1939 – Lou Gehrig played his last game with the New York Yankees.
0030 – Jesus of Nazareth was crucified.
0311 – Roman Emperor Galerius issues Edict of Toleration, ending persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire
0313 – Licinius unified the whole of the eastern empire under his own rule.
0711 Islamic conquest of Hispania: Moorish troops led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad land at Gibraltar to begin their invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus).
1006 – Brightest supernova in recorded history is observed
1315 – French chamberlain Enguerrand de Marigny is hanged on the public gallows at Montfaucon after being convicted of sorcery
1349 – Jewish community of Radolfzell, Germany, exterminated
1250 – King Louis IX of France was ransomed for one million dollars.
1483 – Orbital calculations suggest that on this day Pluto moved inside Neptune’s orbit until July 23, 1503
1527 – Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France sign the Treaty of Westminster, pledging to combine their forces against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in attempt to win War of the League of Cognac
1563 – Jews are expelled from France by order of Charles VI
1671 – Petar Zrinski, the Croatian Ban from the Zrinski family, is executed.
1725 – Spain withdrew from Quadruple Alliance.
1763 – Member of Parliament and journalist John Wilkes confined in the Tower of London, charged with seditious libel
1789 – On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States
1803 – Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling overnight the size of the young nation
1812 – The Territory of Orleans becomes the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana
1849 – The republican patriot and guerrilla leader Giuseppe Garabaldi repulsed a French attack on Rome.
1856 – Battle of Rivas, Nicaragua, against North American mercenaries.
1861 – US President Abraham Lincoln orders Federal Troops to evacuate Indian Territory (US Civil War)
1864 – Work began on the Dams along the Red River. The work would allow Union General Nathaniel Banks’ troops to sail over the rapids above Alexandria, Louisiana.
1871 – The Camp Grant Massacre of Apache Indians in Arizona Territory is committed by white and Mexican adventurers, 144 die
1900 – Hawaii was organized as an official U.S. territory.
1916 – Germany ratifies bill bringing in Daylight Saving Time – first country in the world
1925 – Automaker Dodge Brothers, Inc is sold to Dillon, Read & Company for USD $146 million plus $50 million for charity.
1927 – The Federal Industrial Institute for Women, opens in Alderson, West Virginia, as the first women’s federal prison in the United States
1930 – The Soviet Union proposed a military alliance with France and Great Britain.
1938 – Happy Rabbit appeared in the cartoon “Porky’s Hare Hunt.” This rabbit would later evolve into Bugs Bunny.
1939 – Lou Gehrig played his last game with the New York Yankees.
1943 – The British submarine HMS Seraph dropped ‘the man who never was,’ a dead man the British planted with false invasion plans, into the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain.
1945 – Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide. They had been married for one day. One week later Germany surrendered unconditionally.
1947 – The name of Boulder Dam, in Nevada, was changed back to Hoover Dam.
1948 – The Organization of American States (OAS) held its first meeting in Bogota, Colombia. The institution’s goal was to facilitate better relations between the member nations and to help prevent the spread of communism in the Western Hemisphere.
1950 – Construction starts on $95 million Interprovincial Pipeline to carry oil from Alberta to the Ontario Lakehead.
1952 – Mr. Potato Head became the first toy to be advertised on network television.
1953 – The British West Indian colonies agreed on the formation of the British Caribbean Federation that would eventually become a self-governing unit in the British Commonwealth.
1964 – The FCC ruled that all TV receivers should be equipped to receive both VHF and UHF channels.
1967 – Ostankino Tower, the then highest free-standing structure in the world at 540m is finished in Moscow, Russia
1968 – U.S. Marines attacked a division of North Vietnamese in the village of Dai Do.
1970 – U.S. troops invaded Cambodia to disrupt North Vietnamese Army base areas. The announcement by U.S. President Nixon led to widespread protests.
1972 – The North Vietnamese launched an invasion of the South.
1973 – U.S. President Nixon announced resignation of Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and other top aides.
1975 – Communists North Vietnamese troops entered the Independence Palace of South Vietnam in Saigon. 11 Marines lifted off of the U.S. Embassy were the last soldiers to evacuate.
1980 – Terrorists seized the Iranian Embassy in London.
1984 – U.S. President Reagan signed cultural and scientific agreements with China. He also signed a tax accord that would make it easier for American companies to operate in China.
1989 – World Wide Web (WWW) is first launched in the public domain by CERN scientist Tim Berners-Lee
1990 – US hostage Frank Reed freed after 4 years in hands of pro-Iranians
1993 – Monica Seles was stabbed in the back during a tennis match in Hamburg, Germany. The man called himself a fan of second- ranked Steffi Graf. He was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm and received a suspended sentence.
1995 – U.S. President Bill Clinton became the first U.S. President to visit Northern Ireland.
1996 – US President Clinton approves the sale of $227 million of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve; US gas prices are at their highest levels in 5 years
1998 – NATO was expanded to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The three nations were formally admitted the following April at NATO’s 50th anniversary summit.
2001 – US Vice President Cheney calls for increased domestic production of fossil fuels and increased usage of nuclear power to meet America’s energy demand
2002 – Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was overwhelmingly approved for another five years as president.
2004 – U.S. media release graphic photos of American soldiers abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison
2008 – Two skeletal remains found near Ekaterinburg, Russia, were confirmed by Russian scientists to be the remains of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia and one of his sisters
2009 – Chrysler automobile company files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
2012 – One World Trade Center became the tallest structure in New York when it surpassed the height of the Empire State Building.
2013 – 13 people are killed after a bomb explodes in Damascus
2014 – Masked gunmen and pro-Russian separatists take control of more buildings in eastern Ukraine
2015 – NASA’s Messenger spacecraft crashed into the surface of Mercury. The space probe sent back more than 270,000 pictures to earth.
2018 – Coordinated double suicide attack kills 36 in Kabul, Afghanistan, including nine journalists
2019 – Japanese Emperor Akihito declares his abdication at a ceremony in Tokyo which officially takes effect the following day
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
