Battle of Neville's Cross
1346 Battle of Neville's Cross: King David II of Scotland is captured by Edward III of England at Calais, and imprisoned in the Tower of London for eleven years
- 1387 Monastary of Windesheim consecrated in the Netherlands
- 1404 Cosma de' Migliorati elected Pope Innocentius VII
- 1448 Second Battle of Kosovo, where the mainly Hungarian army led by John Hunyadi were defeated by an Ottoman army led by Sultan Murad II.
- 1456 The University of Greifswald is established, making it the second oldest university in northern continental Europe (also for a period the oldest in Sweden, and Prussia)
- 1483 Tomas de Torquemada appointed inquisitor-general of Spain
Sale of Dunkirk
1662 Charles II of Great Britain sells Dunkirk to France for 2.5 million livres (320,000 English pounds)
Cook's Third Voyage
1776 Captain James Cook arrives in Cape Town with Resolution on his third trip to the Pacific Ocean
- 1777 British General John Burgoyne surrenders at Saratoga during the American Revolutionary War
- 1787 Boston African Americans petition legislature for equal school facilities
- 1797 Peace of Campo Formio: Austrian Dutch possessions & France
- 1800 Dutch colony Curacao transfererd to Great Britain
- 1806 Former leader of the Haitian Revolution, Emperor Jacques I of Haiti is assassinated
- 1808 Political rights of Jews suspended in Duchy of Warsaw
- 1814 London Beer Flood: Bursting vat at Veux & Company Brewery floods city streets with over 300,000 gallons of porter ale, killing eight, plus a possible ninth later from alcohol poisoning [1]
Don Sanche
1825 1st opera by Franz Liszt, "Don Sanche" premieres in Paris
- 1829 1st supposed attack on abandoned German teenager Kaspar Hauser
- 1829 Delaware River & Chesapeake Bay Canal formally opens
Piano Concerto No. 1
1831 Felix Mendelssohn's 1st Piano concert in G, premieres in Munich, Germany, with the composer as soloist
1st British Golf Open
1860 1st British Open Men's Golf, Prestwick GC: Willie Park Sr. wins the inaugural event by two strokes over fellow Scot Tom Morris Sr.
Grant Takes on the Klan
1871 US President Ulysses S. Grant suspends habeas corpus in parts of South Carolina during prosecutions against Ku Klux Klan
Stanley at Lualaba River
1876 Henry Morton Stanley reaches Lualaba River, headstream of the Congo River, goes on to travel down it proving it is not the source of the Nile
Macdonald Re-elected
1878 After serving as the opposition for five years, John A. Macdonald is re-elected as Prime Minister of Canada
- 1885 Baseball sets all players salaries at $1,000-$2,000 for 1885 season
Optical Phonograph
1888 Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie)
Bernhard von Bülow
1900 Bernhard von Bülow becomes German Chancellor
Bank of America Founded
1904 Bank of Italy (Bank of America), founded by Amadeo Giannini, opens its doors in Jackson Square, San Francisco
Transatlantic Wireless
1907 Guglielmo Marconi's company begins the first commercial transatlantic wireless service between Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada and Clifden, Ireland
- 1912 Bulgaria, Greece & Serbia declares war on Turkey
- 1916 Dutch women demonstrate for female suffrage
- 1917 1st British bombing of Germany
- 1918 De Kooy airport in Netherlands opens
- 1918 Yugoslavia proclaims itself a republic
- 1919 Radio Corporation of America (RCA) is created as a subsidiary of General Electric
- 1920 Decatur Staleys, later known as Chicago Bears, play 1st American Professional Football Association game against an affiliated APFA team; beat Rock Island Independents, 7-0 at Douglas Park, Rock Island, Illinois
- 1921 Belgium's public library law goes into force
- 1922 Scottish worker begins hunger march from Glasgow on London
- 1923 Catholic University of Nijmegen opens in the Netherlands
Ban Johnson Retires
1927 Ban Johnson, in failing health, retires as president of MLB's American League
Einstein Arrives in US
1933 Albert Einstein arrives in US as a refugee from Nazi Germany
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
