1972 – Nick Út takes his famous “napalm girl” photo – The Pulitzer Prize-winning image officially entitled “The Terror of War” depicts nine-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc and other Vietnamese children fleeing a napalm attack. It has become one of the best-known symbols for the indescribable sufferings in armed conflicts.
0065 – Jews revolt against Rome, capturing fortress of Antonia in Jerusalem
0452 – Italy was invaded by Attila the Hun.
0793 – The Vikings raided the Northumbrian coast of England.
1191 – King Richard I of England arrives at Acre in modern day Israel to join the Siege of Acre during the Third Crusade
1405 – Richard le Scrope, Archbishop of York and Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Norfolk, are executed in York on the King of England, Henry IV’s orders
1786 – In New York City, commercially manufactured ice cream was advertised for the first time.
1790 – The first loan for the U.S. was repaid. The Temporary Loan of 1789 was negotiated and secured on September 18, 1789 by Alexander Hamilton.
1824 – Washing machine patented by Noah Cushing of Quebec
1861 – Tennessee voted to secede from the Union and joined the Confederacy.
1869 – Ives W. McGaffey received a U.S. patent for the suction vacuum cleaner.
1904 – U.S. Marines landed in Tangiers, Morocco, to protect U.S. citizens.
1905 – US President Theodore Roosevelt sends identical notes to Japan and Russia urging them to negotiate and end hostilities, offering his personal services
1915 – U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan resigned in a disagreement over U.S. handling of the sinking of the Lusitania.
1938 – Gert Terblanche, a local school boy, discovers fossils of an unknown ‘robust-type’ human ancestor, later named Paranthropus robustus by Robert Broom, at Kromdraai, Blaauwbank River Valley in South Africa
1949 – George Orwell publishes Nineteen Eighty-Four – Orwell’s nightmarish description of a totalitarian society set in the year 1984 is one of the most significant works of English literature and one of the best-known novels of all time. The phrase, Big Brother is watching you, stems from this work.
1953 – The U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregated restaurants in Washington, DC.
1959 – 1st official “missile mail” lands (Jacksonville, Florida)
1965 – U.S. troops in South Vietnam were given orders to begin fighting offensively.
1965 – USSR launches Luna 6; it missed the Moon by 99,000 miles
1967 – Israeli airplanes attacked the USS Liberty in the Mediterranean during the 6-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors. 34 U.S. Navy crewmen were killed. Israel later called the incident a tragic mistake due to the mis-identification of the ship. The U.S. has never publicly investigated the incident.
1969 – U.S. President Richard Nixon met with President Thieu of South Vietnam to tell him 25,000 U.S. troops would pull out by August.
1972 – Nick Út takes his famous “napalm girl” photo – The Pulitzer Prize-winning image officially entitled “The Terror of War” depicts nine-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc and other Vietnamese children fleeing a napalm attack. It has become one of the best-known symbols for the indescribable sufferings in armed conflicts.
1978 – A jury in Clark County, Nevada, ruled that the “Mormon will,” was a forgery. The work was supposedly written by Howard Hughes.
1979 – “The Source,” 1st computer public information service, goes on-line
1982 – US President Ronald Reagan addresses the British Parliament in his “ash heap of history” speech
1986 – Alleged Nazi Kurt Waldheim elected President of Austria
1987 – New Zealand becomes a nuclear-free zone – The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987 barred any nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from entering the country. New Zealand was the first country to legislate towards a nuclear-free zone in the 1950s.
1987 – Fawn Hill began testifying in the Iran-Contra hearings. She said that she had helped to shred some documents.
1988 – The judge in the Iran-Contra conspiracy case ruled that Oliver North, John Poindexter, Richard Secord and Albert Hakim had to be tried separately.
1991 – A victory parade was held in Washington, DC, to honor veterans of the Persian Gulf War.
1998 – The space shuttle Discovery pulled away from Mir, ending America’s three-year partnership with Russia.
2008 – The Akihabara massacre took place on the Sunday-pedestrian-zoned Chūōdōri street. A man killed seven in an attack on a crowd using a truck and a dagger.
2012 – A bus bombing in Pakistan kills 18 and injures 35 people
2017 – Ex-FBI chief James Comey testifies to a US Senate committee that US President Donald Trump told “lies plain and simple”
2017 – UN states Islamic State forces have shot and killed hundreds of fleeing civilians during battle for Mosul, Iraq in past two weeks
2018 – WhatsApp rumours of child kidnappers in India prompt two men to be beaten to death by a mob in Karbi Angong district, Assam
2020 – National Bureau of Economic Research announces the US officially entered recession in February, ending the longest expansion of growth since 1854 (11 years)
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
