergate scandal: Under questioning by Senate investigators, White House deputy chief of staff Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of a secret taping system (tape recorder pictured) in the Oval Office.
- 2003 – French Directorate-General for External Security personnel aborted an operation to rescue Colombian politician Íngrid Betancourt from FARC guerrillas, resulting in a political scandal.
- Wu Yuanheng (d. 815)
- Cataldo Amodei (d. 1693)
- Ba Cụt (d. 1956)
- Leda Valladares (d. 2012)
July 14: Bastille Day in France (1789); Festino di Santa Rosalia begins in Palermo, Italy
Attack on Joseph Priestley's home
- 1791 – The Priestley Riots (depicted), targeting religious dissenters such as Joseph Priestley, began in Birmingham, England.
- 1902 – The medieval St Mark's Campanile in Venice collapsed, also demolishing the Loggetta del Sansovino.
- 1950 – Early in the Korean War, North Korean troops began attacking the headquarters of the American 24th Infantry Division in Taejon, South Korea.
- 1987 – More than 100 mm (3.9 in) of rain fell in a two-and-a-half-hour period in parts of Montreal, causing severe flooding.
- 2016 – A man deliberately drove a truck into crowds in Nice, France, resulting in 86 deaths.
- Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Gloucester (d. 1262)
- Estella Hijmans-Hertzveld (b. 1837)
- Mihran Kassabian (d. 1910)
- Maryam Mirzakhani (d. 2017)
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Surrender of Napoleon
- 1815 – Aboard HMS Bellerophon, French emperor Napoleon (pictured) surrendered to Royal Navy captain Frederick Lewis Maitland, concluding the Napoleonic Wars.
- 1870 – Manitoba was established as a province of Canada following the transfer of Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company.
- 1943 – The all-female Emilia Plater Independent Women's Battalion was formed in the Soviet Union's First Polish Army.
- 1983 – Sega's first home video game console, the SG-1000, was released in Japan.
- 2009 – Caspian Airlines Flight 7908 crashed in northwestern Iran, killing all 168 people aboard.
- Joan Beaufort, Queen of Scots (d. 1445)
- Vilfredo Pareto (b. 1848)
- Nugroho Notosusanto (b. 1930)
- Ebrahim Desai (d. 2021)
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Muhammad I of Granada (red shield)
- 1232 – Muhammad ibn Yusuf (pictured), who later established the Emirate of Granada, the last Muslim state in Spain, was elected the ruler of Arjona.
- 1790 – President George Washington signed the Residence Act, selecting a new permanent site along the Potomac River for the capital of the United States, which later became Washington, D.C.
- 1931 – Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie promulgated the nation's first modern constitution.
- 1983 – A Sikorsky S-61 helicopter operated by British Airways crashed in thick fog in the Celtic Sea, killing 20 of the 26 people on board.
- 2013 – At least 23 students died and dozens more fell ill at a primary school in the Indian state of Bihar after consuming a Midday Meal that was contaminated with pesticide.
- Philip Wodehouse (b. 1773)
- Agnes Weinrich (b. 1873)
- Évariste Kimba (b. 1926)
- Vecihi Hürkuş (d. 1969)
July 17: Marine Day in Japan (2023); Constitution Day in South Korea (1948); World Emoji Day
Russian imperial family, 1913
- 1771 – Dene men, acting as guides to Samuel Hearne on his exploration of the Coppermine River in present-day Nunavut, Canada, massacred a group of about twenty Copper Inuit.
- 1863 – The New Zealand Wars resumed as British forces led by General Duncan Cameron began the invasion of the Waikato.
- 1918 – Russian Revolution: Tsar Nicholas II and his family (pictured) were murdered by Bolsheviks at Yekaterinburg.
- 1968 – Led by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party overthrew Iraqi president Abdul Rahman Arif in a bloodless coup.
- 2007 – TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overran the runway at Congonhas Airport in São Paulo, Brazil, killing 199 people.
- Jadwiga of Poland (d. 1399)
- Rainilaiarivony (d. 1896)
- Barbara Rae-Venter (b. 1948)
- David Kelly (d. 2003)
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54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry storming Fort Wagner
- 1290 – King Edward I issued an edict to expel all Jews from England.
- 1723 – Johann Sebastian Bach directed the first performance of his cantata Erforsche mich, Gott, und erfahre mein Herz in Leipzig.
- 1863 – American Civil War: Led by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, one of the first African-American military units in the Union Army, spearheaded an assault (pictured) on Fort Wagner, South Carolina.
- 1949 – Francisco Javier Arana, the chief of the Guatemalan armed forces, was killed in a shootout with supporters of President Juan José Arévalo.
- 2019 – An arson attack at the studio of Kyoto Animation in Japan led to the deaths of 36 people.
- Abu'l-Hasan Ali ibn al-Furat (d. 924)
- Lucy Smith Millikin (b. 1821)
- Nelson Mandela (b. 1918)
- Amy Gillett (d. 2005)
July 19: Islamic New Year (2023, 1445 AH)
Launch of SS Great Britain
- 998 – Arab–Byzantine wars: After initial Byzantine gains at the Battle of Apamea, a lone Kurdish rider killed Byzantine commander Damian Dalassenos, allowing Fatimid troops to turn the tide of the battle.
- 1843 – SS Great Britain, the first ocean-going ship with both an iron hull and a screw propeller, was launched (pictured) in Bristol, England.
- 1845 – A fire in Manhattan, New York, destroyed 345 buildings, killed 30 people, and caused at least $5 million in damage.
- 1903 – French cyclist Maurice Garin won the first edition of the Tour de France.
- 2014 – Gunmen perpetrated an assault against an Egyptian military checkpoint in the Libyan Desert, killing 22 soldiers.
- Jacopo Tiepolo (d. 1249)
- Margaret Fuller (d. 1850)
- Han Sai Por (b. 1943)
- Galina Prozumenshchikova (d. 2015)
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Special Olympics athletes in 2013
- 1333 – Second War of Scottish Independence: The Scottish-held town of Berwick-upon-Tweed surrendered to English forces, ending a siege led by King Edward III.
- 1867 – The United States Congress established the Indian Peace Commission to seek peace treaties with a number of Native American tribes.
- 1917 – The prime minister of Serbia, Nikola Pašić, and the president of the Yugoslav Committee, Ante Trumbić, signed the Corfu Declaration, agreeing to seek the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.
- 1968 – The first games of the Special Olympics (athletes pictured), for athletes with intellectual disabilities, were held at Soldier Field in Chicago.
- 2001 – The animated film Spirited Away, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, was released, becoming the highest-grossing film in Japanese history until 2020.
- Anne Hutchinson (bapt. 1591)
- Felix Dzerzhinsky (d. 1926)
- Panagiotis Kavvadias (d. 1928)
- Birgitta Ohlsson (b. 1975)
July 21: Belgian National Day (1831)
Yuen Long attack
- 365 – A large earthquake occurred near Crete, triggering a tsunami, and causing widespread destruction around the eastern Mediterranean region.
- 905 – Louis III, Holy Roman Emperor, was captured and blinded during his attempt to restore Carolingian power over Italy by King Berengar I.
- 1918 – World War I: An Imperial German Navy U-boat opened fire on a small convoy of barges and defending aircraft near the American town of Orleans, Massachusetts.
- 2013 – Nour Ahmad Nikbakht, an Iranian diplomat in Yemen, was kidnapped by al-Qaeda militants and held hostage for the next two years.
- 2019 – People returning from anti-extradition bill protests were attacked (pictured) by suspected triad members in Yuen Long, Hong Kong, leaving 45 people injured.
- Geoffrey I, Count of Anjou (d. 987)
- Albert Luthuli (d. 1967)
- Ruth St. Denis (d. 1968)
- Anthony Annan (b. 1986)
July 22: Feast day of Saint Mary Magdalene (Christianity)
Jules-Albert de Dion
- 1298 – First War of Scottish Independence: English forces led by Edward I defeated William Wallace's Scottish troops at the Battle of Falkirk.
- 1864 – American Civil War: Confederate forces unsuccessfully attacked Union troops at the Battle of Atlanta.
- 1894 – Jules-Albert de Dion (pictured) finished first in the world's first motor race, but did not win as his steam-powered car was against the rules.
- 1963 – The United Kingdom granted self-government to Sarawak.
- 1975 – Stanley Forman took the Pulitzer Prize–winning photo Fire Escape Collapse, which spurred action to improve the safety of fire escapes across the United States.
- Mary Wriothesley, Countess of Southampton (b. 1552)
- Indra Lal Roy (d. 1918)
- Albertus Soegijapranata (d. 1963)
- Ursula Franklin (d. 2016)
July 23: Birthday of Haile Selassie (Rastafari)
Megawati Sukarnoputri
- 1319 – A fleet led by the Knights Hospitaller sank 22 of 28 ships of the Turkish Aydinid emirate.
- 1891 – During a visit of the French Navy to Kronstadt in Russia, the two nations reached a secret agreement on a joint response to any future war in Europe.
- 1921 – The first National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party opened in a house in Shanghai.
- 1968 – A shootout between police and a Black power group began in Cleveland, Ohio, sparking three days of rioting.
- 1999 – 47 people, mostly African American, were arrested in Tulia, Texas U.S., for dealing cocaine. Years later, 35 of the 47 were pardoned by the Governor.
