1993 – U.S. Federal agents raided the compound of an armed religious cult in Waco, TX. The ATF had planned to arrest the leader of the Branch Davidians, David Koresh, on federal firearms charges. Four agents and six Davidians were killed and a 51-day standoff followed.
0202 BC – this day marks the coronation ceremony of Liu Bang as Emperor Gaozu of Han, initiating four centuries of the Han Dynasty’s rule over China”
0364 – Valentinian I is elevated as Roman Emperor.
0870 – The Fourth Council of Constantinople closes.
1646 – Roger Scott was tried in Massachusetts for sleeping in church
1704 – Elias Neau, a Frenchman, opens a school for blacks in New York NY
1708 – Slave revolt, Newton, Long Island NY, 11 die
1759 – Pope Clement XIII allows Bible to be translated into various languages
1778 – Rhode Island General Assembly authorizes enlistment of slaves
1794 – US Senate voids Pennsylvania’s election of Abraham Gallatin
1827 – The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad became the first railroad incorporated for commercial transportation of people and freight.
1844 – US Secretary of State Abel Upshur, Navy Secretary Thomas Gilmer, and several others die when a 12-inch gun aboard the USS Princeton explodes
1849 – Regular steamboat service to California via Cape Horn arrived in San Francisco for the first time. The SS California had left New York Harbor on October 6, 1848. The trip took 4 months and 21 days.
1859 – Arkansas legislature requires free blacks to choose exile or slavery
1861 – The U.S. territory of Colorado was organized.
1878 – Congress overrides US President Rutherford B. Hayes’ veto of the Bland-Allison Act, requiring the Treasury to buy a certain amount of silver and put it into circulation as silver dollars
1879 – “Exodus of 1879” southern blacks flee political/economic exploitation
1885 – AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph) was incorporated. The company was capitalized on only $100,000 and provided long distance service for American Bell.
1897 – Queen Ranavalona III, the last monarch in Madagascar, was deposed by a French military force
1900 – In South Africa, British troops relieved Ladysmith, which had been under siege since November 2, 1899.
1908 – Failed assassination attempt on Shah Mohammed Ali in Tehran
1909 – 1st National Woman’s Day is observed in the United States. Organized by the Socialist Party of America in honor of the 1908 garment workers’ strike in New York, where women protested against working conditions.
1917 – AP reports Mexico & Japan will ally with Germany if US enters WWI
1922 – Egypt regains independence from Britain, but British troops remain
1924 – US begins intervention in Honduras
1933 – 1st female in US Cabinet: Frances Perkins appointed Secretary of Labor
1940 – The first televised basketball game was shown. The game featured Fordham University and the University of Pittsburgh from Madison Square Gardens in New York.
1942 – Race riot at Sojourner Truth Homes, a housing project in Detroit, Michigan
1947 – February 28 Massacre: Anti-government uprising in Taiwan is violently put down by Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomintang-led Republic of China government with the loss of 18,000-28,000 lives. Marks the beginning of the White Terror.
1951 – A Senate committee issued a report that stated that there were at least two major crime syndicates in the U.S.
1953 – In a Cambridge University laboratory, scientists James D. Watson and Francis H.C. Crick discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.
1954 – In San Francisco “Birth of a Planet” was aired. It was the first American phase-contrast cinemicrography film to be presented on television.
1956 – A patent was issued to Forrester for a computer memory core.
1961 – US President John F Kennedy names Henry Kissinger special advisor
1967 – A West German court rules that impostor Anna Anderson failed to prove that she was missing Russian duchess Anastasia Romanov, ending a legal case that lasted almost 30 years
1970 – Bicycles permitted to cross Golden Gate Bridge
1974 – The U.S. and Egypt re-established diplomatic relations after a break of seven years.
1981 – China PR throws out Netherlands ambassador due to submarine sale to Taiwan
1983 – The final episode of M*A*S*H is broadcast in the USA, becoming the most watched television episode in history, with 106125 million viewers in the U.S. (estimate varies by source).
1985 – In Toronto Ontario, publisher Ernst Zundel convicted for distributing hate literature in a book that said the mass extermination of Jews in Germany in World War II never occurred
1986 – Swedish prime minister Olof Palme is assassinated – Even though over 130 people have confessed to the murder, the case has never been solved.
1988 – British television programme “That’s Life!” surprises guest Nicholas Winton with an audience full of grown-up children that he saved from German-occupied Czechoslovakia, bringing them to safety in the UK
1991 – The first Gulf War ends – The armed conflict had lasted a little over half a year and claimed over 100,000 civilian casualties.
1993 – U.S. Federal agents raided the compound of an armed religious cult in Waco, TX. The ATF had planned to arrest the leader of the Branch Davidians, David Koresh, on federal firearms charges. Four agents and six Davidians were killed and a 51-day standoff followed.
1994 – NATO made its first military strike when U.S. F-16 fighters shot down four Bosnian Serb warplanes in violation of a no-fly zone over central Bosnia.
1997 – FBI agent Earl Pitts pleads guilty to selling secrets to Russia
1998 – Serbian police began a campaign to wipe out “terrorist gangs” in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo.
2002 – In Ahmadabad, India, Hindus set fire to homes in a Muslim neighborhood. At least 55 people were killed in the attack.
2004 – Over 1 million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally form a 500-kilometre (300-mile) long human chain to commemorate the 228 Incident in 1947
2007 – NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made a gravitational slingshot against Jupiter to change the planned trajectory towards Pluto.
2008 – Former Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra is arrested on corruption charges upon returning to Thailand after months of exile.
2013 – Benedict XVI resigned as pope. He was the first pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415 and the first to resign voluntarily since Celestine V in 1294.
2016 – Explosion at Severnaya coal mine in Vorkuta, Russia kills 36, including 5 rescuers
2018 – 700 illegal churches closed in Rwanda for being too noisy and lacking building permits
2019 – Summit between North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump collapses without agreement
2021 – Hong Kong charges 47 with “conspiracy to commit subversion” in harshest implementation of its new security laws imposed by China
2022 – Russia shells the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, while a 40 mile Russian military convoy approaches capital city of Kyiv
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