1939 "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", directed by Frank Capra and starring James Stewart and Jean Arthur, is released
Death Railway Completed
1943 Burma Railway built by Allied POWs and Asian laborers is completed for use by the Japanese army
- 1943 Liberators sink U-540 & U-631
Loyalty Day
1945 Loyalty Day in Argentina, mass demonstrations held to release Juan Perón
Around the World in 80 Days
1956 "Around the World in 80 Days", based on the book by Jules Verne, directed by Michael Anderson and starring David Nivon and Cantinflas, premieres in New York
Sports History
1956 Chess "Game of the Century": 13-year-old Bobby Fischer defeats 1953 U.S. Champion Donald Byrne in the Rosenwald Memorial Tournament at the Marshall Chess Club in New York City
- 1956 England's 1st large scale nuclear power station opens
- 1956 Pakistan defeat Australia by nine wickets at 1st attempt
Event of Interest
1957 Britain's Queen Elizabeth & Prince Philip visit the White House
- 1957 Dike Marken-Dutch mainland closed
Nobel Prize in Literature
1957 French author Albert Camus awarded Nobel Prize in Literature
- 1957 II Tsjoendrigar becomes premier of Pakistan
Jailhouse Rock Premieres
1957 Musical film "Jailhouse Rock" starring Elvis Presley premieres in Memphis, Tennessee
Event of Interest
1959 Queen Elizabeth II is fined $140 for withdrawing her race horse
Event of Interest
1961 NASA civilian pilot Joseph A. Walker takes X-15 to 33,100 m
Olympic Gold
1964 Australian athlete Betty Cuthbert takes her 4th career Olympic gold medal as she wins the women's 400m at the Tokyo Games in Olympic record 52.0
- 1964 In the first ever Olympic women's pentathlon Irina Press of the Soviet Union sets a world record 5,246 points to win the gold medal at the Tokyo Games
- 1964 US swimmers go 1-2-3 in the women's 400m individual medley at the Tokyo Olympics; Donna de Varona wins gold in Olympic record 5:18.7 ahead of teammates Sharon Finneran and Martha Randall
- 1965 WBMG TV channel 42 in Birmingham, AL (CBS) begins broadcasting
- 1967 "Hair" premieres on Broadway
Music History
1967 Barbra Streisand stars on "Belle of 14th Street" special on CBS
Event of Interest
1967 Memorial service for Brian Epstein at New London Synagogue
- 1967 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1967 William "Pete" Knight in X-15 reaches 85 km
Bullitt
1968 "Bullitt" directed by Peter Yates and starring Steve McQueen and Jacqueline Bisset is 1st released
- 1968 Björn Ferm of Sweden beats Hungary's András Balczó by just 11 points to take the gold medal in the modern pentathlon at the Mexico City Olympics
- 1968 Soviet athlete Viktor Saneev sets world record 17.39m to win the triple jump at the Mexico City Olympics; world record improved 5 times by 3 different athletes during competition
World Record
1968 US men's 4 x 100m freestyle relay team of Zac Zorn, Stephen Rerych, Ken Walsh & Mark Spitz swim world record 3:31.7 to outclass the Soviet Union & Australia and win the gold medal at the Mexico City Olympics
- 1969 NY Nets move from Comack to Island Garden, Hempstead NY
- 1969 Plastic Ono Band's "Cold Turkey" is released in UK
- 1969 Soyuz 7 returns to Earth
Event of Interest
1970 Anwar Sadat sworn in as the 3rd President of Egypt
- 1971 Cleveland Metroparks' Rocky River Nature Center opens
- 1971 It is estimated today that approximately 16,000 households were withholding rent and rates for council houses as part of the campaign of civil disobedience against internment organised by the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Northern Ireland
- 1972 Bob Randall's "6 Rooms Riv Vu," premieres in NYC
#1 in the Charts
1972 Chuck Berry's "My Ding-a-Lng," is #1
- 1972 The Ulster Defence Association open fire on the British Army in several areas of Belfast
- 1973 OPEC oil ministers use oil as an economic weapon in the Arab-Israeli War, mandating a cut in exports and recommending an embargo against unfriendly states [1]
- 1974 NBA New Orleans Jazz begin a 28-game road losing streak against the Knicks in New York City; their first road victory doesn't come until February
