1012 – Aelfheah was murdered by Danes who had been ravaging the south of England. Aelfhear became the 29th Archbishop of Canterbury in 1005.
1587 – English admiral Sir Francis Drake entered Cadiz harbor and sank the Spanish fleet.
1689 – Residents of Boston ousted their governor, Edmond Andros.
1764 – The English Parliament banned the American colonies from printing paper money.
1770 – Captain James Cook discovered New South Wales, Australia. Cook originally named the land Point Hicks.
1775 – The American Revolutionary War begins – The Battles of Lexington and Concord marked the beginning of the armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and 13 colonies of British North America. The war resulted in U.S. independence.
1782 – John Adams secures Dutch Republic’s recognition of the United States as an independent government and house he purchased in The Hague, Netherlands became first American embassy.
1861 – The Baltimore riots resulted in four Union soldiers and nine civilians killed.
1861 – U.S. President Lincoln ordered a blockade of Confederate ports.
1892 – The Duryea gasoline buggy was introduced in the U.S. by Charles and Frank Duryea.
1901 – In the Philippines, recently captured insurgent leader Emilio Aguinaldo issues a proclamation advising his countrymen to end their rebellion and use of peaceful means to work with the US toward independence.
1909 – Joan of Arc receives beatification by the Roman Catholic Church
1916 – Alderman Kelly reads the ‘Castle Order’ to a meeting of Dublin Corporation; this forged document supposedly from Dublin Castle, indicated that there was to be mass arrests of Irish Volunteers to prevent “trouble”
1927 – Actress Mae West found guilty of “obscenity and corrupting the morals of youth” in a New York stage play entitled “Sex”. She is sentenced to 10 days in prison and fined $500, the resulting publicity launches her Hollywood career.
1933 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a proclamation that removed the U.S. from the gold standard.
1939 – Connecticut approved the Bill of Rights for the U.S. Constitution after 148 years.
1943 – The Warsaw Ghetto uprising against Nazi rule began. The Jews were able to fight off the Germans for 28 days.
1951 – General Douglas MacArthur gave his “Old Soldiers” speech before the U.S. Congress after being relieved by U.S. President Truman. In the address General MacArthur said that “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.”
1955 – The German automaker Volkswagen, after six years of selling cars in the United States, founds Volkswagen of America in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey to standardize its dealer and service network
1967 – Surveyor 3 landed on the moon and began sending photos back to the U.S
1971 – Charles Manson sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Sharon Tate
1981 – In Davao, Philippines, thirteen people were killed when members of the New People’s Army threw hand grenades into the Roman Catholic cathedral during Easter services.
1982 – NASA named Sally Ride to be first woman astronaut.
1982 – NASA named Guion S. Bluford Jr. as the first African-American astronaut.
1987 – The last California condor known to be in the wild was captured and placed in a breeding program at the San Diego Wild Animal Park.
1989 – A gun turret exploded aboard the USS Iowa. 47 sailors were killed.
1989 – Central Park Five: Violent rape of jogger Trisha Meili in NYC’s Central Park became one of the most widely publicized crimes of the 1980s. 5 men wrongfully convicted spend between 6-13 years in prison
1993 – The Branch-Davidian’s compound in Waco, TX, burned to the ground. It was the end of a 51-day standoff between the cult and U.S. federal agents. 86 people were killed including 17 children. Nine of the Branch Davidians escaped the fire.
1995 – The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, OK, was destroyed by a bomb. It was the worst bombing on U.S. territory. 168 people were killed including 19 children, and 500 were injured. Timothy McVeigh was found guilty of the bombing on June 2, 1997.
2002 – The USS Cole was relaunched. In Yemen, 17 sailors were killed when the ship was attacked by terrorists on October 12, 2000. The attack was blamed on Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network.
2005 – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger elected Pope Benedict XVI on the second day of the Papal conclave.
2017 – Fox News confirms they would be letting go of Bill O’Reilly after allegations of sexual harassment
2018 – King Mswati III of Swaziland changes the name of Swaziland to Eswatini, or “Land of the Swati”
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
