1963 – Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức immolates himself at a Saigon intersection, creating one of the Vietnam War’s most iconic images
1184 BC – Trojan War: Troy is sacked and burned, according to calculations by Eratosthenes
631 – Emperor Taizong of Tang of China, sends envoys to the Xueyantuo bearing gold and silk for the release of Chinese prisoners captured during transition from Sui to Tang from northern frontier; succeeds in freeing 80,000
1346 – Charles IV of Luxembourg was elected Holy Roman Emperor in Germany.
1488 – Battle of Sauchieburn, rebellion against the Scottish crown results in death of King James III
1509 – King Henry VIII married his first of six wives, Catherine of Aragon.
1594 – Philip II recognizes the rights and privileges of local nobles and chieftains in the Philippines, creating a ruling class of native nobility known as the Principalía
1770 – Captain James Cook discovered the Great Barrier Reef off of Australia when he ran aground.
1776 – Continental Congress creates committee to draft a Declaration of Independence with Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston as members
1837 – The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, fueled by ethnic tensions between English-Americans and Irish-Americans
1878 – DC is given a new government by Congress, 3 commissioners appointed by president (change in 1974)
1889 – The Washington Business High School opened in Washington, DC. It was the first school devoted to business in the U.S.
1891 – Puerto Rican flag adopted
1895 – Charles E. Duryea received the first U.S. patent granted to an American inventor for a gasoline-driven automobile.
1913 – Grand Vizir Mahmud Shevket Pasha is assassinated, resulting in continuing Young Turk terrorism until WWI
1915 – British troops took Cameroon in Africa.
1917 – King Alexander assumes the throne of Greece after his father Constantine I abdicates under pressure by allied armies occupying Athens
1930 – William Beebe dove to a record-setting depth of 1,426 feet off the coast of Bermuda. He used a diving chamber called a bathysphere.
1937 – Soviet leader Josef Stalin began a purge of Red Army generals.
1938 – China launches the 1938 Yellow River flood – In what Steven Dutch, a Professor at the University of Wisconsin, called “the world’s largest act of environmental warfare in history”, the Chinese government created the flood to halt invading Japanese forces.
1939 – King and Queen of England taste 1st “hot dogs” at FDR’s party
1942 – The U.S. and the Soviet Union signed a lend lease agreement to aid the Soviets in their effort in World War II.
1955 – More than 80 people die in the Le Mans car race disaster – In one of history’s worst car racing accidents, Pierre Levegh’s Mercedes crashed into a crowd of spectators and burst into flames.
1959 – Christopher Cockerell first presents the hovercraft – The amphibious air-cushion vehicle first crossed the English Channel just weeks after Cockerell first demonstrated his prototype, the SR.N1. The scheduled “flights” between Dover (U.K.) and Calais (France) were discontinued in 2000.
1959 – Postmaster General bans D H Lawrence’s book, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (overruled by US Court of Appeals in Mar 1960)
1963 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested in Florida for trying to integrate restaurants.
1963 – Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức immolates himself at a Saigon intersection, creating one of the Vietnam War’s most iconic images
1963 – Alabama Gov. George Wallace allowed two black students to enroll at the University of Alabama.
1967 – Israel and Syria accepted a U.N. cease-fire.
1975 – 1st oil pumped from North Sea oilfield
1977 – In the Netherlands, a 19-day hostage situation came to an end when Dutch marines stormed a train and a school being held by South Moluccan extremist. Two hostages and the six terrorists were killed.
1981 – The first major league baseball player’s strike began. It would last for two months.
1984 – US Supreme Court declares illegally obtained evidence may be admitted at trial if it could be proved that it would have been discovered legally
1990 – The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a law that would prohibit the desecration of the American Flag.
1993 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that people who commit “hate crimes” could be sentenced to extra punishment. The court also ruled in favor of religious groups saying that they indeed had a constitutional right to sacrifice animals during worship services.
1996 – Exxon states that it will begin work on its $15-billion Sakhalin I oil and natural gas development in Russia’s Far East
1998 – Mitsubishi of America agreed to pay $34 million to end the largest sexual harassment case filed by the U.S. government. The federal lawsuit claimed that hundreds of women at a plant in Normal, IL, had endured groping and crude jokes from male workers.
1998 – Pakistan announced moratorium on nuclear testing and offered to talk with India over disputed Kashmir.
2002 – Antonio Meucci is acknowledged as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress
2008 – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper made an official historic apology to Canada’s First Nations in regard to a residential school abuse in which children were isolated from their homes, families and cultures for a century
2009 – The World Health Organization declares H1N1 swine flu to be a global pandemic, the first such incident in over forty years
2012 – US territory Puerto Rico votes to become a US State
2014 – Islamic State of Iraq forces seize control of government offices and other important buildings in the northern city of Mosul
2017 – Puerto Rico votes overwhelming in favor of statehood in a status referendum with 97% in favor despite a low turnout of 23%
2018 – Net neutrality is officially repealed by The Federal Communications Commission in the US
2018 – In landmark ruling, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions rejects El Salvador woman’s asylum request based on domestic abuse
2019 – Comedian Jon Stewart delivers angry rebuke to Congress for the lack of funds for 9/11 victims
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