- 2001 – Megawati Sukarnoputri (pictured) became the first female president of Indonesia after her predecessor Abdurrahman Wahid was removed from office.
- John Day (d. 1584)
- Tajuddin Ahmad (b. 1925)
- Judit Polgár (b. 1976)
- Lauren Mitchell (b. 1991)
July 24: Pioneer Day in Utah, United States (1847)
Charles de Gaulle
- 1567 – Mary, Queen of Scots, was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son, James VI.
- 1920 – Franco-Syrian War: At the Battle of Maysalun forces of the Arab Kingdom of Syria were defeated by a French army moving to occupy the territory allocated to them by the San Remo conference.
- 1923 – The Treaty of Lausanne was signed to settle part of the partition of the Ottoman Empire, establishing the boundaries of Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey.
- 1967 – During a speech in Montreal, French president Charles de Gaulle (pictured) declared "Long live free Quebec!", a statement that was interpreted as support for Quebec independence from Canada.
- 1998 – A gunman entered the United States Capitol and opened fire, killing two police officers.
- Muhammad ibn Tughj al-Ikhshid (d. 946)
- Simón Bolívar (b. 1783)
- Ada Baker (d. 1949)
- Ingrid Sischy (d. 2015)
July 25: National Day of Galicia
Pratibha Patil
- 1547 – Henry II was crowned King of France at Reims Cathedral.
- 1591 – Eighty Years' War: Dutch and English forces relieved the siege of Knodsenburg in the Spanish Netherlands, having defeated the Duke of Parma's army in the field.
- 1893 – The Corinth Canal was formally opened, bisecting the narrow Isthmus of Corinth in Greece to connect the Ionian Sea's Gulf of Corinth with the Aegean Sea's Saronic Gulf.
- 1950 – Korean War: After American troops withdrew, North Korean forces captured the village of Yongdong in South Korea.
- 2007 – Pratibha Patil (pictured) was sworn in as the first female president of India.
- Sibylla, Queen of Jerusalem (d. 1190)
- James Barry (d. 1865)
- Guillermo Mota (b. 1973)
- Azimzhan Askarov (d. 2020)
July 26: Independence Day in Liberia (1847)
Flag of Stellaland
- 1778 – On the orders of Catherine the Great the first of tens of thousands of Greek and Armenian Christians were removed from Crimea and resettled in Pryazovia.
- 1882 – Boer mercenaries established the Republic of Stellaland (later flag pictured) in land claimed by the United Kingdom as part of British Bechuanaland.
- 1953 – In Short Creek, Arizona, police conducted a mass arrest of approximately 400 Mormon fundamentalists for polygamy.
- 1993 – Asiana Airlines Flight 733 crashed into a mountain during a failed attempt to land at Mokpo Airport, South Korea, leading to the deaths of 68 of the people on board.
- 2012 – The New Irish Republican Army was formed from a merger of a number of dissident republican militant groups.
- Armand de Gontaut (d. 1592)
- Bloeme Evers-Emden (b. 1926)
- Ancelma Perlacios (b. 1964)
- Tetsuji Takechi (d. 1988)
Signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement in Panmunjom
- 678 – Unable to penetrate the city's defences, the Sclaveni gave up their siege of the Byzantine city of Thessalonica.
- 1225 – Saint Mary's Church on Gotland, later to become Visby Cathedral, was consecrated.
- 1943 – As the Surprise Hurricane struck Texas, a United States Army Air Forces pilot made the first reconnaissance flight into a hurricane.
- 1953 – An armistice was signed (pictured) to end hostilities in the Korean War, officially making the division of Korea indefinite by creating a 4 km wide (2.5 mi) demilitarized zone across the Korean Peninsula.
- 2010 – Police in Tokyo found the mummified remains of Sogen Kato, thought to have died in 1978, leading to widespread inquiries into the status of isolated elderly people in Japan.
- Frances Stewart, Duchess of Lennox (b. 1578)
- Elizabeth Plankinton (b. 1853)
- Wu Zhonghua (b. 1917)
- Alfred Duraiappah (d. 1975)
July 28: Statehood Day in Ukraine (2022)
Negroes' Protest a Silent Parade 1917, Universal Animated Weekly newsreel
- 1148 – Crusades: The siege of Damascus ended in a decisive victory for the Muslims, leading to the disintegration of the Second Crusade.
- 1821 – Peruvian War of Independence: Argentine general José de San Martín declared the independence of Peru from the Spanish Empire.
- 1917 – In New York City, the NAACP and church and community leaders organized a silent march (newsreel footage featured) of at least 8,000 people to protest violence directed towards African Americans.
- 1976 – An earthquake registering 7.6 Mw, one of the deadliest in history, devastated Tangshan, China, and killed at least 240,000 people.
- 2001 – At the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, Australian Ian Thorpe became the first swimmer to win six gold medals at a single FINA world championship.
- Athanasius I Gammolo (d. 631)
- Marguerite Louise d'Orléans (b. 1645)
- R. A. B. Mynors (b. 1903)
- Huma Qureshi (b. 1986)
July 29: Torch Festival in China (2024)
Battle of Kleidion, depicted in the Madrid Skylitzes
- 1014 – Byzantine–Bulgarian wars: Byzantine forces defeated troops of the Bulgarian Empire at the Battle of Kleidion (pictured) in the mountains of Belasica near present-day Klyuch.
- 1900 – Italian-American anarchist Gaetano Bresci assassinated King Umberto I of Italy in Monza.
- 1914 – The Cape Cod Canal, connecting Cape Cod Bay and Buzzards Bay in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, opened on a limited basis.
- 1954 – The Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of J. R. R. Tolkien's high-fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings, was published by Allen & Unwin.
- 1981 – An estimated worldwide television audience of 750 million watched the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul's Cathedral in London.
- Offa of Mercia (d. 796)
- Francisco Rodrigues da Cruz (b. 1859)
- Nancy Kassebaum (b. 1932)
- Oliver Dragojević (d. 2018)
Brother Jonathan
- 1811 – Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, leader of the Mexican War of Independence, was executed by Spanish forces in Chihuahua City, Mexico.
- 1865 – Off the coast of Crescent City, California, the steamer Brother Jonathan (depicted) struck an uncharted rock and sank, killing 225 people; its cargo of gold coins was not retrieved until 1996.
- 1930 – In Montevideo, the Uruguay national football team won the first FIFA World Cup.
- 1950 – At the height of a political crisis known as the royal question, four workers were shot dead by the Belgian Gendarmerie at a strike in Grâce-Berleur.
- 2006 – Lebanon War: The Israeli Air Force attacked a three-story building near the Lebanese village of Qana, killing at least 28 civilians, including 16 children.
- Jacob Baradaeus (d. 578)
- Smedley Butler (b. 1881)
- Walter Schuck (b. 1920)
- Maeve Binchy (d. 2012)
July 31: Lā Hae Hawaiʻi (Flag Day) and Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea (Sovereignty Restoration Day) in Hawaii (1843)
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Free Derry Corner
- 1966 – The pleasure cruiser MV Darlwyne disappeared off the coast of Cornwall with the loss of all 31 people aboard.
- 1972 – The Troubles: Hours after the British Army's Operation Motorman brought an end to the self-declared autonomous area of Free Derry (Free Derry Corner pictured) in Northern Ireland, three car bombs exploded in the village of Claudy.
- 2000 – Three years after being hit by a mudslide, the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery in Hong Kong fully reopened.
- 2006 – Following intestinal surgery, Fidel Castro provisionally transferred the duties of the Cuban presidency to his brother Raúl.
- 2014 – Gas explosions in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, killed 32 people and injured 321 others.
- Feng Xingxi (d. 910)
- Marion Talbot (b. 1858)
- José Santamaría (b. 1929)
- Nabarun Bhattacharya (d. 2014)
Selected anniversaries / On this day archive
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Selected anniversaries for August edit
August 1: Lughnasadh in the Northern Hemisphere; Buwan ng Wika begins in the Philippines; PLA Day in China (1927)
Joseph Priestley
- 30 BC – War of Actium: Octavian defeated the forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Alexandria, establishing Roman Egypt.
- 902 – Arab–Byzantine wars: Led by Ibrahim II of Ifriqiya, Aghlabid forces captured the Byzantine stronghold of Taormina, concluding the Muslim conquest of Sicily.
- 1774 – British scientist Joseph Priestley (pictured) liberated oxygen gas, corroborating the discovery of the element by German-Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
- 1892 – Belgian carillonneur Jef Denyn hosted the world's first carillon concert at St. Rumbold's Cathedral in Mechelen.
- 1911 – Harriet Quimby became the first woman to earn an Aero Club of America aviator certificate.
- Elizabeth Randles (b. 1800)
- Maria Mitchell (b. 1818)
- Lydia Litvyak (d. 1943)
- Abdalqadir as-Sufi (d. 2021)
August 2: Roma Holocaust Memorial Day
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Krishna Lal Adhikari
- 461 – Unpopular among the Senate aristocracy for his reforming efforts, Roman emperor Majorian was deposed by Ricimer and executed five days later.
- 1100 – While on a hunting trip in the New Forest, King William II of England was killed by an arrow through the lung loosed by one of his own men.
- 1790 – The first United States census was officially completed, with the nation's residential population enumerated to be 3,929,214.
- 1920 – Nepalese author Krishna Lal Adhikari (pictured) was sentenced to nine years in prison for publishing a book about the cultivation of corn.
