1773 – Boston Tea Party, Considered as one of the key events in the American Revolution, the Tea Party occurred when protesters in Boston, a territory controlled by the British, dumped heavily taxed British tea into Boston Harbor.
1431 – King Henry VI of England crowned King of France (only English monarch to wear both crowns)
1497 – Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama is 1st European to sail along Africa’s East Coast, names it Natal
1538 – King Francois I orders renewed pursuit of Protestants
1631 – Mount Vesuvius in Italy erupts, burying many villages under lava flows and killing around 3,000 people
1653 – Oliver Cromwell became lord protector of England, Scotland and Ireland.
1689 – English Parliament passes Bill of Rights establishing limits on crown powers and requirement for regular elections
1707 – Last eruption of Mount Fuji, The highest volcano in Japan erupted for the last time in what is known as the Hōei Eruption. The eruption lasted for 17 days.
1773 – Boston Tea Party, Considered as one of the key events in the American Revolution, the Tea Party occurred when protesters in Boston, a territory controlled by the British, dumped heavily taxed British tea into Boston Harbor.
1809 – Napoleon Bonaparte was divorced from the Empress Josephine by an act of the French Senate.
1826 – Benjamin W. Edwards rides into Mexican controlled Nacogdoches, Texas and declares himself ruler of the Republic of Fredonia.
1835 – In New York, 530 buildings were destroyed by fire.
1838 – The Zulu chief Dingaan was defeated by a small force of Boers at Blood River celebrated in South Africa as ‘Dingaan’s Day’.
1880 – Beginning of the First Boer War between British Empire and Boer South African Republic
1900 – A National Civic Federation is formed in the US to arbitrate labor disputes
1901 – “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” by Beatrix Potter, was printed for the first time.
1905 – Sime Silverman published the first issue of “Variety”.
1907 – As a gesture of the US’s new presence as a world power, President Theodore Roosevelt sends the ‘Great White Fleet’ on a round-the-world cruise, visiting ports internationally
1924 – Hiram Bingham is elected as a Republican to serve in the US Senate forcing him to resign as Governor of Connecticut after serving only one day in office, the shortest term of any Connecticut Governor
1937 – Theodore Cole and Ralph Roe attempt to escape from American federal prison Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay; neither is ever seen again.
1938 – State of California executes Ed Davis (38), leader of Folsom Prison escape attempt resulting in murder of warden and guard (San Quentin State Prison, Marin County)
1940 – French Premier Petain arrested Pierre Laval after learning of a plan for Laval to seize power and set up a new government with German support.
1944 – During World War II, the Battle of the Bulge began in Belgium. It was the final major German counteroffensive in the war.
1950 – U.S. President Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight “Communist imperialism.”
1961 – Martin Luther King Jr. joins over 500 jailed demonstrators who had been arrested in Albany, Georgia
1968 – Official revocation of the Edict of Expulsion of Jews from Spain at Second Vatican Council
1971 – Vijay Diwas (Victory Day): East Pakistan’s independence (as Bangladesh) from Pakistan is recognized internationally after India’s army occupies Dacca, and 93,000 West Pakistani troops surrender
1972 – The Miami Dolphins became the first NFL team to go unbeaten and untied in a 14-game regular season. The Dolphins went on to defeat the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII.
1976 – Government halts swine flu vaccination program following reports of paralysis
1978 – Cleveland, Ohio becomes the first post-Depression era city to default on its loans, owing $14,000,000 to local banks.
1979 – Libya raises crude oil prices, joining four other OPEC nations, which has a dramatic effect on the United States
1981 – The U.S. Congress restored the $122 minimum monthly social security benefit for current recipients.
1985 – Reputed organized-crime chief Paul Castellano was shot to death outside a New York City restaurant.
1986 – Revolt in Kazakhstan against Communist party, known as Zheltoksan, which becomes the first sign of ethnic strife during Gorbachev’s tenure
1988 – Political cult leader Lyndon LaRouche convicted of tax, mail fraud
1990 – Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a leftist priest, was elected president in Haiti’s first democratic elections.
1991 – Kazakhstan independence, The Central Asian country was the last Soviet republic to declare its independence.
1991 – The U.N. General Assembly rescinded its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism by a vote of 111-25.
1995 – Many U.S. government functions were again closed as a temporary finance provision expired and the budget dispute between President Clinton and Republicans in Congress continued.
1995 – NATO launched a military operation in support of the Bosnia peace agreement.
1996 – Britain’s agriculture minister announced the slaughter of an additional 100,000 cows thought to be at risk of contracting BSE in an effort to persuade the EU to lift its ban on Britain.
1998 – The U.S. and Britain fired hundreds of missiles on Iraq in response to Saddam Hussein’s refusal to comply with U.N. weapons inspectors.
2000 – Researchers announced that information from NASA’s Galileo spacecraft indicated that Ganymede appeared to have a liquid saltwater ocean beneath a surface of solid ice. Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter, is the solar system’s largest moon. The discovery is considered important since water is a key ingredient for life.
2000 – U.S. President-elect George W. Bush selected Colin Powell to be the first African-American secretary of state. Powell was sworn in January 20, 2001.
2001 – In Tora Bora, Afghanistan, tribal fighters announced that they had taken the last al-Quaida positions. More than 200 fighters were killed and 25 captured. They also announced that they had found no sign of Osama bin Laden.
2001 – A British newspaper, The Observer, reported that a notebook had been found at an al-Quaida training camp in southern Afghanistan. The notebook contained a “blue print” for a bomb attack on London’s financial district.
2009 – Astronomers discovered GJ1214b. It was the first-known exoplanet on which water could exist.
2009 – Ben Bernanke, Chair of the US Federal Reserve is named Time’s Person of the Year for rescuing the global economy from the Great Recession
2012 – A gang rape of a woman on a bus in India that resulted in her death leads to national and international outrage
2014 – An Army Public School in Pakistan is attacked by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militants who kill 145 people
2016 – US State Department increases reward for information on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to $25 million
2018 – Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is sworn back into office two months after being removed by President Sirisena
2020 – 14 people found guilty of 2015 terror attacks on Charlie Hebdo office and supermarket in Paris
2020 – Nine-year-old girl who died of an asthma attack in 2013 becomes first person in the world to officially have air pollution listed as cause of death
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
