1943 – Witold Pilecki escapes from Auschwitz after having voluntarily been imprisoned there to gain information about the Holocaust
1124 – Scotland’s Alexander I dies at age 46 after a 17-year reign and is succeeded by his brother David, 40, who has ruled in the south since the death of their grandfather Edgar in 1107
1296 – The Scots were defeated by Edward I at the Battle of Dunbar.
1509 – Pope Julius II excommunicated the Italian state of Venice.
1521 – Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was killed by natives in the Philippines.
1565 – The first Spanish settlement in Philippines was established in Cebu City.
1578 – Duel of the Mignons claims the lives of two favorites of Henry III of France and two favorites of Henry I, Duke of Guise.
1650 – The Battle of Carbisdale: A Royalist army invades mainland Scotland from Orkney Island but is defeated by a Covenanter army.
1773 – The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade
1805 – First Barbary War: United States Marines and Berbers attack the Tripolitan city of Derna (The “”shores of Tripoli”” part of the Marines’ hymn)
1813 – Americans under Gen. Pike capture York (present day Toronto) the seat of government in Ontario.
1861 – U.S. President Lincoln issued an order to General Winfield Scott that authorized him to suspend the writ of habeas corpus between Philadelphia and Washington at or near any military line.
Also West Virginia seceded from Virginia after Virginia seceded from the Union
1863 – The Army of the Potomac began marching on Chancellorsville.
1865 – In the U.S. the Sultana exploded while carrying 2,300 Union POWs. Between 1,400 – 2,000 were killed.
1874 – White League, Paramilitary white supremacist organization, forms
1877 – Rutherford B. Hayes removes Federal troops from Louisiana, Reconstruction ends
1880 – Francis Clarke and M.G. Foster patented the electrical hearing aid.
1897 – Grant’s Tomb was dedicated.
1909 – The sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid II, was overthrown.
1910 – Belgian parliament rejects socialist motion for general voting rights
1911 – Following the resignation and death of William P. Frye, a compromise is reached to rotate the office of President pro tempore of the United States Senate
1915 – Counterattack launched by Turkish forces under the command of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk against allied troops
1938 – Geraldine Apponyi married King Zog of Albania. She was the first American woman to become a queen.
1938 – A colored baseball was used for the first time in any baseball game. The ball was yellow and was used between Columbia and Fordham Universities in New York City.
1940 – Himmler issues directive to establish a concentration camp at Auschwitz.
1943 – Witold Pilecki escapes from Auschwitz after having voluntarily been imprisoned there to gain information about the Holocaust
1945 – Last German troops are expelled from Finnish Lapland (the last day of World War II going on in Finland). The day is the national war veteran day in Finland.
1947 – “Babe Ruth Day” was celebrated at Yankee Stadium.
1950 – South Africa passed the Group Areas Act, which formally segregated races.
1953 – The U.S. offered $50,000 and political asylum to any Communist pilot that delivered a MIG jet.
1960 – The submarine Tullibee was launched from Groton, CT. It was the first sub to be equipped with closed-circuit television.
1961 – The United Kingdom granted Sierra Leone independence.
1965 – “Pampers” were patented by R.C. Duncan.
1973 – William D. Ruckelshaus was appointed Acting Director of the FBI by President Nixon following the resignation of L. Patrick Gray III.
1975 – Saigon was encircled by North Vietnamese troops.
1978 – Former Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman is released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months for Watergate-related crimes.
1979 – Ira Attebury, a 64 year old disabled truck driver, opened fire on the Battle of Flowers parade in San Antonio, Texas, killing 2, and injuring 51. He killed himself.
1982 – The trial of John W. Hinckley Jr. began in Washington. Hinckley was later acquitted by reason of insanity for the shooting of U.S. President Reagan and three others.
1984 – In London, Libyan gunmen left the Libyan Embassy 11 days after killing a policewoman and wounding 10 others.
1986 – Captain Midnight (John R. MacDougall) interrupted HBO.
1987 – The U.S. Justice Department bars the Austrian Chancellor Kurt Waldheim from entering the United States, saying he had aided in the deportation and execution of thousands of Jews and others as a German Army officer during World War II.
1992 – The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed in Belgrade by the Republic of Serbia and its ally Montenegro.
1993 – All members of the Zambia national football team lose their lives in a plane crash off Libreville, Gabon in route to Dakar, Senegal to play a 1994 FIFA World Cup qualifying match against Senegal.
1994 – South African citizens of all races are allowed to vote in a general election for the first time
1996 – The Israeli military operation in Lebanon, Operation Grapes of Wrath, ends after 16 days of heavy bombing
1999 – Nevada State Museum discovers the oldest mummy in North America – on the shelves of their own museum, after the Spirit Cave Mummy radiocarbon dates to over 9,400 years old
2005 – Russian President Vladimir Putin became the first Kremlin leader to visit Israel.
2006 – In New York, NY, construction began on the 1,776-foot One World Trade Center on the site of former World Trade Center.
2007 – Estonian authorities remove the Bronze Soldier, a Soviet Red Army war memorial in Tallinn, amid political controversy with Russia
2011 – U.S. President Barack Obama, coerced by incessant false “birther” accusations, publicly releases a copy of his birth certificate
2013 – 10 people are killed and 25 are injured after a bomb attack in Karachi, Pakistan
2018 – Historic Korean summit, the North’s Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in of South Korea agree to officially end Korean war and rid peninsula of nuclear weapons
2019 – Shooter opens fire in a synagogue in Poway, California, killing one and injuring three
2020 – Global confirmed cases of COVID-19 pass 3 million with the death toll at 205,000. US has 1/3 of all new cases.
2022 – SpaceX, launches its Crew Dragon capsule with four astronauts, including Jessica Watkins – becomes 1st black woman to serve extended mission on International Space Station
2023 – Findings from the Zoonomia Project published – where genomes of 240 mammals collected and compared. Reveals 10.7% of the human genome identical to almost all species.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