- 1973 – A flash fire killed 50 people at a leisure centre in Douglas, Isle of Man.
- Pope Severinus (d. 640)
- Harriet Arbuthnot (d. 1834)
- Bertha Lutz (b. 1894)
- Simone Manuel (b. 1996)
Krishnamurti in the 1920s
- 1057 – Pope Stephen IX was crowned as pope.
- 1929 – Jiddu Krishnamurti (pictured), believed by some Theosophists to be a likely candidate for the messianic "World Teacher", dissolved the Order of the Star, the organisation established to support him.
- 1940 – World War II: Italian forces began a conquest of British Somaliland, capturing the region in 16 days.
- 1977 – Tandy Corporation announced the TRS-80, one of the world's first mass-produced personal computers.
- 2005 – Mauritanian president Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya was overthrown in a military coup while he attended the funeral of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.
- Empress Dowager Cao (d. 925)
- Alfred Deakin (b. 1856)
- Hilda Rix Nicholas (d. 1961)
- Esther Earl (b. 1994)
Mount Asama
- 1356 – Hundred Years' War: A large-scale mounted raid by Anglo-Gascon forces began under the command of Edward the Black Prince.
- 1783 – Mount Asama (pictured) in Japan began a climactic eruption, which exacerbated the Great Tenmei famine and led to thousands of deaths.
- 1892 – Lizzie Borden's father and stepmother were found murdered in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts; Borden was later tried and acquitted for the murders.
- 1972 – President Idi Amin announced the expulsion of Asians from Uganda.
- 1983 – Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, the president of Upper Volta, was ousted in a coup d'état led by Thomas Sankara.
- Lady Zhen (d. 221)
- Percy Bysshe Shelley (b. 1792)
- Osbert Lancaster (b. 1908)
- Margarito Bautista (d. 1961)
August 5: Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day in Croatia (1995)
Henry I of England
- AD 25 – Liu Xiu proclaimed himself the monarch of the Han dynasty as Emperor Guangwu.
- 1100 – Henry I (pictured) was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.
- 1689 – Beaver Wars: Aggravated by increased French incursions into their territory, a large force of Mohawk warriors substantially destroyed the settlement of Lachine in present-day Quebec.
- 1969 – Police raided a screening of the film Lonesome Cowboys in Atlanta, Georgia, leading to the creation of the Gay Liberation Front.
- 1993 – Wizards of the Coast released Magic: The Gathering, the first trading card game.
- Dorothy Thomas (d. 1846)
- Jerry Pentland (b. 1894)
- Jacquetta Hawkes (b. 1910)
- Kirk Urso (d. 2012)
ALH84001
- 686 – Second Fitna: Pro-Alid forces defeated the Umayyad Caliphate in the Battle of Khazir, allowing them to take control of Mosul in present-day Iraq.
- 1892 – The Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company was founded in Antwerp to exploit natural rubber in the Congo Free State.
- 1930 – New York Supreme Court judge Joseph Force Crater disappeared in Manhattan, in a case that was never solved.
- 1996 – Researchers announced that the meteorite ALH84001 (pictured), discovered in the Allan Hills of Antarctica, may contain evidence of life on Mars, but further tests were inconclusive.
- 2013 – A gas leak caused an explosion that collapsed a building and led to the deaths of 22 people in Rosario, Argentina.
- Josias I, Count of Waldeck-Eisenberg (d. 1588)
- Maria Simon (b. 1918)
- Aniru Conteh (b. 1942)
- Michelle Yeoh (b. 1962)
August 7: Assyrian Martyrs Day (1933)
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Badge of Military Merit
- 1461 – Ming Chinese general Cao Qin staged a failed coup against the Tianshun Emperor.
- 1782 – The Badge of Military Merit (pictured), the precursor to the U.S. Purple Heart, was established as a military decoration of the Continental Army.
- 1897 – Mahdist War: Anglo-Egyptian soldiers clashed with Mahdist Sudanese rebels in the Battle of Abu Hamed.
- 1955 – Hurricane Diane, the first Atlantic hurricane to cause more than $1 billion in damages, formed between the Lesser Antilles and Cape Verde.
- 1987 – Lynne Cox became the first person to swim between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, crossing from Little Diomede to Big Diomede in the Bering Strait in 2 hours and 5 minutes.
- Hugh Foliot (d. 1234)
- Abebe Bikila (b. 1932)
- Richard Sykes (b. 1942)
- Robert Martin Gumbura (d. 2021)
Abbey Road in 2007
- 685 BC – Spring and Autumn period: Amid a succession dispute, the forces of Duke Zhuang of Lu, who was attempting to install a claimant to the Qi throne, were defeated at the Battle of Qianshi.
- 1576 – The cornerstone of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe's observatory Uraniborg was laid on the island of Hven.
- 1914 – The Endurance departed Plymouth, England, on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.
- 1969 – At a zebra crossing (pictured) on Abbey Road in London, Iain Macmillan took the photograph that was used for the cover of the Beatles' album Abbey Road.
- 1988 – Tropical Storm Beryl formed over southeastern Louisiana, making it one of the few tropical cyclones to form over land.
- Emperor Horikawa (b. 1079)
- James Tissot (d. 1902)
- Margaret Urban Walker (b. 1948)
- Robert Kaske (d. 1989)
August 9: International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples; National Women's Day in South Africa (1956)
Sharon Tate
- 1897 – The first meeting of the International Congress of Mathematicians was held in Zürich, Switzerland.
- 1942 – Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 was premiered in Leningrad while the city was under siege by Nazi forces.
- 1956 – About 20,000 women marched on Pretoria, South Africa, to protest the introduction of pass laws for black women under apartheid.
- 1960 – Led by Albert Kalonji, South Kasai declared its unilateral secession from the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville).
- 1969 – Members of the Manson Family invaded a house and murdered American actress Sharon Tate (pictured) and four guests in Los Angeles, before killing two more people the following night.
- Arnold Fitz Thedmar (b. 1201)
- Walter Peeler (b. 1887)
- Philip Larkin (b. 1922)
- Beryl May Dent (d. 1977)
August 10: Qixi Festival in China (2024)
- 1270 – Yekuno Amlak deposed the last Zagwe king and seized the imperial throne of Ethiopia, beginning the reign of the Solomonic dynasty, which would last for more than 700 years.
- 1793 – The Louvre (pyramid pictured) in Paris, today the world's most-visited museum, opened with an exhibition of 537 paintings and 184 objets d'art.
- 1953 – First Indochina War: The French Union withdrew its forces from Operation Camargue against the Việt Minh in central modern-day Vietnam.
- 1988 – The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 became law, authorizing reparations to surviving Japanese Americans interned during World War II.
- 2019 – Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier and convicted sex offender, was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York.
- Therese Forster (b. 1786)
- Eric Harrison (b. 1886)
- Aletta Jacobs (d. 1929)
- Casey Donovan (d. 1987)
August 11: Independence Day in Chad (1960)
DJ Kool Herc
- 1492 – The first papal conclave to be held in the Sistine Chapel elected Roderic Borja as Pope Alexander VI to succeed Innocent VIII.
- 1929 – The first Bud Billiken Parade and Picnic, the oldest and largest African-American parade in the United States, was held in Chicago.
- 1945 – Amid rumors of kidnappings of children by Jews in Kraków, a crowd of Poles took part in a pogrom, resulting in at least one death.
- 1973 – At a party in New York City, Jamaican musician DJ Kool Herc (pictured) began rapping during an extended break, laying the foundation for hip hop music.
- Guttorm of Norway (d. 1204)
- James B. Longacre (b. 1794)
- Enid Blyton (b. 1897)
- Ian McDiarmid (b. 1944)
Sue, the most complete T. rex skeleton found
- 1099 – Crusades: Fatimid forces under al-Afdal Shahanshah began retreating to Egypt after the Battle of Ascalon, concluding the First Crusade.
- 1952 – Thirteen Jewish poets were executed in Moscow for espionage based on false confessions.
- 1969 – The Troubles: Riots erupted in the neighbourhood of Bogside in Derry, and spread across much of Northern Ireland.
- 1985 – Japan Air Lines Flight 123 crashed into Mount Takamagahara in Gunma Prefecture, killing 520 of 524 people on board in the world's worst single-aircraft aviation disaster.
- 1990 – Near Faith, South Dakota, American paleontologist Sue Hendrickson found one of the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons, nicknamed Sue (pictured).
- Jænberht (d. 792)
- Thomas F. Mulledy (b. 1794)
- Aleksandar Đurić (b. 1970)
- Evaline Ness (d. 1986)
Soldier of the Coldstream Guards
- 1650 – General George Monck founded the predecessor to the Coldstream Guards (soldier pictured), the oldest regular regiment of the British Army in continuous active service.
- 1868 – A major earthquake near Arica, Peru (now in Chile), caused an estimated 25,000 casualties; the subsequent tsunami caused considerable damage as far away as Hawaii and New Zealand.
- 1876 – The first Bayreuth Festival, created by Richard Wagner and his wife Cosima to showcase his stage works, was opened with Das Rheingold.
- 1906 – Members of the U.S. Army's all-black 25th Infantry Regiment were accused of killing a white bartender and wounding a white police officer in Brownsville, Texas, despite exculpatory evidence.
- 2010 – After being boarded by Canadian authorities, MV Sun Sea docked in British Columbia and the 492 Sri Lankan Tamil refugee claimants on board were placed into detention.
