1984 – Winston Smith in Orwell’s novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” begins his secret diary in defiance of the totalitarian government of Oceania
1541 – Ignatius of Loyola became the first superior-general of the Jesuits.
1558 – Tsar Ivan IV gives parts of North-Russia to fur traders
1581 – Francis Drake was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I. A few months earlier he became the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world.
1660 – English King Charles II sends Declaration of Breda (freedom of religion)
1687 – King James II ordered that his declaration of indulgence be read in church.
1794 – Battle of Racławice, part of the Polish-Lithuanian uprising led by Tadeusz Kościuszko with a tactical Polish victory
1812 – The territory of Orleans became the 18th U.S. state and will become known as Louisiana.
1814 – Napoleon abdicates for the first time in favour of his son
1818 – A plan was passsed by the U.S. Congress that the U.S. flag would have 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars and that a new star would be added for the each new state.
1841 – U.S. President William Henry Harrison, at the age of 68, became the first president to die in office. He had been sworn in only a month before he died of pneumonia.
1841 – Vice President John Tyler becomes the 10th President of the United States after the death of President William Henry Harrison
1862 – In the U.S., the Battle of Yorktown began as Union General George B. McClellan closed in on Richmond, VA.
1866 – Russian Tasr Alexander II of Russia narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by Dmitry Karakozov in the city of St. Petersburg
1887 – Susanna M. Salter became mayor of Argonia, KS, making her the first woman mayor in the U.S.
1900 – Assassination attempt on Prince of Wales, later British King Edward VII when shot by Jean-Baptiste Sipido in protest over Boer war
1902 – British Financier Cecil Rhodes left $10 million in his will that would provide scholarships for Americans to Oxford University in England.
1905 – In Kangra, India, an earthquake killed 370,000 people.
1912 – Army fires on striking mine workers at Lena-gold fields in Siberia
1917 – The U.S. Senate voted 90-6 to enter World War I on the Allied side.
1918 – The Battle of Somme, an offensive by the British against the German Army ended.
1932 – After five years of research, professor C.G. King, of the University of Pittsburgh, isolated vitamin C.
1939 – Faisal II ascends to throne of Iraq
1941 – Field Marshal Erwin Rommel captures the British held town of Benghazi in North Africa.
1945 – Hungary was liberated from Nazi occupation.
1945 – During World War II, U.S. forces liberated the Nazi death camp Ohrdruf in Germany.
1949 – Twelve nations signed a treaty to create The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
1953 – Fifteen doctors were released by Soviet leaders. The doctors had been arrested before Stalin had died and were accused of plotting against him.
1958 – Cheryl Crane (14), daughter of actress Lana Turner, stabs to death organized crime figure Johnny Stompanato, her mother’s boyfriend, in self-defense; crime later ruled a “justifiable homicide”
1967 – The U.S. lost its 500th plane over Vietnam.
1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated, The civil rights activist was killed by James Earl Ray. Ray, a segregationist, received a 99-year prison sentence. He died in jail in 1998. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/dr-king-is-assassinated
1968 – Riots break out in over 100 cities in the United States following the assassination of African-American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.
1969 – Dr. Denton Cooley implanted the first temporary artificial heart.
1972 – 1st electric power plant fueled by garbage begins operating
1973 – In New York, the original World Trade Center twin towers opened. At the time they were the tallest building in the world.
1975 – More than 130 people, most of them children, were killed when a U.S. Air Force transport plane evacuating Vietnamese orphans crashed just after takeoff from Saigon.
1975 – Bill Gates and Paul Allen establish Microsoft, Microsoft has developed into a multinational corporation, and it is the world’s largest software maker by revenue.
1979 – Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the president of Pakistan, was executed. He had been convicted of conspiring to murder a political opponent.
1981 – Henry Cisneros became the first Mexican-American elected mayor of a major U.S. city, which was San Antonio, TX.
1984 – Winston Smith in Orwell’s novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” begins his secret diary in defiance of the totalitarian government of Oceania
1984 – U.S. President Reagan proposed an international ban on chemical weapons.
1985 – In Sudan, a coup ousted President Nimeiry and replaced him with General Dahab.
1987 – The U.S. charged the Soviet Union with wiretapping a U.S. Embassy.
1988 – Arizona Governor Evan Mecham was voted out of office by the Arizona Senate. Mecham was found guilty of diverting state funds to his auto business and of trying to impede an investigation into a death threat to a grand jury witness.
1990 – In the U.S., securities law violator Ivan Boesky was released from federal custody.
1991 – Pennsylvanian Senator John Heinz and six others were killed when a helicopter collided with Heinz’s plane over a schoolyard in Merion, PA.
1992 – Sali Berisha became the first non-Marxist president of Albania since World War II.
1995 – U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato ridiculed judge Lance Ito using a mock Japanese accent on a nationally syndicated radio program. D’Amato apologized two days later for the act.
1999 – Jack Ma founds Chinese internet company Alibaba
2002 – The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign a peace treaty ending the Angolan Civil War
2008 – Raid on Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints owned YFZ Ranch in Texas; 401 children and 133 women taken into state custody
2010 – Africa’s tallest monument, the African Renaissance Monument, dedicated outside Dakar, Senegal, designed by Pierre Goudiaby to commemorate Senegal’s 50th anniversary of independence
2012 – Somalia’s National Theater is struck by a suicide bomber killing ten people including the presidents of the Somali Olympic Committee and Football Federation
2013 – 9 people have been killed on an axe-murdering rampage in Chhattisgarh state, India
2017 – Chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhoun, Syria by Syrian government forces kills more than 80 civilians
2017 – In Honk Kong, the Pink Star diamond sold at auction for $71 million. The auction set a record for any diamond or jewel. The diamond is a 59.60-carats.
2019 – Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel apologises for the kidnapping of thousands of mixed-race children during colonial period in Burundi, DR Congo and Rwanda
2019 – US Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints pledges to roll back anti-LGBT policies, including not baptizing children of gay parents
2022 – Elon Musk buys 9.2% of Twitter stock, making him the company’s largest shareholder
2022 – Ukrainian government begins a war crimes investigation after 410 civilians found killed after the withdrawal of Russian forces from around Kyiv
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