- 1974 NHL Washington Capitals 1st franchise home victory, beating Chicago Blackhawks, 4-3
- 1975 1st Space Shuttle main engine test at National Space Tech Labs, at Pearl River, Mississippi
- 1975 UN drafts a resolution for consideration saying, in part, "Zionism is a form of racism"
- 1976 China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor, PRC
- 1977 Canada begins regular live TV coverage of Parliament
- 1977 West German commandos storm hijacked Lufthansa in Mogadishu, Somalia freeing all 86 hostages & killing 3 of 4 hijackers
- 1978 NY Islanders start a streak of 23 undefeated games at home (15-0-8)
Music History
1978 US President Jimmy Carter presents Congressional Medal to American opera singer Marian Anderson
Event of Interest
1978 US President Jimmy Carter signs bill restoring US citizenship to Civil War era Confederacy President Jefferson Davis
- 1978 USSR performs underground nuclear test
- 1978 Yanks win 22nd World Championship capping their great comeback year
- 1979 D Bautista of Mexico completes 20,000 m walk in record 1:20:06.8
Nobel Peace Prize
1979 Mother Teresa of Calcutta awarded Nobel Peace Prize
- 1979 US President Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating Department of Education
F1 World Champion
1981 Brazilian Nelson Piquet driving for Brabham finishes 5th in the season ending Caesars Palace Grand Prix in Las Vegas to clinch his first Formula 1 World Drivers Championship by 1 point from Carlos Reutemann
- 1982 1st live orchestra on a US commercial network since 1954 (National Symphony)
- 1982 USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR
- 1983 Nobel Prize in Economics awarded to Gérard Debreu
- 1983 STS-9 vehicle moves to Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (Florida) due to SRB nozzle problem
The Sally Jessy Raphael Show
1983 Talk show "The Sally Jessy Raphael Show" with Sally Jessy Raphael debuts on KSDK
- 1984 Nobel prize for chemistry awarded to Bruce Merrifield
- 1985 French author Claude Simon wins the Nobel Prize for Literature
- 1985 Lou Piniella named NY Yankee manager
- 1986 US Senate approved immigration bill prohibiting hiring of illegal aliens & offered amnesty to illegals who entered prior to 1982
Event of Interest
1986 Yitzhak Rabin forms Israeli government
Event of Interest
1987 US First Lady Nancy Reagan undergoes a modified radical mastectomy
- 1988 31 reported dead as Ugandan jetliner crashes in fog near Rome
- 1988 Dallas Green replaces Lou Pinella as manager of NY Yankees
- 1988 Lyndon LaRouche pleads innocent to fraud, conspiracy indictment
- 1988 Phillip Morris announces $11 Billion tender offer for Kraft
Volume 1
1988 Traveling Wilburys release debut album "Volume 1", featuring the single "Handle With Care"; pseudonymous band members include Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, and Tom Petty
Storm Front
1989 Columbia Records releases "Storm Front", singer-songwriter Billy Joel's eleventh studio album
Music History
1990 Green Day singer Billie Joe Armstrong drops out of school to pursue a career in music
Sports History
1991 Ángel Cordero Jr. is 3rd jockey to win 7,000 horse races
- 1991 Blue Man Group's 1st performance in New York City
- 1991 News anchor Bree Walker Lampley files an FCC complaint that LA radio KFI-AM personally attacked her by discussing her having a disformed baby
Sports History
1991 Pitts Penguin Paul Coffey sets NHL defenseman scoring record with 1,053 career points (309 goals & 744 assists)
- 1994 Billy Joel performs opening concert at Cleveland's Gund Arena
- 1995 Keith Moore sentenced to 6 years for robbing Sting of $9,000,000
- 1996 "Taking Sides" opens at Atkinson Theater NYC
- 1998 At Jesse, in the Niger Delta, Nigeria, a petroleum pipeline explodes killing about 1200 villagers, some of whom are scavenging gasoline.
- 2000 Train crash at Hatfield, north of London, leading to collapse of Railtrack
- 2003 Eunuchs in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh float the political party Jiti Jitayi Politics.