- al-Muktafi (d. 908)
- Gerard David (d. 1523)
- Marjorie Paxson (b. 1923)
- Yana Kasova (b. 1981)
August 14: Independence Day in Pakistan (1947)
Roosevelt and Churchill
- 1720 – The Spanish Villasur expedition, intended to slow the progress of French influence on the Great Plains of North America, ended in failure when it was ambushed by Pawnee and Otoe forces.
- 1941 – After a secret meeting in Newfoundland, British prime minister Winston Churchill and U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt (both pictured) issued the Atlantic Charter, establishing a vision for a post–World War II world.
- 1975 – The Rocky Horror Picture Show premiered in London, the first in its record-breaking run in cinemas, which continues in limited release.
- 2013 – Security forces raided two camps of supporters of the ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi in Cairo, leading to the deaths of at least 595 civilians.
- Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell (d. 1691)
- Charlotte Fowler Wells (b. 1814)
- Nüzhet Gökdoğan (b. 1910)
- Hugh Trumble (d. 1938)
August 15: Independence Day in India (1947); National Liberation Day of Korea (1945)
Syngman Rhee
- 1261 – Michael VIII Palaiologos was crowned Byzantine emperor in Constantinople.
- 1812 – War of 1812: Potawatomi warriors ambushed a United States Army convoy after it had evacuated Fort Dearborn, in present-day Chicago, and razed the fort.
- 1941 – Josef Jakobs, a German spy, became the last person executed at the Tower of London.
- 1948 – The Republic of Korea was established with Syngman Rhee (pictured) as its first president.
- 1977 – Big Ear, a radio telescope at Ohio State University received a strong, apparently extraterrestrial radio signal that became known as the Wow! signal.
- Conrad II, Duke of Swabia (d. 1196)
- Johan Gadolin (d. 1852)
- Melinda Gates (b. 1964)
- Rick Rypien (d. 2011)
Skookum Jim Mason
- 1513 – War of the League of Cambrai: English and Imperial forces defeated French cavalry, forcing them to retreat.
- 1896 – A group including George Carmack and Skookum Jim Mason (pictured) discovered gold near Dawson City, Canada, setting off the Klondike Gold Rush.
- 1906 – An earthquake registering approximately 8.2 Mw struck Valparaíso, Chile, killing 3,882 people.
- 1946 – Widespread riots between Hindus and Muslims took place in Calcutta following the All-India Muslim League's call for an independent Pakistan.
- 2009 – At the World Championships in Athletics in Berlin, Usain Bolt ran the 100 metres in 9.58 seconds, breaking his own record set a year earlier.
- Marianos Argyros (d. 963)
- Elsie Inglis (b. 1864)
- Madonna (b. 1958)
- Abu Nidal (d. 2002)
Roosevelt and Churchill in Quebec, with Canadian prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King
- 1676 – Scanian War: Swedish forces defeated Danish troops at the Battle of Halmstad.
- 1915 – A category 4 hurricane made landfall in Galveston, Texas, leaving at least 275 people dead and causing $50 million in damage.
- 1943 – Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt met in a highly secret military conference (pictured) held in Quebec City.
- 1945 – Animal Farm, George Orwell's satirical allegory of Soviet totalitarianism, was first published.
- 1959 – American musician Miles Davis released Kind of Blue, which became one of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed jazz recordings of all time.
- Li Shouzhen (d. 949)
- Katharina von Zimmern (d. 1547)
- Korrie Layun Rampan (b. 1953)
- Saraya Bevis (b. 1992)
August 18: Ghost Festival in China (2024)
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White's discovery of the abandoned Roanoke Colony
- 1590 – John White, governor of the Roanoke Colony, the first English settlement in North America (located in present-day North Carolina), returned after a three-year absence to find it deserted (depicted).
- 1877 – American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered Phobos, the larger of Mars's two moons, six days after discovering Deimos, the smaller one.
- 1919 – Russian Civil War: British motor torpedo boats raided the Bolshevik Baltic Fleet's home base of Kronstadt, sinking a depot ship and damaging a battleship.
- 1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage in the country.
- 1964 – East German Communist Party member Hildegard Trabant was killed while attempting to cross the Berlin Wall.
- Olaf I of Denmark (d. 1095)
- Maria Ulfah Santoso (b. 1911)
- Learned Hand (d. 1961)
- Jack Hobbs (b. 1988)
Painting of the Battle of Lagos
- 1759 – Seven Years' War: Having damaged several French vessels, British ships pursued the remainder of the fleet to Lagos, Portugal, and continued the battle there (depicted) in violation of Portuguese neutrality.
- 1897 – The Bersey Electric Cab entered service as the first electric taxi in London.
- 1950 – The 766th Independent Infantry Regiment of North Korea was disbanded after fighting for less than two months in the Korean War.
- 2003 – A Hamas suicide bomber killed 23 people and wounded more than 130 others, including many Orthodox Jewish children, on a crowded public bus in Shmuel HaNavi, Jerusalem.
- Abu Yazid (d. 947)
- Gene Roddenberry (b. 1921)
- Henry Wood (d. 1944)
- Missy Higgins (b. 1983)
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Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory
- 1707 – The first Siege of Pensacola came to an end with the British and Creek abandoning their attempt to capture Pensacola in Spanish Florida.
- 1910 – Hurricane-force winds combined hundreds of small fires in the U.S. states of Washington and Idaho into the Devil's Broom fire, which burned about 4,700 square miles (12,100 km²), the largest fire in recorded U.S. history.
- 1920 – The American Professional Football Association, a predecessor of the National Football League, was founded.
- 1998 – The Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory (pictured) in Sudan was destroyed by a missile attack launched by the United States in retaliation for the August 7 U.S. embassy bombings.
- 2008 – Spanair Flight 5022 crashed just after take-off from Madrid's Barajas Airport, killing 154 people.
- Jeremi Wiśniowiecki (d. 1651)
- Phil Lynott (b. 1949)
- Andrew Garfield (b. 1983)
- Narendra Dabholkar (d. 2013)
Rocket launcher from the Ghouta chemical attack
- 1716 – Seventh Ottoman–Venetian War: Ottoman forces suddenly abandoned their siege of Corfu, allowing the Republic of Venice to preserve its rule over the Ionian Islands.
- 1945 – American physicist Harry Daghlian accidentally dropped a tungsten carbide brick onto a plutonium bomb core, exposing himself to neutron radiation and later becoming the first Manhattan Project fatality due to a criticality accident.
- 1971 – Six people were killed during an escape attempt and riot at San Quentin State Prison in California; the subsequent trial of six inmates was the longest in state history at the time.
- 1986 – A limnic eruption of Lake Nyos in Cameroon released a cloud of carbon dioxide, suffocating 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock.
- 2013 – Syrian civil war: Areas controlled by the Syrian opposition in Ghouta, Damascus, were attacked by rockets (launcher pictured) containing sarin, killing at least 281 people.
- Juan de Tassis, 2nd Count of Villamediana (d. 1622)
- Emily Tinne (b. 1886)
- Emma Mashinini (b. 1929)
- Jerry Finn (d. 2008)
August 22: Madras Day in Chennai, India (1639)
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Photograph of famine in Calcutta published in The Statesman
- 1639 – The Vijayanagara Empire leased a small strip of land in present-day Chennai, the capital of the present-day Indian state of Tamil Nadu, to the East India Company.
- 1642 – King Charles I raised the royal standard at Nottingham, marking the beginning of the First English Civil War.
- 1914 – First World War: A squadron of the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards attacked a German scout party, the first engagement of British forces on the Western Front.
- 1943 – Ian Stephens, editor of The Statesman, defied British censorship to publish pictures of death and misery (example pictured) on Calcutta's streets, informing the world of the Bengal famine of 1943.
- 1984 – The constitution of Singapore was amended to apportion seats to defeated opposition candidates in Parliament, which had hitherto entirely comprised members of the People's Action Party.
- Claude Debussy (b. 1862)
- George Herriman (b. 1880)
- Alexandros Kontoulis (d. 1933)
- Birger Nerman (d. 1971)
Proclamation of Rebellion
- 1775 – King George III issued a proclamation (copy pictured) that declared elements of the American colonies of Great Britain to be in a state of "open and avowed rebellion".
- 1873 – The Albert Bridge, spanning the River Thames in London, opened to traffic.
- 1933 – The Chesapeake–Potomac hurricane made landfall in the Outer Banks of North Carolina and went on to cause at least 47 deaths in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region.
- 1943 – Second World War: A decisive Soviet victory against German forces at the Battle of Kursk gave the Red Army the strategic initiative for the rest of the war.
- 1954 – The Cruise of the Kings, a royal cruise organised by the Queen Consort of Greece, Frederica of Hanover, departs from Marseille, France.
- Radagaisus (d. 406)
- Evangelos Zappas (b. 1800)
- Denny Bautista (b. 1980)
- James White (d. 1999)
August 24: Feast day of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle (Western Christianity); Independence Day in Ukraine (1991)
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Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.
- 49 BC – Caesar's Civil War: Forces loyal to Julius Caesar led by Gaius Scribonius Curio were defeated by Pompeian Republicans under Publius Attius Varus and King Juba I of Numidia.
- 1643 – A Dutch expedition arrived at the mouth of the Valdivia River, in present-day Chile, to establish a new colony in the ruins of the abandoned Spanish settlement of Valdivia.
