1971 – Ping Pong Diplomacy: In an attempt to thaw relations with the United States, the People’s Republic of China hosts the U.S. table tennis team for a weeklong visit
1407 – Lama Deshin Shekpa visits the Ming Dynasty capital at Nanjing and is awarded the title Great Treasure Prince of Dharma
1500 – Ludovico Sforza is captured by the Swiss troops at Novara and handed over to the French.
1516 – 1st Jewish ghetto established: Venice compels Jews to live in a specific area
1606 – The Charter of the Virginia Company of London was established by royal charter by James I of England with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America.
1741 – Frederick II of Prussia defeated Maria Theresa’s forces at Mollwitz and conquered Silesia.
1790 – The U.S. patent system was established when U.S. President George Washington signed the Patent Act of 1790 into law.
1802 – Great Trigonometrical Survey begun to survey entire Indian subcontinent, led by William Lambton and the East India Company (completed 1871)
1809 – Austria declared war on France and its forces entered Bavaria.
1812 – Washington DC United States calls out the militia in preparation for a war against Britain that will begin June 18; attack on Upper Canada imminent.
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.
1821 – Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople is hanged by the Turks from the main gate of the Patriarchate and his body is thrown into the Bosphorus.
1854 – The constitution of the Orange Free State in south Africa was proclaimed.
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
1902 – South African Boers accepted British terms of surrender.
1912 – The Titanic set sail from Southampton, England.
1915 – Castbergian Child Laws adopted in Norway – one of the first laws in the world to protect the welfare of extra-martial children
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.
1925 – F. Scott Fitzgerald published “The Great Gatsby” for the first time.
1930 – The first synthetic rubber was produced.
1932 – Paul von Hindenburg was elected president of Germany with 19 million votes. Adolf Hitler came in second with 13 million votes.
1938 – NY makes syphilis test mandatory in order to get a marriage license
1941 – Ford Motor Co. became the last major automaker to recognize the United Auto Workers as the representative for its workers.
1943 – 12 Jewish patients of Herren Loo-Lozenoord escape Nazis
1944 – Russian troops recaptured Odessa from the Germans.
1945 – German Me 262 jet fighters shot down ten U.S. bombers near Berlin.
1947 – Jackie Robinson becomes first black player of the 20th century to sign a MLB contract; Brooklyn GM, Branch Rickey announces Dodgers had bought Robinson’s contract from Montreal Royals
1953 – Warner Bros. released “House of Wax.” It was the first 3-D movie to be released by a major Hollywood studio.
1959 – Japan’s Crown Prince Akihito married commoner Michiko Shoda.
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.
1967 – The 13-day strike by the American Federation of Radio-TV Artists (AFTRA) came to an end less than two hours before the 39th Academy Awards presentation went on the air.
1968 – U.S. President Johnson replaced General Westmoreland with General Creighton Abrams in Vietnam.
1970 – Paul McCartney officially announces the split of The Beatles
1971 – Ping Pong Diplomacy: In an attempt to thaw relations with the United States, the People’s Republic of China hosts the U.S. table tennis team for a weeklong visit
1972 – The U.S. and the Soviet Union joined with 70 other nations in signing an agreement banning biological warfare.
1973 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME
1974 – Yitzhak Rabin replaced resigning Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir. Meir resigned over differences within her Labor Party.
1978 – Volkswagen becomes the first non-American automobile manufacturer to build cars in the United States, opening a plant in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.
1980 – Spain and Britain agreed to reopen the border between Gibraltar and Spain. It had been closed since 1969.
1984 – The U.S. Senate condemned the CIA mining of Nicaraguan harbors.
1990 – Three European hostages kidnapped at sea in 1987 by Palestinian extremists were released in Beirut.
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.
1994 – NATO warplanes launched air strikes for the first time on Serb forces that were advancing on the Bosnian Muslim town of Gordazde. The area had been declared a U.N. safe area.
1996 – U.S. President Clinton vetoed a bill that would have outlawed a technique used to end pregnancies in their late stages.
1998 – Negotiators reached a peace accord on governing British ruled Northern Ireland. Britain’s direct rule was ended.
2000 – Monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) reported irregularities in the voting in Georgia’s presidential election on April 9. President Eduard Shevardnadze was reelected to a new five-year term.
2001 – The Netherlands legalized mercy killings and assisted suicide for patients with unbearable, terminal illness.
2002 – Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before the U.S. Senate as a representative of the Israeli government. He warned that suicide bombers would spread to the U.S. if Israel was not allowed to finish its military offensive in the West Bank. Netanyaho also cited the goals of dismantling the terror regime and expelling Arafat from the region, ridding the Palestinian territories of terrorist weapons and establishing “physical barriers” to protect Israelis from future Palestinian attacks.
2006 – Hundreds of thousands protest H.R. 4437 (aka the “Sensenbrenner Bill”) in the United States.
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.
2014 – 88 civilians are killed by barrel bombs from Syrian war planes in Aleppo, Syria
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
2022 – Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan removed from power after losing a no-confidence vote in parliament
2023 – The Dalai Lama apologizes for a video showing him asking a boy to suck his tongue, after widespread criticism
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