- 2003 Pinnacle fitted on the roof of Taipei 101, a 101-floor skyscraper in Taipei, allowing it to surpass the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur by 50 meters (165 feet) to become World's tallest high-rise
The Colbert Report
2005 "The Colbert Report" hosted by Stephen Colbert first airs on US TV
Sports History
2005 Thierry Henry becomes Arsenal's all-time leading scorer with two goals against Sparta Prague in the Champions League
- 2006 The United States population reaches 300 million
Event of Interest
2007 The Dalai Lama receives the United States Congressional Gold Medal
- 2008 Iran's attempt to create the world's largest sandwich (1,500 metres) fails when crowds eat it before it can be measured
Cricket Record
2008 Sachin Tendulkar becomes the highest run-scorer ever in test cricket beating Brian Lara's record and passing 12,000 runs against Australia in Mohali
Canonization
2010 Brother André is the first Canadian to be canonized post Federation by Pope Benedict XVI [1]
Sports History
2012 Lance Armstrong loses a host of endorsements in the wake of his doping scandal
- 2012 Tens of thousands protest against austerity measures in Greece
- 2013 59 people are killed in a wave of attacks on Shia Muslims in Iraq
Amy Schumer: Live at the Apollo
2015 Amy Schumer's comedy special "Amy Schumer: Live at the Apollo" premieres on HBO
Sports History
2015 Star forward Cristiano Ronaldo becomes Real Madrid's all-time leading scorer across all competitions, overtaking club legend Raul with his 324th goal in a 3-0 win over Levante
Event of Interest
2017 George Soros announces he has donated $18 billion to his grantmaking network the Open Society Foundations
- 2017 Islamic State headquarters in Raqqa is declared under full control of the US-led alliance by Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) spokesperson Talal Sello after four months of fighting
Event of Interest
2017 Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declares city of Marawi "liberated" from militants
- 2018 Australian state of Queensland decriminalizes abortion
- 2018 Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch puppeteer Caroll Spinney leaves "Sesame Street" after 50 years
- 2018 Canada legalizes the sale of recreational cannabis, the second country after Uruguay
- 2018 India's junior foreign minister MJ Akbar is highest official to resign in #MeToo case after sexual harassment accusations by numerous women
- 2018 Student shoots and detonates a bomb killing 20 with 40 injured at Kerch polytechnic college, Crimea
The Connors
2018 The revived sitcom "The Conners" debuts on ABC TV starring Sara Gilbert, Laurie Metcalf, and John Goodman, without fired former star Roseanne Barr
Music History
2019 Lana Del Rey's ballad "Video Games" named song of the decade at Q Awards in London
Event of Interest
2019 Mick Mulvaney, President Trump's acting chief of staff says the White House withheld nearly $400 million in military aid from Ukraine to further Trump's own political interests
- 2019 The 'Blob', mysterious yellow slime organism (physarum polycephalum) with 720 sexes, moves and can solve problems to go on display at the Paris Zoological Park
Agreement of Interest
2019 Turkey agrees to a ceasefire in Northern Syria for 5 days to allow withdrawal of Kurdish troops, after talks between US Vice President Mike Pence and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Event of Interest
2019 UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announces new Brexit deal with the EU, removes the Northern Ireland backstop clause
- 2019 US adults identifying as Christian falls 12% in a decade to 2/3 according to the Pew Research Center, born-again Protestants falls to 16%
- 2020 Chicago declared the 'rattiest city' in America for the sixth year in a row by pest control service Orkin
Election of Interest
2020 Labour Party headed by Jacinda Ardern re-elected in a landslide in New Zealand's general election
Ballon d'Or
2022 FIFA Ballon d'Or: Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema wins his first award; Barcelona midfielder Alexia Putellas claims women's award for a second-straight season
- 2022 Shehan Karunatilka is the second Sri Lankan author to win the Booker Prize with his novel "The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida" [1]
Belt and Road Initiative
2023 China's President Xi Jinping celebrates 10 years of its Belt and Rod project at summit in Beijing attended by Russian leader Vladimir Putin [1]
- 2023 India's Supreme Court rules against legalising same-sex marriage and adoption for queer couples [1]
Hamas Leader Killed
2024 Israel claims to have killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, one of the masterminds of the 7 Oct Hamas attack on Israel, during battle in Rafah, Gaza [1]
- 2024 Teen smoking in the US falls to its lowest level in 25 years, decreasing 20% in a year from 2.8 million to 2.25 million, including e-cigarettes [1]