- 1662 – The 1662 Book of Common Prayer was legally enforced as the liturgy of the Church of England, precipitating the Great Ejection of Dissenter ministers from their benefices.
- 1963 – Buddhist crisis: The U.S. State Department ordered Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (pictured) to encourage South Vietnamese Army officers to oust Ngo Dinh Diem if he did not willingly remove Ngo Dinh Nhu from his unofficial position of power.
- 2006 – The International Astronomical Union passed a resolution redefining the term planet and classifying Pluto as a dwarf planet.
- Zhang Ye (d. 948)
- Magnus Barefoot (d. 1103)
- Lavinia Fontana (bapt. 1552)
- Anna Lee Fisher (b. 1949)
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Aaliyah
- 1270 – Philip III became King of France following the death of his father Louis IX during the Eighth Crusade.
- 1537 – The Honourable Artillery Company, now the oldest surviving regiment in the British Army, was granted a royal charter by Henry VIII.
- 1875 – Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English Channel, doing so in approximately 21 hours 40 minutes.
- 2001 – American singer Aaliyah (pictured) and several members of her record company were killed when their overloaded aircraft crashed shortly after taking off from Marsh Harbour Airport in the Bahamas.
- 2012 – The NASA space probe Voyager 1 became the first man-made object to enter interstellar space.
- Gratian (d. 383)
- John Neal (b. 1793)
- Zsuzsa Körmöczy (b. 1924)
- Samantha Smith (d. 1985)
August 26: Heroes' Day in Namibia; Women's Equality Day in the United States
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
- 1071 – Byzantine–Seljuk wars: Seljuk Turks led by Alp Arslan captured Byzantine emperor Romanos IV at the Battle of Manzikert.
- 1789 – French Revolution: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (pictured), defining a set of individual and collective rights of the people, was approved by the National Constituent Assembly.
- 1940 – The 1940 New England hurricane formed over the Atlantic Ocean; it would go on to cause widespread damage despite never making landfall in the United States.
- 1968 – The Beatles released "Hey Jude", which became the then-longest single to top the UK charts.
- 1980 – A bomb was planted at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada, which the FBI later described as the most complex improvised explosive device ever created.
- Arnold Fothergill (b. 1854)
- Zona Gale (b. 1874)
- Sophia Parnok (d. 1933)
- Reginald Judson (d. 1972)
August 27: Independence Day in Moldova (1991)
Destroyed buildings after the attack in the Anglo-Zanzibar War
- 410 – The sacking of Rome by the Visigoths ended after three days.
- 1896 – In the shortest recorded war in history (pictured), the Sultanate of Zanzibar surrendered to the United Kingdom after less than an hour of conflict.
- 1955 – The first edition of the Guinness Book of Records was published.
- 1964 – South Vietnamese junta leader Nguyễn Khánh entered into a triumvirate power-sharing arrangement with rival generals Trần Thiện Khiêm and Dương Văn Minh, both of whom had been involved in plots to unseat Khánh.
- 2003 – The planet Mars made its closest approach to Earth in almost 60,000 years.
- Henry Edwards (b. 1827)
- Rufus Wilmot Griswold (d. 1857)
- Don Bradman (b. 1908)
- Ieva Simonaitytė (d. 1978)
Ryugyong Hotel
- 1619 – Ferdinand II, King of Bohemia and Hungary, was unanimously elected Holy Roman Emperor.
- 1789 – William Herschel discovered Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, during the first use of his new telescope which was then the largest in the world.
- 1909 – The 1909 Monterrey hurricane dissipated; one of the deadliest Atlantic tropical cyclones on record, it killed an estimated 4,000 people throughout Mexico.
- 1963 – American civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the speech "I Have a Dream" during the March on Washington, calling for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States.
- 1987 – Construction began on the Ryugyong Hotel (pictured) in Pyongyang, the tallest building in North Korea.
- Emperor Go-Reizei (b. 1025)
- Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine (d. 1793)
- C. Doris Hellman (b. 1910)
- Sora Amamiya (b. 1993)
August 29: Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist (Catholicism, Anglicanism)
Michael Faraday
- 1350 – Hundred Years' War: Led by King Edward III, a fleet of 50 English ships captured at least 14 Castilian vessels and sank several more at the Battle of Winchelsea.
- 1786 – Farmers in western Massachusetts angered by high tax burdens and disfranchisement began an armed uprising led by Daniel Shays against the U.S. federal government.
- 1831 – Michael Faraday (pictured) first experimentally demonstrated electromagnetic induction, leading to the formulation of the law of induction named after him.
- 1960 – Air France Flight 343 crashed while attempting to land at Yoff Airport, Dakar, killing all 63 occupants.
- 2016 – Chen Quanguo became the Chinese Communist Party secretary of Xinjiang, later overseeing the creation of the Xinjiang internment camps.
- Abu Taghlib (d. 979)
- Harriet Leveson-Gower, Countess Granville (b. 1785)
- Orval Grove (b. 1919)
- Kazi Nazrul Islam (d. 1976)
August 30: Victory Day in Turkey (1922)
Guru Ram Das
- AD 70 – First Jewish–Roman War: Roman forces led by Titus set fire to the Second Temple during the Siege of Jerusalem.
- 1574 – Guru Ram Das (pictured) became the fourth of the Sikh gurus, the spiritual masters of Sikhism.
- 1594 – James VI of Scotland held a masque at the baptism of Prince Henry, his first child.
- 1959 – South Vietnamese opposition figure Phan Quang Đán was elected to the National Assembly, despite soldiers being bussed in to vote multiple times for President Ngô Đình Diệm's candidate.
- 2007 – A heavy bomber plane that had been unintentionally loaded with nuclear missiles transported them from North Dakota to Louisiana before they were recognized.
- Abishabis (d. 1843)
- Frieda Fraser (b. 1899)
- Seamus Heaney (d. 2013)
August 31: Independence Day in Malaysia (1957); Romanian Language Day in Moldova and Romania
Cartoon depicting Jack the Ripper as a phantom stalking Whitechapel
- 1218 – Al-Kamil became the fourth sultan of the Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt.
- 1888 – The body of Mary Ann Nichols, the alleged first victim of an unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper (depicted), was found in Buck's Row, London.
- 1942 – The Matagorda hurricane, the most intense and costliest tropical cyclone of the 1942 Atlantic hurricane season, dissipated after causing $26.5 million in damages and eight deaths.
- 1969 – On the final day of the Isle of Wight Festival 1969, an event attended by approximately 150,000 people over three days, Bob Dylan appeared in his first gig in three years.
- 2019 – A sightseeing helicopter crashed in the mountains of Skoddevarre in Alta, Norway, killing all six people on board.
- Aidan of Lindisfarne (d. 651)
- Alma Mahler (b. 1879)
- Feng Tianwei (b. 1986)
- William McAloney (d. 1995)
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Selected anniversaries / On this day archive
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Selected anniversaries for September edit
Illuminated Guru Granth Sahib folio
- 1145 – The main altar of Lund Cathedral, then the Catholic cathedral of all the Nordic countries, was dedicated to Saint Lawrence and the Virgin Mary.
- 1604 – The Guru Granth Sahib (folio depicted), the religious text of Sikhism, was installed in the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
- 1859 – A powerful solar flare caused a coronal mass ejection that struck Earth a few hours later, generating the most intense geomagnetic storm ever recorded and causing bright aurorae visible in the middle latitudes.
- 1911 – Construction began on the Saline Valley salt tram, which during its operation was the steepest tram in the United States.
- 1972 – In a match widely publicized as a Cold War confrontation, American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer became the 11th World Chess Champion with his victory over Soviet Boris Spassky.
- Yasuo Kuniyoshi (b. 1889)
- Alan Dershowitz (b. 1938)
- Doreen Valiente (d. 1999)
- Jang Jin-young (d. 2009)
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September 2: National Day in Vietnam (1945)
Principality of Sealand
- 1789 – The United States Department of the Treasury was founded following financial concerns in the new nation.
- 1792 – French Revolution: Due to an overwhelming fear that foreign armies would attack Paris and prisoners would revolt, revolutionaries began the summary execution of more than a thousand prisoners.
- 1946 – The interim government of India, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, was formed to assist the transition of India from British rule to independence.
- 1957 – South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm began an official visit to Australia, the first by a foreign incumbent head of state to the country.
- 1967 – Paddy Roy Bates proclaimed HM Fort Roughs, a former World War II Maunsell Sea Fort in the North Sea off the coast of Suffolk, England, as an independent sovereign state: the Principality of Sealand (pictured).
- Constantius III (d. 421)
- Liliʻuokalani (b. 1838)
- Horace Silver (b. 1928)
- Barbara McClintock (d. 1992)
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Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne
- 36 BC – The Sicilian revolt against the Second Triumvirate of the Roman Republic ended when the fleet of Sextus Pompey, the rebel leader, was defeated at the Battle of Naulochus.
- 1411 – The Treaty of Selymbria was concluded between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman prince Musa Çelebi.
- 1901 – The flag of Australia flew for the first time, from the Royal Exhibition Building (pictured) in Melbourne.
- 1987 – In a military coup d'état in Burundi, Pierre Buyoya deposed the incumbent president Jean-Baptiste Bagaza while he was abroad in Canada.
- 2017 – North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test at Punggye-ri, causing a magnitude-6.3 earthquake.
