1959 – Declaration of the Rights of the Child, The United Nations General Assembly adopted the document that laid out the rights of children around the world. The day is also annually celebrated as Universal Children’s Day.
0284 – Roman soldier Diocletian proclaimed Emperor by the army
0762 – Bögü, Khan of the Uyghurs, conquers Lo-Yang, capital of the Chinese Empire
1272 – Edward I proclaimed King of England after death of his father, Henry III. He would take two years to return to England from the Ninth Crusade.
1347 – Cola di Rienzo, later Roman Tribunal, addresses a meeting of on the Capitol during people’s revolt in Rome
1407 – A truce between John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy and Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans is agreed under the auspices of John, Duke of Berry. Orléans would be assassinated three days later by Burgundy.
1521 – Arabs attribute shortage of water in Jerusalem to Jews making wine
1616 – Bishop Richelieu becomes French minister of Foreign affairs/War
1695 – Zumbi, the last King of the Quilombo dos Palmares in early Brazil and ex-slave, is executed and decapitated, his head displayed on a pike to dispel any legends of his immortality
1789 – New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
1795 – Curacao government forbids slave work on Sunday
1815 – Second Treaty of Paris: France and her allies agree France will pay indemnities after Battle of Waterloo, ending the Napoleonic Wars
1818 – Simon Bolivar formally declared Venezuela independent of Spain.
1820 – Whaling ship Essex attacked and sunk by a sperm whale in the southern Pacific, only eight of the 20 crew men eventually survive (through cannibalism). Inspiration for the novel “Moby-Dick”
1829 – Jews expelled from Nikolayev & Sevastopol, Russia
1861 – Secession ordinance is filed by Kentucky’s Confederate government
1894 – US intervenes in Bluefields, Nicaragua
1901 – The second Hay-Pauncefoot Treaty provided for construction of the Panama Canal by the U.S.
1910 – Francisco I. Madero led a revolution that broke out in Mexico.
1911 – The funeral of Paul and Laura Lafargue (daughter of Karl Marx) in Paris is attended by Lenin; the two socialists died in a suicide pact in the belief that their political usefulness was at an end
1914 – US State Department starts requiring photographs for passports
1917 – Ukrainian Republic declared
1936 – Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange is killed by a republican execution squad
1938 – 1st documented anti-semitic remarks over US radio (by Father Coughlin)
1943 – During World War II, U.S. Marines began their landing on Tarawa and Makin atolls in the Gilbert Islands.
1945 – 24 Nazi leaders went before an international war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany.
1947 – Britain’s Princess Elizabeth married Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh in Westminster Abbey.
1949 – Jewish population of Israel reaches 1,000,000
1952 – Slánský trials begin – a series of Stalinist and anti-Semitic show trials in Czechoslovakia.
1959 – Declaration of the Rights of the Child, The United Nations General Assembly adopted the document that laid out the rights of children around the world. The day is also annually celebrated as Universal Children’s Day. World Children’s Day | United Nations
1959 – Britain, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark and Sweden met to create the European Free Trade Association.
1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis ended. The Soviet Union removed its missiles and bombers from Cuba and the U.S. ended its blockade of the island.
1967 – The Census Clock at the Department of Commerce in Washington, DC, went past 200 million.
1969 – The Nixon administration announced a halt to residential use of the pesticide DDT as part of a total phase out of the substance.
1969 – Alcatraz Island, off San Francisco, is seized by militant Native Americans
1970 – The majority in U.N. General Assembly voted to give China a seat, but two-thirds majority required for admission was not met.
1977 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to address Israel’s parliament.
1979 – Islamic extremists led by Juhayman al-Otaybi occupy the Grand Mosque of Mecca, declare the arrival of the Mahdi (the “redeemer of Islam”) in the form of Mohammed Abdullah al-Qahtani and call for the overthrow of the House of Saud. Siege lasts two weeks with 100s killed and sets Saudi Arabia on an ultra-conservative path.
1980 – On Jefferson Island, Louisiana, an oil rig in Lake Pigneur pierced the top of the salt dome beneath the island. The freshwater lake completely drained within a few hours. The Delcambre Canal reversed flow and two days later the previous freshwater lake was a 1,300-foot-deep saltwater lake.
1983 – An estimated 100 million people watched the controversial ABC-TV movie “The Day After.” The movie depicted the outbreak of nuclear war.
1985 – Windows 1.0 released
1986 – Dr. Halfdan Maher, the director of the World Health Organization, announced the first coordinated global effort to fight the disease AIDS.
1986 – Afghanistan President Babrak Karmal flees
1987 – Police investigating the fire at King’s Cross, London’s busiest subway station, said that arson was unlikely to be the cause of the event that took 31 lives.
1988 – Egypt and China announced that they would recognize the Palestinian state proclaimed by the Palestine National Council.
1989 – Over 200,000 people rallied peacefully in Prague, Czechoslovakia, demanding democratic reforms.
1990 – Saddam Hussein ordered another 250,000 Iraqi troops into the country of Kuwait.
1993 – Savings and Loan scandal: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his “dealings” with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating.
1993 – The U.S. Senate passed the Brady Bill and legislation implementing NAFTA.
1994 – The Angolan government and rebels signed a treaty in Zambia to end 19 years of war.
1995 – Princess Diana admitted being unfaithful to Prince Charles in an interview that was broadcast on BBC Television.
1998 – Afghanistan’s Taliban militia offered Osama bin Laden safe haven. Osama bin Laden had been accused of orchestrating two U.S. embassy bombings in Africa and later terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon.
1998 – Forty-six states agreed to a $206 billion settlement of health claims against the tobacco industry. The industry also agreed to give up billboard advertising of cigarettes.
1998 – First module of the International Space Station launched
2001 – The U.S. Justice Department headquarters building was renamed the Robert F. Kennedy building by President George W. Bush. The event was held on what would have been Kennedy’s 76th birthday.
2003 – After the November 15 bombings, a second day of the 2003 Istanbul Bombings occurs in Istanbul, Turkey, destroying the Turkish head office of HSBC Bank AS and the British consulate.
2008 – After critical failures in the US financial system began to build up after mid-September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level since 1997.
2014 – Nearly 5 million illegal migrants in the US have the threat of deportation deferred, after President Barack Obama announces sweeping immigration changes
2016 – South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s controversial friend Choi Soon-sil charged with abuse of authority and coercion amid calls to also impeach the President
2018 – Mississippi 15 week abortion ban overturned by US judge saying it violated women’s constitutional rights
2018 – More than 40 religious scholars killed, at event to mark birth of prophet Mohammed, by a suicide bomber near the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan
2019 – US Ambassador Gordon Sondland testifies in impeachment inquiry that “We followed the president’s orders.” and that “everyone was in the loop” over Ukraine dealings
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
