624 – Battle of Badr: Muhammad’s Muslim forces win significant victory over Meccan army
1560 – Spanish fleet occupies Djerba, at Tripoli
1639 – Cambridge College, Massachusetts, renamed Harvard for clergyman John Harvard
1656 – Jews are denied the right to build a synagogue in New Amsterdam
1781 – The German-born English astronomer Sir William Herschel discovered the planet Georgium Sidus, later known as Uranus.
1852 – Uncle Sam makes his debut. “Uncle Sam” cartoon appeared for the first time in N.Y. Lantern weekly
1865 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis signs bill authorizing use of slaves as soldiers (US Civil War)
1868 – The Senate began President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial.
1869 – Arkansas legislature passes anti-Ku Klux Klan law
1881 – Alexander II of Russia is assassinated by members of far-left terror group ‘People’s Will’ who throw a bomb at him in the city of St. Petersburg
1900 – In France the length of the working day for women and children is limited by law to 11 hours.
1918 – Leon Trotsky gains control of the Red Army1925 – Tennessee passed a bill prohibiting the teaching of evolution in public schools.
1920 – After the German government is forced to cut its army to 10,000 men, military groups plot an unsuccessful coup – a revolt ended by a general strike
1930 – Clyde W. Tombaugh announced the discovery of the planet Pluto.
1943 – Failed assassin attempt on Adolf Hitler during Smolensk-Rastenburg flight
1943 – German troops liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków. Thousands of men, women and children were murdered by the nazis or deported to extermination camps. The horrific event is portrayed in the film, Schindler’s List.
1950 – General Motors Corporation reports record net earnings of $656,434,232
1957 – Bloody battles in Cuba after the student led “Revolutionary Directorate” attacks the presidential palace in Havana in an unsuccessful attempt to depose dictator Fulgencio Batista
1968 – Nerve gas accident at Skull Valley, Utah, kills 6,000 sheep
1980 – Ford Motor Co found innocent in death of 3 women in a fiery Pinto
1987 – John Gotti, boss of the Gambino crime family, is acquitted of racketeering
1991 – Exxon pays $1-billion dollars in fines & cleanup of Valdez oil spill
1992 – FCC rules companies can own 30 AM & 30 FM stations (formerly 12)
1996 – At Dunblane Primary School, Scotland, 16 children and 1 teacher are shot dead by Thomas Hamilton who then commits suicide. Results in handguns being banned in the UK.
2005 – Terry Ratzmann shoots and kills six members of the Living Church of God and the minister at Sheraton Inn in Brookfield, Wisconsin before killing himself.
2012 – The Encyclopedia Britannica discontinued its print edition after 244 years.
2013 – Pope Francis succeeds Pope Benedict XVI. Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Argentina became the 266th leader of the Catholic Church, which has 1.2 billion members around the world.
2013 – North Korea shreds the Korean Armistice agreement
2018 – US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is fired via a tweet from President Donald Trump
2019 – Home of civil rights activists Medgar and Myrlie Evers established as a national monument in Jackson, Mississippi, by President Donald Trump
2019 – Member of the New York Gambino mob family Frank Cali shot dead outside his home, first killing of a high-ranking mobster since 1985
2019 – US grounds all Boeing 737 Max aircraft after bans by others countries following the plane type’s second crash in Ethiopia
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