- Umar al-Aqta (d. 863)
- Ana Monterroso de Lavalleja (b. 1791)
- Sarah Orne Jewett (b. 1849)
- Ferdinand Rudow (d. 1920)
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Damage from the Canterbury earthquake in Christchurch
- 476 – Germanic leader Odoacer captured Ravenna and deposed Emperor Romulus Augustus, marking the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
- 1800 – French Revolutionary Wars: Facing starvation and a death rate of 100 soldiers per day, the French garrison in Malta surrendered to British forces, ending a two-year siege.
- 1843 – The state wedding of Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies and Emperor Pedro II of Brazil took place at the Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro.
- 1977 – The Golden Dragon massacre took place in Chinatown, San Francisco, leaving five dead and spurring police to end Chinese gang violence in the city.
- 2010 – A magnitude-7.1 earthquake (damage pictured) struck the Canterbury Region of New Zealand, causing two deaths and up to NZ$40 billion in damages.
- Maria of Castile (d. 1458)
- Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester (d. 1588)
- Konstantin Kalser (b. 1920)
- Yoani Sánchez (b. 1975)
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Squeaky Fromme
- 1367 – Swa Saw Ke was crowned the ruler of the Kingdom of Ava in Upper Myanmar.
- 1816 – Facing rising discontent in France, Louis XVIII was forced to dissolve the Chambre introuvable, the legislature dominated by Ultra-royalists.
- 1887 – A fire that killed 186 people broke out at the Theatre Royal, Exeter.
- 1964 – Hurricane Cleo dissipated after causing 156 deaths, mainly in Haiti, and causing roughly US$187 million in damages across the Caribbean and southeastern United States.
- 1975 – Squeaky Fromme (pictured), a devotee of Charles Manson, attempted to assassinate U.S. president Gerald Ford in Sacramento, California.
- Katharina Zell (d. 1562)
- James Innes (d. 1759)
- Archie Jackson (b. 1909)
- Jean-Chrysostome Weregemere (b. 1919)
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September 6: Arba'een / Arba'een Pilgrimage (Shia Islam, 2023); Krishna Janmashtami (Hinduism, 2023); Defence Day in Pakistan (1965)
Hurricane Irma, near Hispaniola.
- 1492 – Christopher Columbus set sail from San Sebastián de La Gomera, before a five-week voyage across the Atlantic to the Americas.
- 1520 – Suleiman I, the longest reigning sultan of the Ottoman Empire, dies at the age of 71.
- 1970 – The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked four airliners, landing two at Dawson's Field in Jordan and one in Cairo, while the last hijacking attempt was foiled.
- 2017 – Hurricane Irma (pictured) reached peak intensity and reached the Carribbean islands of Barbuda, Saint Martin, and Virgin Gorda.
- 2022 – In the United Kingdom, Liz Truss succeeded Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, ending the July 2022 United Kingdom government crisis.
- Isabella Leonarda (b. 1620)
- Geert Wilders (b. 1963)
- Jillian Hall (b. 1980)
- Clive Donner (d. 2010)
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"Benjamin", the last thylacine
- 1652 – Chinese peasants on Formosa (now Taiwan) began a rebellion against Dutch rule which was suppressed four days later.
- 1778 – Anglo-French War: France invaded the Caribbean island of Dominica and captured its British fort before Britain had even learned of the Franco-American alliance.
- 1936 – The last thylacine (pictured) died in captivity in Hobart Zoo, Australia.
- 1940 – Second World War: The Luftwaffe changed their strategy in the Battle of Britain and began bombing London and other cities and towns.
- 2010 – A Chinese fishing trawler operating in disputed waters collided with Japan Coast Guard patrol boats near the Senkaku Islands, sparking a major diplomatic dispute between the two countries.
- Gregory Bicskei (d. 1303)
- John Shakespeare (d. 1601)
- Henry Sewell (b. 1807)
- Grandma Moses (b. 1860)
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September 8: Victory Day in Malta
Flag of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
- 1100 – Theodoric was elected by opponents of Pope Paschal II, following the death of Antipope Clement III.
- 1565 – St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the contiguous United States, was founded by Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.
- 1831 – The Russian Empire suppressed the November Uprising in Poland with the capture of Warsaw after a two-day assault.
- 1954 – Eight nations signed a collective-defense treaty in Manila to create the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (flag pictured), modelled on NATO.
- 1991 – At the Tailhook Association symposium in Las Vegas, US Navy and Marine Corps aviators were alleged to have sexually assaulted 90 persons.
- Amy Robsart (d. 1560)
- Charles Hastings Judd (b. 1835)
- Sabrina Sidney (d. 1843)
- Leah LaBelle (b. 1986)
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John Lennon
- AD 9 – During the Germanic Wars, an alliance of Germanic tribes led by Arminius engaged Roman forces at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, defeating three legions within a few days.
- 1141 – Yelü Dashi, the Liao general who founded the Qara Khitai, defeated Seljuq and Kara-Khanid forces at the Battle of Qatwan, near Samarkand in present-day Uzbekistan.
- 1796 – French Revolutionary Wars: A naval engagement between French and British fleets off the coast of Sumatra ended inconclusively.
- 1954 – An earthquake registering 6.7 Mw struck near Chlef, Algeria, killing over 1,200 people and forcing the government to implement comprehensive reforms in building codes.
- 1971 – Imagine, the second solo album by John Lennon (pictured), was released.
- Honorius (b. 384)
- James Clark (d. 1885)
- Gan Eng Seng (d. 1899)
- Soňa Červená (b. 1925)
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Mike the Headless Chicken
- 1509 – The "Minor Judgement Day" earthquake struck in the Sea of Marmara, devastating much of Constantinople and killing more than 1,000 people.
- 1779 – American Revolutionary War: Captain William Pickles of the Continental Navy boarded and captured the British sloop HMS West Florida at the Battle of Lake Pontchartrain.
- 1945 – Mike the Headless Chicken (pictured) was decapitated on a farm in Colorado; he survived another 18 months as part of sideshows before choking to death.
- 1974 – After centuries of Portuguese rule, the country of Guinea-Bissau was formally recognized as independent.
- 1983 – Typhoon Ellen dissipated after destroying hundreds of homes across Hong Kong and the Philippines.
- Empress Matilda (d. 1167)
- Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos (b. 1823)
- H.D. (b. 1886)
- Abdul Hamid (d. 1965)
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September 11: National Day of Catalonia
United Airlines Flight 175 strikes the World Trade Center's South Tower
- 1297 – First War of Scottish Independence: Scottish forces under Andrew Moray and William Wallace defeated English troops at the Battle of Stirling Bridge on the River Forth.
- 1945 – The Japanese-run camp at Batu Lintang, Sarawak, in Borneo was liberated by the Australian 9th Division, averting the planned massacre of its 2,000-plus Allied POWs and civilian internees by four days.
- 1978 – British medical photographer Janet Parker became the last recorded person to die from smallpox, leading to a debate on whether the virus should be preserved.
- 1995 – Mir EO-19, the nineteenth crewed mission to the Russian space station Mir, returned to Earth after approximately 75 days in space. It was the first Mir expedition launched on an American Space Shuttle.
- 2001 – Al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger airliners headed for California to carry out a series of terrorist attacks (second attack pictured) against targets in New York City and the Washington, D.C., area.
- Stephen Hagiochristophorites (d. 1185)
- Paul Nahaolelua (b. 1806)
- Mary Watson Whitney (b. 1847)
- Issy Smith (d. 1940)
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Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning
- 379 – Yax Nuun Ahiin I took the throne as the ruler (ajaw) of the Mayan city of Tikal.
- 1846 – The English poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning (pictured) eloped to Italy, marrying in secret to avoid their disapproving families.
- 1933 – Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard conceived of the idea of the nuclear chain reaction while waiting for a traffic light in Bloomsbury, London.
- 1948 – The People's Liberation Army launched the Liaoshen campaign, the first of the three major military campaigns during the late stage of the Chinese Civil War.
- 1995 – Hurricane Ismael formed off the southwest coast of Mexico; it went on to kill over a hundred people in the country.
- Parsley Peel (d. 1795)
- Alice Ayres (b. 1859)
- Ion Agârbiceanu (b. 1882)
- Steve Biko (d. 1977)
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Model of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus
- 509 BC – According to Roman tradition, the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (depicted), the most important temple in ancient Rome, was dedicated.
- 1567 – The siege of Inabayama Castle, the final battle in Oda Nobunaga's campaign to conquer Mino Province, began; it culminated in a decisive victory for Nobunaga.
- 1848 – An explosion drove an iron rod through the head of railroad foreman Phineas Gage; his survival and recovery influenced 19th-century discussion of psychology and neuroscience.
- 1919 – The Boston police strike ended after four days of rule by the state militia, the deaths of nine people, and accusations that striking officers were "agents of Lenin".
- 2005 – A software bug caused a simulated pandemic in the online video game World of Warcraft, serving as a model for epidemiologists to understand how human interaction influences disease outbreaks.
- Kavad I (d. 531)
- Laura Secord (b. 1775)
- Lauretta Ngcobo (b. 1931)
- Louis Laybourne Smith (d. 1965)
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HMAS AE1
- AD 81 – Domitian, the last Flavian emperor of Rome, was confirmed by the Senate to succeed his brother Titus.
- 919 – A coalition of native Irish, led by Niall Glúndub, failed in their attempt to drive the Vikings of the Uí Ímair from Ireland.
