2007 – Virginia Tech massacre: The deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. The gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, kills 32 people and injures 23 others before committing suicide.
1457 BC – Battle of Megiddo: Egyptian forces of Thutmose III defeat a large Canaanite coalition under King of Kadesh. First battle recorded with a reliable account.
1178 BC – A solar eclipse may have marked the return of Odysseus, legendary King of Ithaca, to his kingdom after the Trojan War
0069 – Otho committed suicide after being defeated by Vitellius’ troops at Bedriacum.
0073 – Masada, a Jewish fortress, falls to the Romans after several months of siege, ending the Jewish Revolt
0556 – Pelagius I began his reign as Catholic Pope.
1065 – The Norman Robert Guiscard took Bari. Five centuries of Byzantine rule in southern Italy ended.
1175 – Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, signed the Treaty of Montebello with the Lombard League.
1245 – Franciscan envoys Giovanni da Pian del Carpine and Benedict to Pole depart Lyon on first Catholic mission to the Mongols. Carpine returns 1247 as first European with account of a Mongolian court
1509 – French army under Louis XII enters the Alps
1705 – Queen Anne of England knighted Isaac Newton.
1746 – The Duke of Cumberland defeated Bonnie Prince Charlie (and his Jacobites) at the battle of Culloden.
1797 – Spithead Mutiny begins: British Royal Navy sailors protest over living and working conditions and pay near Portsmouth
1818 – The U.S. Senate ratified Rush-Bagot amendment to form an unarmed U.S.-Canada border.
1851 – A lighthouse was swept away in a gale at Minot’s Ledge, MA.
1854 – San Salvador was destroyed by an earthquake.
1862 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis approved conscription act for white males between 18 and 35.
1862 – In the U.S., slavery was abolished by law in the District of Columbia.
1881 – In Dodge City, Kansas, Bat Masterson fights his last gun battle
1883 – Paul Kruger became president of the South African Republic.
1905 – Andrew Carnegie donated $10,000,000 of personal money to set up the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
1908 – Natural Bridges National Monument forms (Lake Powell, Utah)
1917 – Vladimir Lenin returns to Russia from exile, The communist revolutionary became leader of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR) later that year. From 1922, he was the first Premier of the Soviet Union.
1918 – The British House of Commons passes a new Military Service Bill, taking men up to 55 years old and extending to Ireland
1922 – Annie Oakley shot 100 clay targets in a row, to set a women’s record.
1922 – The Soviet Union and Germany signed the Treaty of Rapallo under which Germany recognized the Soviet Union and diplomatic and trade relations were restored.
1939 – The Soviet Union proposes an alliance with Britain and France to counter Nazi Germany; the Soviets would later sign a secret agreement with the Nazis
1942 – The Island of Malta is awarded the George Cross in recognition for heroism under constant German air attack. It was the first such award given to any part of the British Commonwealth.
1943 – In Basel, Switzerland, chemist Albert Hoffman accidently discovered the the hallucinogenic effects of LSD-25 while working on the medicinal value of lysergic acid.
1944 – The destroyer USS Laffey survives horrific damage from attacks by 22 Japanese aircraft off Okinawa, earning the nickname “The Ship That Would Not Die.”
1945 – American troops entered Nuremberg, Germany.
1945 – World War II: American troops liberate Colditz Castle, the high-security prisoner of war camp in Saxony, Germany
1947 – In Texas City, TX, the French ship Grandcamp, carrying ammonium nitrate fertilizer, caught fire and blew up. The explosions and resulting fires killed 576 people.
1951 – 75 people were killed when the British submarine Affray sank in the English Channel.
1956 – 1st solar powered radios go on sale
1962 – Walter Cronkite began anchoring “The CBS Evening News”.
1968 – The Pentagon announces the “Vietnamization” of the war.
1972 – Apollo 16 blasted off on a voyage to the moon. It was the fifth manned moon landing.
1972 – Two giants pandas arrived in the U.S. from China.
1975 – The Khmer Rouge Rebels won control of Cambodia after a five years of civil war. They renamed the country Kampuchea and began a reign of terror.
1982 – Queen Elizabeth proclaimed Canada’s new constitution in effect. The act severed the last colonial links with Britain.
1983 – China shelled the Vietnam border in retaliation for raids.
1983 – Brazil detained four Libyan planes en route to Nicaragua after finding weapons, explosives and ammunition on the planes.
1985 – Mickey Mantle was reinstated after being banned from baseball for several years.
1987 – The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sternly warned U.S. radio stations to watch the use of indecent language on the airwaves.
1987 – The U.S. Patent Office began allowing the patenting of new animals created by genetic engineering.
1990 – Supreme Court rejects appeal from retarded man, Dalton Prejean, condemned to death for murdering a Louisiana state trooper in 1977
1992 – Italian financier Carlo de Benedetti and 32 others were convicted of fraud in connection with the 1982 collapse of Banco Ambrosiano.
1992 – The House ethics committee listed 303 current and former lawmakers who had overdrawn their House bank accounts.
1995 – The European Union and Canada agreed to protect threatened fish stocks in the north Atlantic.
1996 – An Italian court found former Prime Minister Bettino Craxi guilty on charges of corruption. He was sentenced to eight years and three months in prison.
2002 – The U.S. Supreme Court overturned major parts of a 1996 child pornography law based on rights to free speech.
2003 – Ten new member states are admitted to the European Union, The Treaty of Accession admitted countries including Poland, Cyprus, and the Czech Republic to the EU. Its original title contains 99 words.
2007 – Virginia Tech massacre: The deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. The gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, kills 32 people and injures 23 others before committing suicide.
2012 – At least 55 people are killed in the Syrian uprising despite UN presence to oversee ceasefire
2012 – The trial of Anders Behring Breivik begins in Oslo, The right-wing extremist had killed 77 people, mostly teenagers, in Oslo with a car bomb and at a youth camp on Utøya island. After doubts about his mental health emerged before the trial, he was sentenced to 21 years in prison.
2014 – South Korean ferry MV Sewol sinks on route Incheon to Jeju, 304 drown, mostly students. National controversy erupts over rescue efforts and actions of crew and owner.
2015 – Elizabeth Holmes, American entrepreneur, inventor, and founder and CEO of Theranos, is named one of TIME’s “100 Most Influential People” of 2015
2020 – 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment in 4 weeks (5.2 million in the last week), wiping out 9 1/2 years of job gains
2021 – Raúl Castro confirms he is resigning as Cuban Communist Party leader, ending his family’s six decade leadership of Cuba
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
