1516 – 1st Jewish ghetto established: Venice compels Jews to live in a specific area
1710 – The first law regulating copyright is issued in Great Britain
1790 – The U.S. patent system was established when U.S. President George Washington signed the Patent Act of 1790 into law.
1814 – Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Toulouse by the British and the Spanish. The defeat led to his abdication and exile to Elba.
1815 – Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies experiences a cataclysmic eruption, one of the most powerful in history, killing around 71,000 people, causes global volcanic winter
1845 – More than 1,000 buildings damaged by fire in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1865 – During the American Civil War, at Appomattox, General Robert E. Lee issued his last order.
1866 – The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was incorporated.
1869 – Congress increases number of Supreme Court judges from 7 to 9
1912 – RMS Titanic sets sail from Southampton for her maiden (and final) voyage
1919 – In Mexico, revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata was killed by government troops.
1922 – The Genoa Conference opened. The meeting was used to discuss the reconstruction of Europe after World War I.
1938 – Germany annexed Austria after Austrians had voted in a referundum to merge with Germany.
1938 – NY makes syphilis test mandatory in order to get a marriage license
1953 – Warner Bros. released “House of Wax.” It was the first 3-D movie to be released by a major Hollywood studio.
1960 – The U.S. Senate passed the Civil Rights Bill.
1963 – 129 people died when the nuclear-powered submarine USS Thresher failed to surface off Cape Cod, MA.
1970 – Paul McCartney officially announces the split of The Beatles
1984 – The U.S. Senate condemned the CIA mining of Nicaraguan harbors.
1988 – On Wall Street, 48 million shares of Navistar International stock changed hands in a single-block trade. It was the largest transaction ever executed on the New York Stock Exchange.
1991 – Last automat (coin operated cafeteria) closes (3rd & 42nd St, NYC)
1992 – A bomb exploded in London’s financial district. The bomb, set off by the Irish Republican Army, killed three people and injured 91.
1992 – In Los Angeles, financier Charles Keating Jr. was sentenced to nine years in prison for swindling investors when his Lincoln Savings and Loan collapsed. The convictions were later overturned.
1993 – South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani was assassinated.
1998 – The Good Friday Agreement [Belfast Agreement] for Northern Ireland is signed by the British and Irish governments
2001 – The Netherlands legalized mercy killings and assisted suicide for patients with unbearable, terminal illness.
2009 – In Fiji, President Josefa Iloilo suspended the nation’s Constitution, dismissed all judges and constitutional appointees and assumed all governance in the country.
2010 – The President of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, dies in a plane crash – Several high-ranking officials, senior members of the Polish clergy, as well as relatives of the Katyn massacre victims were killed. The accident was blamed on pilot error and bad weather.
2012 – Apple Inc claims a value of $600 billion making it the largest company by market capitalization in the world
2017 – Alabama Governor Robert Bentley resigns over relationship with an aide and possible misuse of state funds to cover it up
2019 – China announces move to cull more than 1 million pigs in effort to eliminate African swine fever
2019 – First-ever photo of a black hole announced, taken by The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration in 2017 in galaxy M87, 6.5 billion times the mass of earth, 55 million light-years away
2019 – New York declares a public health emergency and compulsory vaccinations after a measles outbreak in Brooklyn with 285 cases
2021 – China orders Alibaba pay a record fine of 18.2 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) after anti-trust regulations say it has been acting as a monopoly
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