- 1863 – American Civil War: The Little Rock campaign ended with the Union Army capturing Little Rock, Arkansas.
- 1914 – HMAS AE1 (pictured), the Royal Australian Navy's first submarine, was lost at sea; its wreck was not found until 2017.
- 1989 – Typhoon Sarah dissipated after causing extensive damage along an erratic path across the Western Pacific, killing 71 in Taiwan, the Philippines, and the Gotō Islands.
- Drusus Julius Caesar (d. AD 23)
- Luke P. Blackburn (d. 1887)
- Romola Costantino (b. 1930)
- Mamadou N'Diaye (b. 1993)
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September 15: Battle of Britain Day in the United Kingdom (1940)
Marilyn Monroe posing during filming for The Seven Year Itch
- 1462 – The Ottoman conquest of Lesbos ended upon the surrender of commander Niccolò Gattilusio; the conquering Mehmed II executed 300 Italian soldiers by chopping them in half, claiming he was fulfilling a promise to "spare their heads".
- 1830 – The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&M), the first locomotive-hauled railway to connect two major cities, opened with the Duke of Wellington in attendance.
- 1954 – The scene in The Seven Year Itch of Marilyn Monroe standing in a white dress over a subway grate (pictured) was filmed by Billy Wilder.
- 2013 – The Belarusian serial killer Ivan Kulesh murdered two saleswomen in Lida.
- Stanisław Poniatowski (b. 1676)
- Ayscoghe Boucherett (d. 1815)
- Algernon Lee (b. 1873)
- Linnie Marsh Wolfe (d. 1945)
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Western terminus of the Northern Xinjiang railway
- 681 – At the Third Council of Constantinople, Pope Honorius I was posthumously excommunicated, with his support for monothelitism deemed to be heretical.
- 1844 – Felix Mendelssohn completed the score of the Violin Concerto, his final concerto.
- 1963 – Malaysia was formed as an independent nation from the Federation of Malaya, the Colony of Singapore, the Crown Colony of North Borneo, and the Crown Colony of Sarawak.
- 1979 – Eight people escaped from East Germany to West Germany in a home-made hot air balloon.
- 1990 – Construction of the Northern Xinjiang railway (terminus pictured) was completed between Ürümqi South and Alashankou, linking the railway lines of China and Kazakhstan and adding a sizeable portion to the Eurasian Land Bridge.
- Vitalis of Savigny (d. 1122)
- Elisabeth Bagréeff-Speransky (b. 1799)
- Vesta Tilley (d. 1952)
- Louis Ngwat-Mahop (b. 1987)
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September 17: Mid-Autumn Festival in China (2024); Constitution Day in the United States
Emperor Norton
- 1176 – Byzantine–Seljuk wars: Seljuq Turks prevented Byzantine forces from taking the interior of Anatolia at the Battle of Myriokephalon in Phrygia.
- 1382 – Following the death of Louis I without a male heir, his daughter Mary was crowned with the title of King of Hungary.
- 1859 – Disgruntled with the legal and political structures of the United States, Joshua Norton (pictured) distributed letters to various newspapers in San Francisco proclaiming himself to be Emperor Norton.
- 1894 – The controversial Mormon bishop and prophetic dreamer John Hyrum Koyle began excavating the Dream Mine, which he believed would provide financial support to members of the LDS Church.
- 1914 – Andrew Fisher, whose previous term as Prime Minister of Australia oversaw a period of reform unmatched in the Commonwealth until the 1940s, became prime minister for the third time.
- Li Jingsui (d. 958)
- Marguerite Louise d'Orléans (d. 1721)
- Periyar (b. 1879)
- Hank Williams (b. 1923)
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Interior of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden
- AD 96 – Nerva, the first of the "Five Good Emperors" of ancient Rome, came to power following the assassination of his predecessor Domitian.
- 1809 – The second Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (interior pictured), opened in London after the original was destroyed by fire.
- 1875 – The Indianola hurricane dissipated over Mississippi after killing around eight hundred people in Texas.
- 1961 – An aircraft crashed near Ndola in Northern Rhodesia, resulting in the deaths of United Nations secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld and 15 others on board.
- 1981 – While posing as an aristocrat, Belgian serial killer Nestor Pirotte murdered an antiques dealer in Brussels, for which crime he was sentenced to death.
- Trajan (b. AD 53)
- Liu Sheng (d. 958)
- Betty Cantor-Jackson (b. 1948)
- Jimi Hendrix (d. 1970)
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September 19: Ganesh Chaturthi (Hinduism, 2023); International Talk Like a Pirate Day
Statue of Our Lady of La Salette
- 1692 – Salem witch trials: Giles Corey was crushed to death for refusing to enter a plea to charges of witchcraft, reportedly asking officials for "more weight".
- 1846 – Near La Salette-Fallavaux in southeastern France, shepherd children Mélanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud reported a Marian apparition, now known as Our Lady of La Salette (statue pictured).
- 1940 – World War II: Polish resistance leader Witold Pilecki allowed himself to be captured by German forces and sent to Auschwitz to gather intelligence.
- 1970 – The first Glastonbury Festival was held at Michael Eavis's farm in Glastonbury, England.
- 1995 – Industrial Society and Its Future, the manifesto of American domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski, was published in The Washington Post almost three months after it was submitted.
- Theodore of Tarsus (d. 690)
- Paterson Clarence Hughes (b. 1917)
- Judith Kanakuze (b. 1959)
- Wu Zhonghua (d. 1992)
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Great Buddha of Kamakura
- 1498 – A tsunami caused by the Meiō earthquake washed away the building housing the statue of the Great Buddha (pictured) at Kōtoku-in in Kamakura, Japan; the statue has since stood in the open air.
- 1792 – The French Army achieved its first major victory of the War of the First Coalition at the Battle of Valmy.
- 1967 – L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, announced the story of Xenu in a taped lecture sent to all Scientologists.
- 1997 – Hurricane Erika, the strongest and longest-lasting hurricane of the 1997 Atlantic hurricane season, dissipated after causing flooding and power outages throughout Puerto Rico.
- Susanna Rubinstein (b. 1847)
- Edith Rogers (b. 1894)
- Davidson Nicol (d. 1994)
- Victor Henry Anderson (d. 2001)
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September 21: International Day of Peace
I-80 in western Iowa
- 1170 – Norman invasion of Ireland: English and Irish forces conquered Dublin, forcing Ascall mac Ragnaill, the last Norse–Gaelic king of Dublin, into exile.
- 1823 – According to Joseph Smith, he was first visited by the Angel Moroni, who would guide him to the golden plates that became the basis of the Book of Mormon.
- 1918 – World War I: The Battle of Nazareth ended with the British Empire victorious over the Ottomans.
- 1958 – The first section of Interstate 80 in Iowa (pictured) opened in the Des Moines metropolitan area.
- 2001 – Several British Muslim youths in Peterborough, England, murdered 17-year-old Ross Parker, leading to debate over whether the British media failed to cover racially-motivated crimes with white victims.
- Abu Ishaq Ibrahim (b. 953)
- Virginia Tango Piatti (b. 1869)
- Denny Jones (b. 1910)
- Bertha McNeill (d. 1979)
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François Duvalier
François Duvalier
- 1236 – Livonian Crusade: The Livonian Brothers of the Sword were soundly defeated by pagan Samogitian and Semigallian troops at the Battle of Saule.
- 1789 – The office of United States Postmaster General was formally established.
- 1957 – François Duvalier (pictured), nicknamed Papa Doc, was elected President of Haiti as a populist before consolidating power and ruling as a dictator for the rest of his life.
- 2003 – Dolphin, the first emulator for the GameCube that could run commercial video games, was released.
- 2013 – Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: All Saints Church in Peshawar, Pakistan, was attacked by two suicide bombers who killed 127 people.
- Ibn Khallikan (b. 1211)
- Louise McKinney (b. 1868)
- Ice Box Chamberlain (d. 1929)
- Florence Merriam Bailey (d. 1948)
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September 23: Celebrate Bisexuality Day
Concordat of Worms
- 1122 – Pope Callixtus II and Holy Roman emperor Henry V agreed to the Concordat of Worms (pictured), ending the Investiture Controversy.
- 1642 – First English Civil War: The Battle of Powick Bridge, the first engagement between the primary field armies of the Royalists and the Parliamentarians, ended in a Royalist victory.
- 1884 – The French steamship Arctique ran aground on the northern coast of Cape Virgenes in Argentina; gold was discovered during the rescue effort, triggering the Tierra del Fuego gold rush.
- 1920 – The Louisiana hurricane dissipated over Kansas after forcing around 4,500 people to evacuate and causing $1.45 million in damages.
- 2010 – Teresa Lewis became the first woman to be executed by the U.S. state of Virginia since 1912, and the first woman in the state to be executed by lethal injection.
- Augustus (b. 63 BC)
- Sir Richard Hughes, 1st Baronet (d. 1779)
- Émilie Gamelin (d. 1851)
- Zdenko Blažeković (b. 1915)
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September 24: Heritage Day in South Africa; Independence Day in Guinea-Bissau (1973)
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Norodom Sihanouk
- 1645 – English Civil War: Royalists commanded by King Charles I suffered a significant defeat at the Battle of Rowton Heath.
- 1869 – Jay Gould, James Fisk, and other speculators plotted but failed to control the United States gold market, causing prices to plummet.
- 1890 – Wilford Woodruff, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wrote the first draft of a manifesto that officially disavowed the future practice of plural marriage.
