1290 – Round Table tournament held near Winchester, England, in imitation of King Arthur, to commemorate betrothal of daughter of Edward I, and attended by the king
1505 – Jews are expelled from Orange Burgandy by Philibert of Luxembourg
1534 – Jacques Cartier, a French explorer, set sail from St. Malo to explore the North American coastline.
1653 – In England, Oliver Cromwell expelled the Long Parliament for trying to pass the Perpetuation Bill that would have kept Parliament in the hands of only a few members.
1736 – French mathematician Pierre Louis Maupertuis begins Lapland expedition to measure latitude and shape of the earth, joined by fellow scientists Anders Celsius, Charles Etienne Louis Camus, Alexis Clairaut, and Pierre-Charles Le Monnier
1769 – Ottawa Chief Pontiac was murdered by an Illinois Indian in Cahokia.
1775 – American troops began the siege of British-held Boston.
1792 – France declared war on Austria, Prussia, and Sardinia. It was the start of the French Revolutionary wars.
1832 – Hot Springs National Park was initially created by an act of the U.S. Congress. It was the first time a piece of land was set aside by the U.S. government to preserve the area for recreation. The area was made a national park on March 4, 1921.
1836 – The U.S. territory of Wisconsin was created by the U.S. Congress
1879 – First mobile home (horse drawn) was used in a journey from London to Cyprus.
1887 – Georges Bouton wins the world’s 1st motor race on a steam-powered quadricycle, a ‘test’ organised by French newspaper Le Velocipede
1914 – 33 killed by soldiers during mine strike in Ludlow, Colo
1914 – US President W Wilson, having dispatched more naval ships to Mexico, asks a joint session of Congress to approve armed force if necessary; Congress approves
1916 – Sir Roger Casement landed in Ireland to incite rebellion against the British. Casement, a British diplomat, was captured within hours and was hanged for high treason on August 3.
1942 – Pierre Laval, the premier of Vichy France, in a radio broadcast, establishes a policy of “true reconciliation with Germany.”
1951 – A human organ is surgically replaced for the first time – Romanian surgeon Dan Gavriliu used a section of the stomach to bypass the esophagus
1953 – Operation Little Switch began in Korea. It was the exchange of sick and wounded prisoners of war. Thirty Americans were freed.
1962 – The New Orleans Citizens’ Council offered a free one-way ride for blacks to move to northern states.
1964 – 86% of black students boycott Cleveland schools
1968 – British politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial “Rivers of Blood” speech https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/rivers-blood-speech-divides-britain/
1971 – The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools.
1977 – Supreme Court rules “Live Free or Die” may be covered on NH licenses
1979 – President Jimmy Carter is attacked by a swamp rabbit which swam up to his fishing boat in Plains, Georgia
1980 – Cuban President Fidel Castro announces he is opening the Mariel Port for Cubans to leave, about 125,00 leave in next 5-6 months
1982 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army explode bombs in Belfast, Derry, Armagh, Ballymena, Bessbrook and Magherafelt; 2 civilians are killed and 12 injured
1988 – The U.S. Air Forces’ Stealth (B-2 bomber) was officially unveiled.
1992 – All-star concert in memory of Freddie Mercury held at Wembley Stadium, London
1993 – Uranus passes Neptune (once every 171 years)
1999 – 14 students (including killers) and 1 teacher killed, 23 others wounded at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., in the nation’s deadliest school shooting. https://www.history.com/topics/1990s/columbine-high-school-shootings
2004 – In Iraq, 12 mortars are fired on Abu Ghraib Prison by insurgents, killing 22 detainees and wounding 92.
2007 – Johnson Space Center Shooting: A man with a handgun barricades himself in NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas before killing a male hostage and himself.
2010 – An explosion on a BP oil drilling rig off the coast of Louisiana kills 11 people and injures 17. Experts estimate that 13,000 gallons of crude oil per hour are pouring into the Gulf of Mexico.
2018 – Mexican court bars sales of controversial Frida Kahlo Barbie doll
2020 – Price of US oil turns negative for the 1st time in history – West Texas Intermediate, the benchmark for US oil, falls as low as minus $37.63 a barrel as worldwide demand falls
2021 – President of Chad for three decades, Idriss Déby reported to have been killed on a battlefield fighting rebels near the capital of Ndjamena
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
