1983 – Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov invited Samantha Smith to visit his country after receiving a letter in which the U.S. schoolgirl expressed fears about nuclear war.
1185 – Battle at Dan-no-ura: Major sea battle in Japan’s Genpei War, Minamoto clan led by Minamoto no Yoshitsune defeats the Taira clan
1362 – Muhammad VI ruler of Granada killed with a lance personally by Peter I of Castile, along with 36 followers and his head sent to Muhammad V
1507 – German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller is the first to use the name America on his world map “Universalis Cosmographia”
1590 – The Sultan of Morocco launched his successful attack to capture Timbuktu.
1607 – Eighty Years’ War: Dutch fleet destroys the anchored Spanish fleet at Gibraltar.
1626 – Battle of Dessau Bridge: Albrecht von Wallenstein at head of Holy Roman Empire forces defeats Danish attempt led by Ernst von Mansfeld’s to cross Elbe River (Thirty Years’ War)
1644 – The Ming Chongzhen emperor committed suicide by hanging himself.
1684 – A patent was granted for the thimble.
1707 – At the Battle of Almansa, Franco-Spanish forces defeated the Anglo-Portugese.
1719 – Daniel Defoe publishes “Robinson Crusoe”, regarded as the 1st English novel
1792 – The guillotine was first used to execute highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier.
1846 – The Mexican-American War ignited as a result of disputes over claims to Texas boundaries. The outcome of the war fixed Texas’ southern boundary at the Rio Grande River.
1847 – The last survivors of the Donner Party are out of the wilderness.
1859 – Work began on the Suez Canal in Egypt.
1860 – The first Japanese diplomats to visit a foreign power reached Washington, DC. They remained in the U.S. capital for several weeks while discussing expansion of trade with the United States.
1862 – Union Admiral Farragut occupied New Orleans, LA.
1867 – Tokyo was opened for foreign trade.
1881 – 250,000 Germans petition to bar foreign Jews from entering Germany
1898 – The U.S. declared war on Spain. Spain had declared war on the U.S. the day before.
1901 – New York became the first state to require license plates for cars. The fee was $1.
1914 – US President Woodrow Wilson is persuaded by Argentina, Brazil, and Chile to accept mediation in the conflict with Mexico
1915 – During World War I, Australian and New Zealand troops landed at Gallipoli in Turkey in hopes of attacking the Central Powers from below. The attack was unsuccessful.
1925 – General Paul von Hindenburg took office as president of Germany.
1926 – In Iran, Reza Kahn was crowned Shah and choose the name “Pehlevi.”
1928 – Buddy, a German Shepherd, becomes 1st guide dog for a US citizen Morris Frank
1941 – Operation Mercury: Adolf Hitler orders the conquest of the island of Crete, the first mainly airborne invasion in military history
1945 – Delegates from about 50 countries met in San Francisco to organize the United Nations.
1952 – After a three-day fight against Chinese Communist Forces, the Gloucestershire Regiment was annihilated on “Gloucester Hill,” in Korea.
1953 – U.S. Senator Wayne Morse ended the longest speech in U.S. Senate history. The speech on the Offshore Oil Bill lasted 22 hours and 26 minutes.
1954 – The prototype manufacture of the first solar battery was announced by the Bell Laboratories in New York City.
1957 – Operations began at the first experimental sodium nuclear reactor.
1959 – St. Lawrence Seaway opened to shipping. The water way connects the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean.
1960 – 1st submerged circumnavigation of Earth completed by USS submarine Triton in 60 days, 21 hours
1962 – The U.S. spacecraft, Ranger, crashed on the Moon.
1967 – Colorado Governor John Love signed the first law legalizing abortion in the U.S. The law was limited to therapeutic abortions when agreed to, unanimously, by a panel of three physicians.
1971 – The country of Bangladesh was established.
1974 – Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar was overthrown in a military coup.
1978 – Supreme Court rules pension plans can’t require women to pay more
1981 – More than 100 workers are exposed to radiation during repairs of a nuclear power plant in Tsuruga, Japan
1982 – In accordance with Camp David agreements, Israel completed its Sinai withdrawal.
1983 – Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov invited Samantha Smith to visit his country after receiving a letter in which the U.S. schoolgirl expressed fears about nuclear war.
1984 – In France, over one million people demonstrated to show they favored the decentralization of education.
1987 – In Washington, DC, 100,000 people protested the U.S. policy in Central America.
1988 – In Israel, John “Ivan the Terrible” Demjanuk was sentenced to death as a Nazi war criminal.
1990 – The U.S. Hubble Space Telescope was placed into Earth’s orbit. It was released by the space shuttle Discovery.
1992 – Islamic forces in Afghanistan took control of most of the capital of Kabul following the collapse of the Communist government.
1996 – The main assembly of the Palestine Liberation Organization voted to revoke clauses in its charter that called for an armed struggle to destroy Israel.
1998 – U.S. first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on was questioned by Whitewater prosecutors on videotape about her work as a private lawyer for the failed savings and loan at the center of the investigation.
2003 – Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader and ex-wife of former President Nelson Mandela, was sentenced to four years in prison for her conviction on fraud and theft charges. She was convicted of 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft of money from a women’s political league.
2005 – The final piece of the Obelisk of Axum is returned to Ethiopia after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937.
2013 – 38 people are killed in a psychiatric hospital fire in Ramensky, Russia
2018 – Danish inventor Peter Madsen found guilty of killing and desecrating body of journalist Kim Wall aboard submarine, sentenced to life imprisonment
2019 – More than 1,600 civilians were killed in US-led coalition air and land strikes on Raqqa in 2017, according to Amnesty International and monitoring group Airwars
2023 – Japanese M1 spacecraft crashes on the moon, in its attempt to become the first privately-owned spacecraft to land on the Moon
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