- 1941 – Operation Barbarossa: A Wehrmacht training event known as the Mogilev Conference began, marking an increase in violence against Jews and other civilians in the areas under General Max von Schenckendorff's command.
- 1993 – Norodom Sihanouk (pictured) became King of Cambodia with the restoration of the monarchy after a 23-year interregnum.
- Pope Liberius (d. 366)
- Howard Florey (b. 1898)
- Esther Eng (b. 1914)
- Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine (d. 1950)
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Kaweah Gap, Sequoia National Park
- 844 – Viking expansion: A Viking fleet arrived near Seville, then part of the Emirate of Córdoba, and began a raid of the city that was eventually repelled by Muslim defenders.
- 1790 – Peking opera was born with the introduction of Hui opera to Beijing by the "Four Great Anhui Troupes" in honour of the Qianlong Emperor's 80th birthday.
- 1890 – Sequoia National Park (pictured) was established to conserve giant sequoia trees in an area affected by logging in the southern Sierra Nevada in California.
- 1983 – In one of the largest prison escapes in British history, 38 Provisional Irish Republican Army prisoners hijacked a prison meals lorry and broke out of HM Prison Maze in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
- 2005 – Typhoon Longwang, the deadliest tropical cyclone to hit China in that year, formed just north of the Mariana Islands.
- Harald Hardrada (d. 1066)
- John Lymburn (b. 1880)
- Marian Breland Bailey (d. 2001)
- Wang Bingzhang (d. 2005)
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Replica of the Golden Hind
- 46 BC – Julius Caesar dedicated the Temple of Venus Genetrix in Rome to Venus, the mythical ancestor of his family.
- 1580 – English explorer Francis Drake's galleon the Golden Hind (replica pictured) sailed into Plymouth, completing his circumnavigation of the globe.
- 1928 – The Nationalist government of China adopted Gwoyeu Romatzyh as the official system for the romanization of Mandarin Chinese.
- 1983 – Cold War: Soviet lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov averted a potential nuclear war by identifying as a false alarm signals that appeared to indicate an impending U.S. missile attack.
- 2010 – Scottish aid worker Linda Norgrove and three Afghan colleagues were kidnapped by members of the Taliban in Kunar Province, Afghanistan.
- Hiram Wesley Evans (b. 1881)
- Leo Martello (b. 1930)
- Wendy Saddington (b. 1949)
- Alicja Iwańska (d. 1996)
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Rosetta Stone
- 1822 – In a letter to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris, Jean-François Champollion announced his initial successes in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone (pictured).
- 1851 – The British East India Company inaugurated the Horsburgh Lighthouse on the rocky outcrop of Pedra Branca, Singapore, which later became the subject of a territorial dispute.
- 1917 – The Broadhurst Theatre opened in New York City with a performance of Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw.
- 1975 – Two members of ETA political-military and three members of the Revolutionary Antifascist Patriotic Front, sentenced to death for murder, became the last people to be executed in Spain.
- 1983 – American software developer Richard Stallman announced plans for the Unix-like operating system GNU, the first free software developed by the GNU Project.
- Felice della Rovere (d. 1536)
- Michael Huber (b. 1727)
- Alma Vessells John (b. 1906)
- Bud Powell (b. 1924)
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September 28: Meskel in Ethiopia and Eritrea (2024)
Alexander Fleming
- 235 – Pope Pontian resigned after being exiled to Sardinia, becoming the first pope to relinquish the position; he was reportedly beaten to death with sticks weeks later.
- 1066 – William the Conqueror and his fleet of around 600 ships landed at Pevensey, Sussex, beginning the Norman conquest of England.
- 1901 – Philippine–American War: Filipino guerrillas killed more than forty American soldiers in a surprise attack on the town of Balangiga on the island of Samar.
- 1928 – Scottish biologist and pharmacologist Alexander Fleming (pictured) discovered penicillin when he noticed a bacteria-killing mould growing in his laboratory.
- 1975 – An attempted robbery of Spaghetti House, a restaurant in Knightsbridge, London, turned into a six-day hostage situation.
- Rabbi Akiva (d. 135)
- Elizabeth Maitland, Duchess of Lauderdale (b. 1626)
- Florence Violet McKenzie (b. 1890)
- Guillermo Endara (d. 2009)
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September 29: Michaelmas (Western Christianity)
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Interlocked planes after the Brocklesby mid-air collision
- 1011 – An army of Viking pirates that had besieged the English city of Canterbury for weeks took Archbishop Ælfheah prisoner and seized power.
- 1760 – The Williamsburg Bray School, the oldest-surviving school building in the U.S. dedicated to educating Black children, opened at Benjamin Franklin's suggestion.
- 1833 – The Spanish American wars of independence ended with the death of King Ferdinand VII, with what had once been the Spanish Empire disintegrating into independent Latin American states.
- 1940 – During a Royal Australian Air Force training exercise over Brocklesby, two planes collided and interlocked in mid-air (pictured); the pilot of the upper plane was able to land safely using the lower plane's engines.
- 1954 – Twelve countries signed a convention to establish the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which manages the world's largest particle physics laboratory.
- René Goupil (d. 1642)
- Lilias Armstrong (b. 1882)
- Marcel Lihau (b. 1931)
- Li Qiang (d. 1996)
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September 30: National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada
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Times Square Theater
- 1139 – A violent earthquake struck the Caucasus near Ganja, killing up to an estimated 300,000 people.
- 1791 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, composed shortly before his death, premiered at Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna.
- 1920 – Times Square Theater (pictured) opened on Broadway with a production of The Mirage, a play written by its owner, Edgar Selwyn.
- 1939 – NBC broadcast the first televised American football game, between the Fordham Rams and the Waynesburg Yellow Jackets.
- 2000 – Twelve-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah was shot dead in the Gaza Strip; the Israel Defense Forces initially accepted responsibility but retracted it five years later.
- Adelaide of Vianden (d. 1376)
- Doris Mackinnon (b. 1883)
- Raël (b. 1946)
- Jessye Norman (d. 2019)
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Selected anniversaries / On this day archive
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Selected anniversaries for October edit
October 1: Unification Day in Cameroon (1961); National Day in China (1949); Independence Day in Tuvalu (1978); Filipino American History Month begins
Yosemite Valley
- 959 – Edgar ascended to the English throne upon the death of his brother Eadwig.
- 1386 – The Wonderful Parliament met at Westminster Abbey to address King Richard II's need for money, but soon changed focus to the reform of his administration.
- 1890 – At the encouragement of preservationist John Muir and writer Robert Underwood Johnson, the U.S. Congress established Yosemite National Park (pictured) in California.
- 1918 – First World War: British and Arab troops captured Damascus from the Ottoman Empire.
- 2003 – A levy was imposed on the hiring of foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong, who numbered in the hundreds of thousands at the time.
- Kong Wei (d. 895)
- Caroline Harrison (b. 1832)
- Helen Mayo (b. 1878)
- Nani Alapai (d. 1928)
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October 2: International Day of Non-Violence; Gandhi Jayanti in India
Thurgood Marshall
- 1470 – With King Edward IV of England forced to flee to the Burgundian Netherlands after a rebellion organised by Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, Henry VI was restored to the throne of England.
- 1766 – As part of wider food riots, citizens in Nottingham, England, looted large quantities of cheese; one man was killed during attempts to restore order.
- 1879 – Qing China signed the Treaty of Livadia with the Russian Empire, but the terms were so unfavorable that the Chinese government refused to ratify the treaty.
- 1913 – The Shubert Theatre opened on Broadway with a production of Hamlet.
- 1967 – Thurgood Marshall (pictured) was sworn in as the first African-American justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
- William Drury (b. 1527)
- Thomas Ellison (d. 1904)
- Jack Parsons (b. 1914)
- Priya Cooper (b. 1974)
Battle of the Narrow Seas
- 1392 – Muhammad VII became the twelfth sultan of the Emirate of Granada.
- 1602 – Anglo-Spanish War: An English fleet intercepted and attacked six Spanish ships at the Battle of the Narrow Seas (depicted).
- 1849 – American author Edgar Allan Poe was found semi-conscious and delirious in Baltimore, Maryland, under mysterious circumstances; it was the last time he was seen in public before his death four days later.
- 1952 – The United Kingdom successfully completed a nuclear test, becoming the world's third state with nuclear weapons.
- 1991 – Nadine Gordimer became the first South African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
- Ermengarde of Hesbaye (d. 818)
- Louise Lehzen (b. 1784)
- George Ripley (b. 1802)
- Fakih Usman (d. 1968)
October 4: Cinnamon Roll Day in Sweden and Finland
Seal of Otto IV
- 1209 – Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor (seal pictured), was crowned.
- 1363 – Red Turban Rebellions: The rebel leader Zhu Yuanzhang won the Battle of Lake Poyang by deploying ships intentionally set aflame when the emperor tried to escape.
- 1918 – An ammunition plant in Sayreville, New Jersey, U.S., exploded, killing around 100 people and destroying more than 300 buildings.
- 1957 – The Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
- 2003 – A suicide bomber killed 21 people, including a two-month-old baby, and injured 60 others inside a restaurant in Haifa, Israel.
- Charles Pearson (b. 1793)
- Maurice Wilder-Neligan (b. 1882)
- Henrietta Lacks (d. 1951)
- Gunpei Yokoi (d. 1997)
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