1775 – The U.S. Marines is created – The elite military force capable of operating on land, sea and air was founded in Philadelphia during the American Revolutionary War. A resolution of the Second Continental Congress formed two battalions of Continental Marines that became the forerunners of today’s marine corps.
1444 – Battle of Varna: The crusading forces of King Vladislaus III of Varna (aka Ulaszlo I of Hungary and Wladyslaw III of Poland) are crushed by the Turks under Sultan Murad II and Vladislaus is killed.
1520 – Danish King Christian II executes dozens of people in the Stockholm Bloodbath after a successful invasion of Sweden.
1556 – Russian treasure ship Edward Bonaventure, carrying Ivan the Terrible’s ambassador to Elizabeth 1 of England, was wrecked off Rosehearty, Aberdeenshire
1619 – René Descartes has the dream that inspires his “Meditations on First Philosophy”
1630 – Failed palace revolution in France against Cardinal Richelieu
1674 – Anglo-Dutch War: As provided in the Treaty of Westminster, Netherlands cedes New Netherlands to England
1766 – The last Colonial governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, signs the charter of Queen’s College (later renamed Rutgers University)
1775 – The U.S. Marines is created – The elite military force capable of operating on land, sea and air was founded in Philadelphia during the American Revolutionary War. A resolution of the Second Continental Congress formed two battalions of Continental Marines that became the forerunners of today’s marine corps.
1793 – France ends forced worship of God
1801 – The U.S. state of Tennessee outlawed the practice of dueling.
1808 – Osage Treaty / Treaty of Fort Clark, Osage Nation cedes territory in Missouri and Arkansas to the US
1847 – The passenger ship Stephen Whitney is wrecked thick fog off the southern coast of Ireland, killing 92 of the 110 on board. The disaster results in the construction the Fastnet Rock lighthouse
1865 – Major Henry Wirz, the superintendent of a prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia, is hanged, becoming the only American Civil War soldier executed for war crimes
1871 – Henry M. Stanley, journalist and explorer, found David Livingstone. Livingstone was a missing Scottish missionary in central Africa. Stanley delivered his famous greeting: “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
1879 – Western Union and the National Bell Telephone Company reached a settlement over various telephone patents.
1898 – Wilmington Massacre of 1898 began after an election voted in a biracial city council. In retaliation, white supremacists overthrew the council, destroyed a lot of property and killed many black people in the city over the course of a few days.
1908 – 1st Gideon Bible put in a hotel room
1917 – 41 suffragists were arrested in front of the White House.
1919 – The American Legion held its first national convention, in Minneapolis, MN.
1924 – Dion O’Banion, leader of the North Side Gang is assassinated in his flower shop by members of Johnny Torrio’s gang, sparking the bloody gang war of the 1920s in Chicago
1928 – Playing against Army at Yankee Stadium, Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne gives what is considered the greatest locker room speeches of all time by saying “”Win one for the Gipper.”” The Fighting Irish would win the game 12-6.
1938 – Kate Smith, on her weekly radio show, sings Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America for the first time.”
1940 – Walt Disney begins serving as an informer for the Los Angeles office of the FBI; his job is to report back information on Hollywood subversives.
1953 – Giants end their tour of Japan (players got $331 of $3,000 promised)
1954 – “Marine Corps War Memorial” unveiled in Arlington County, Virginia, dedicated to US Marine Corps who died in defense of US since 1775 (inspired by 1945 Iwo Jima photo of servicemen raising US flag)
1960 – Uncensored version of D. H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” finally goes on sale in the UK after a jury finds publisher Penguin Books not guilty in an obscenity trial
1968 – Portuguese socialist Mário Soares released from banishment in Sao Tomé under new regieme of Marcello Caetano
1969 – “Sesame Street” made its debut on PBS.
1970 – The Great Wall of China opened for tourism.
1971 – In Cambodia, Khmer Rouge forces attack the city Phnom Penh and its airport, killing 44, wounding at least 30 and damaging nine airplanes.
1975 – The Edmund Fitzgerald, an ore-hauling ship, and its crew of 29 vanished during a storm in Lake Superior.
1976 – The Utah Supreme Court gave approval for Gary Gilmore to be executed, according to his wishes. The convicted murderer was put to death the following January.
1979 – CP Rail no. 54 suffers a hot axle box and derails 24 cars containing dangerous commodities, in Mississaugua, Ont. Almost a quarter of a million people were evacuated for periods of up to five days
1980 – CBS News anchor Dan Rather claimed he had been kidnapped in a cab. It turned out that Rather had refused to pay the cab fare.
1982 – In Washington, DC, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was opened to visitors.
1986 – Camille Sontag and Marcel Coudari, two Frenchmen were released by the captors that held them in Lebanon.
1988 – The U.S. Department of Energy announced that Texas would be the home of the atom-smashing super-collider. The project was cancelled by a vote of the U.S. Congress in Oct. 1993.
1993 – The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Brady Bill, which called for a five-day waiting period for handgun purchases.
1994 – U.S. officials announced that it planned to stop enforcing the arms embargo against the Bosnian government the following week. The U.N. Security Council was opposed to lifting the ban.
1995 – Nigeria’s military rulers hanged playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa along with several other anti-government activists.
1997 – A judge in Cambridge, MA, reduced Louise Woodward’s murder conviction to manslaughter and sentenced the English au pair to time served. She had served 279 days in the death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen.
1998 – At the White House, “The Virtual Wall” website (www.thevirtualwall.org) was unveiled. The site allows visitors to experience The Wall through the Internet.
2001 – The World Trade Organization approved China’s membership.
2007 – ¿Por qué no te callas? (“Why don’t you shut up?”) incident between Juan Carlos I of Spain and Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez at Ibero-American Summit in Santiago
2012 – 27 people are killed and dozens injured in a prison conflict in Colombo, Sri Lanka
2015 – Portugal’s minority government is toppled by left-wing opposition 2 weeks after coming to power
2019 – Bolivian President Evo Morales resigns amid widespread protests after national election considered irregular and manipulated
2020 – Ceasefire announced signed between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia ending military conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh region after over a month of fighting
2021 – China and the US announce plans to work together on cutting greenhouse gas emissions at the COP26 summit
2022 – Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban ban women from using public parks and funfairs
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
