1958 – Peace symbol designed and completed by Gerald Holtom, commissioned by Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment.
1173 – Pope Alexander III canonizes Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury
1245 – Thomas, the first known Bishop of Finland, was granted resignation after having confessed to torture and forgery.
1431 – England begins trial against Joan of Arc
1543 – Battle of Wayna Daga – A combined army of Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeated a Muslim army led by Ahmed Gragn.
1613 – Mikhail I is elected unanimously as Tsar by a national assembly, beginning the Romanov dynasty of Imperial Russia.
1764 – English House of Commons tries John Wilkes in absentia and finds him guilty of publishing a seditious libel for his “Essay on Women,” an obscene parody of Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Man”
1792 – Congress passes Presidential Succession Act
1795 – Freedom of worship established in France under constitution
1808 – Russia invades Finland, then part of the Swedish Kingdom, with 24,000 troops
1842 – John J. Greenough patented the sewing machine.
1848 – The Communist Manifesto was published by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
1857 – Congress outlaws foreign currency as legal tender in US
1858 – The first electric burglar alarm was installed in Boston, MA.
1878 – The first telephone directories issued in the U.S. were distributed to residents in New Haven, CT. It was a single page of only fifty names.
1885 – Washington Monument dedicated in Washington, D.C.
1902 – Dr Harvey Cushing, first US brain surgeon, does his first brain operation
1916 – World War I: Battle of Verdun begins with a German offensive, leads to an estimated 1 million casualties and becomes the longest battle of the entire war (9 months)
1918 – The last Carolina parakeet dies in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.
1925 – The first issue of “The New Yorker” was published.
1931 – Alka Seltzer introduced
1934 – Nicaraguan patriot Augusto César Sandino and three others kidnapped and assassinated by the National Guard in Larreynaga
1941 – US officer Omar Bradley is promoted to the rank of brigadier general
1945 – Battle of Monte Castello (Italy): Allied forces, including the first land battle of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force, defeat Germans after three months of fierce fighting in the foothills of the Apennine Mountains
1947 – Edwin Land demonstrated the Polaroid Land Camera to the Optical Society of America in New York City. It was the first camera to take, develop and print a picture on photo paper all in about 60 seconds. The photos were black and white. The camera went on sale the following year.
1951 – South Carolina House of Representatives urges “Shoeless Joe” Jackson be reinstated by Major League Baseball
1958 – Peace symbol designed and completed by Gerald Holtom, commissioned by Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment.
1960 – Cuban leader Fidel Castro nationalizes all businesses in Cuba.
1965 – Malcolm X was assassinated in New York City at the age of 39 by assassins identified as Black Muslims.
1968 – An agreement between baseball players and club owners increased the minimum salary for major league players to $10,000 a year.
1972 – Richard Nixon becomes the first US President to visit China, normalizing relations between the countries in a meeting with Chinese leader Mao Zedong in Beijing
1973 – Israeli fighter planes shot down a Libyan Airlines jet over the Sinai Desert. More than 100 people were killed.
1975 – Former U.S. Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman were sentenced to 2 1/2 to 8 years in prison for their roles in the Watergate cover-up.
1978 – Electrical workers accidentally discover the Aztec Templo Mayor, or High Temple, two blocks from Mexico City’s central square, the Zócalo
1981 – “Yorkshire Ripper” Peter Sutcliffe, murderer of 13 women, captured
1986 – AIDS patient Ryan White returns to classes at Western Middle School
1988 – In Baton Rouge, LA, TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart confessed to his congregation that he was guilty of an unspecified sin. He announced that he was leaving the pulpit temporarily. Swaggart had been linked to an admitted prostitute.
1989 – U.S. President George H.W. Bush called Ayatollah Khomeini’s death warrant against “Satanic Verses” author Salman Rushdie “deeply offensive to the norms of civilized behavior.”
1991 – USSR announces Iraq agrees to a proposal to end Persian Gulf War US calls the plan unacceptable
1999 – India’s Prime Minister Atal Bihair Vajpayee concluded two days of meeting with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Mohammad Nowaz Sharif.
2004 – The first European political party organization, the European Greens, is established in Rome
2012 – Yemeni voters go to the polls for a presidential election where the only candidate on the ballot paper is vice-president Abd Rabbuh Mansur al-Hadi
2013 – 83 people are killed and 250 are injured in a series of bombing attacks in Damascus, Syria
2016 – Bombings in the Syrian cities of Homs and Damascus kill 140 people, Islamic State claims responsibility
2019 – At Cape Canaveral, FL, SpaceIL launched their Beresheet proble. It was the first privately funded mission to the Moon. The probe crash-landed on the Moon on April 11.
2021 – First democratic transfer of power in Niger, the world’s poorest country, as former interior minister Mohamed Bazoum wins Presidential election
2023 – US President Joe Biden vows unwavering support for Ukraine in a speech from Warsaw Castle, Poland, a day after he made a surprise trip to Ukraine
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
