1994 – The Rwandan genocide begins, The assassination of Rwandan President, Juvénal Habyarimana, and Burundian President, Cyprien Ntaryamira, triggered a mass slaughter of ethnic Tutsis with up to 1 million victims.
46 BC – Julius Caesar defeats Caecilius Metellus Scipio and Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Younger) in the battle of Thapsus.
0774 – Charles the Great (Charlemagne) confirmed the gift to the Pope of the territories belonging to Ravenna made by his father Pepin the Short at Quiercy-sur-Loire in 753
1199 – English King Richard I was killed by an arrow at the siege of the castle of Chaluz in France.
1320 – The Scots reaffirm their independence by signing the Declaration of Arbroath
1607 – An expedition led by Captain Christopher Newport arrived at the Spanish colony of Puerto Rico for supplies before continuing on their journey. On May 14, they went ashore and founded Jamestown, Virginia, as the first permanent English colony in America.
1648 – Construction of the Red Fort completed at Shahjahanabad, Mughal Empire (now Dehli, India)
1652 – Jan van Riebeeck established a settlement at Cape Town, South Africa.
1757 – British King George II dismisses minister William Pitt the Elder, Secretary of State for the Southern Department
1772 – Catherine the Great Empress of Russia, ends tax on men with beards, enacted by Tsar Peter the Great in 1698
1789 – The first U.S. Congress began regular sessions at the Federal Hall in New York City.
1814 – Granted sovereignty in the island of Elba and a pension from the French government, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates at Fontainebleau. He is allowed to keep the title of emperor.
1830 – Joseph Smith and five others organized the Mormon Church in western New York.
1830 – Relations between the Texans and Mexico reached a new low when Mexico would not allow further emigration into Texas by settlers from the U.S.
1862 – The American Civil War Battle of Shiloh began in Tennessee.
1865 – At the Battle of Sayler’s Creek, a third of Lee’s army was cut off by Union troops pursuing him to Appomattox.
1896 – The first modern Olympic Games began in Athens, Greece. 241 athletes from 14 countries took part in the First Olympiad. The event took place over 1500 years after the last ancient Olympic Games, which originated in Olympia in south-western Greece.
1903 – In Holland, railroad and dock workers go out on strike, but the government passes anti-strike bills, calls out troops, and promptly ends the strike on the 13th April
1903 – French Army Nationalists were revealed for forging documents to guarantee a conviction for Alfred Dryfus.
1909 – Americans Robert Peary and Matthew Henson claimed to be the first men to reach the North Pole.
1916 – Charlie Chaplin became the highest-paid film star in the world when he signed a contract with Mutual Film Corporation for $675,000 a year. He was 26 years old.
1917 – The U.S. Congress approved a declaration of war on Germany and entered World War I on the Allied side.
1930 – Hostess Twinkies invented by bakery executive James Dewar
1931 – “Little Orphan Annie” debuted on the NBC Blue network.
1938 – The United States recognized the German conquest of Austria.
1941 – German forces invaded Greece and Yugoslavia.
1945 – “This is Your FBI” debuted on ABC radio.
1945 – Battle of Okinawa: Giant Japanese battleship Yamato heads to Okinawa with orders to beach herself and be destroyed defending the island
1953 – Iranian Premier Mossadegh demanded that the shah’s power be reduced.
1957 – Trolley cars in New York City completed their final runs.
1965 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized the use of ground troops in combat operations in Vietnam.
1967 – In South Vietnam, 1,500 Viet Cong attacked Quangtri and freed 200 prisoners.
1968 – Gas and gunpowder explosions at sporting goods store, downtown Richmond, Indiana, kills 41 and injures more than 150
1972 – The Scarman Tribunal Report, an inquiry into the causes of violence during the summer of 1969 in N Ireland, is published, finding that the Royal Ulster Constabulary had been seriously at fault
1980 – Post It Notes introduced
1981 – A Yugoslav Communist Party official confirmed reports of intense ethnic riots in Kosovo.
1983 – The U.S. Veteran’s Administration announced it would give free medical care for conditions traceable to radiation exposure to more than 220,000 veterans who participated in nuclear tests from 1945 to 1962.
1985 – William J. Schroeder became the first artificial heart recipient to be discharged from the hospital.
1988 – Mathew Henson was awarded honors in Arlington National Cemetery. Henson had discovered the North Pole with Robert Peary.
1992 – US Supreme Court rules a Nebraska farmer was entrapped by postal agents into buying mail-order child pornography
1994 – The Rwandan genocide begins, The assassination of Rwandan President, Juvénal Habyarimana, and Burundian President, Cyprien Ntaryamira, triggered a mass slaughter of ethnic Tutsis with up to 1 million victims.
1998 – Citicorp and Travelers Group announced that they would be merging. The new creation was the largest financial-services conglomerate in the world. The name would become Citigroup.
1998 – Federal researchers in the U.S. announced that daily tamoxifen pills could cut breast cancer risk among high-risk women.
1998 – Pakistan successfully tested medium-range missiles capable of attacking neighboring India.
2005 – Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani becomes the Iraqi president; Shiite Arab Ibrahim al-Jaafari is named premier the next day
2012 – US F-18 Hornet crashes into side of apartment building in Virginia with no fatalities
2013 – 11 people are killed in an attack on a village in Midlu, Nigeria
2013 – 22 people are killed and 60 are injured by a suicide bombing at an election campaign tent in Baquba, Iraq
2016 – First baby born with DNA from 3 parents through mitochondrial transfer in Mexico
2019 – First ever “Marsquake” seismic event on planet Mars detected by NASA’s InSight lander
2020 – Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe announces state of emergency in seven prefectures and a nearly $1 trillion stimulus package as COVID-19 cases climb
2021 – Recording-breaking price of $3.25 million for a comic book as Action Comics #1, that introduced Superman for the first time, sells at auction
2022 – Military Tribunal in Ouagadougou convicts former Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré in absentia, of the 1987 killing of his predecessor Thomas Sankara
2022 – Scientists claim to have found dinosaur remains killed on the actual day a giant asteroid struck earth 66 million years ago beginning their extinction, at Tanis fossil site, North Dakota
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
