1902 – A fistfight breaks out in the Senate. Senator Benjamin Tillman suffers a bloody nose for accusing Senator John McLaurin of bias on the Philippine tariff issue.
0303 – 1st official Roman edict for persecution of Christians issued by Emperor Diocletian at Nicomedia, ordering all churches to be closed and scriptures burnt
0896 – Pope Formosus crowned Arnulf King of Carinthia and Holy Roman Emperor
1300 – Pope Boniface VIII issues papal bull (decree) instating a Jubilee Year, granting forgiveness of sins and debts for those who fulfill various conditions
1349 – Jews are expelled from Zurich, Switzerland
1415 – English King Henry V lays the foundation stone for Syon Abbey for nuns of the Bridgettine Order. Became one of the wealthiest abbeys in England.
1630 – Quadequine introduced popcorn to English colonists at their first Thanksgiving dinner.
1632 – Galileo’s book “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems” is published comparing the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems and whether the Earth orbits the sun
1656 – New Amsterdam granted a Jewish burial site
1774 – British House of Lords rules authors do not have perpetual copyright
1775 – Jews expelled from outskirts of Warsaw, Poland
1784 – “Empress of China”, a U.S. merchant ship, left New York City for the Far East.
1797 – The last invasion of Britain takes place when some 1,400 Frenchmen land at Fishguard in Wales.
1819 – Spain ceded Florida to the United States.
1825 – Russia and Britain establish the Alaska/Canada boundary.
1855 – The U.S. Congress voted to appropriate $200,000 for continuance of the work on the Washington Monument. The next morning the resolution was tabled and it would be 21 years before the Congress would vote on funds again. Work was continued by the Know-Nothing Party in charge of the project.
1859 – U.S. President Buchanan approved the Act of February 22, 1859, which incorporated the Washington National Monument Society “for the purpose of completing the erection now in progress of a great National Monument to the memory of Washington at the seat of the Federal Government.”
1860 – Shoe-making workers of Lynn, Massachusetts, strike successfully for higher wages
1865 – In the U.S., Tennessee adopted a new constitution that abolished slavery.
1872 – 1st national convention of Prohibition Party (Columbus Ohio)
1879 – In Utica, NY, Frank W. Woolworth opened his first 5 and 10-cent store.
1885 – The Washington Monument was officially dedicated in Washington, DC. It opened to the public in 1889.
1889 – US President Cleveland signs bill to admit Dakotas, Montana & Washington state to the union
1898 – Black postmaster lynched, his wife & 3 daughters shot in Lake City, South Carolina
1902 – A fistfight breaks out in the Senate. Senator Benjamin Tillman suffers a bloody nose for accusing Senator John McLaurin of bias on the Philippine tariff issue.
1904 – The Hague Tribunal gives its decision in claims against Venezuela; it sets the sum to be paid by Venezuela and gives preferential treatment to the three powers that initiated the block – Britain, Germany, and Italy
1909 – The Great White Fleet returns to Norfolk, Virginia, from an around-the-world show of naval power.
1911 – The Canadian Parliament resolves to maintain union with the British Empire, while controlling domestic fiscal affairs
1920 – The American Relief Administration appeals to the public to pressure Congress to aid starving European cities.
1920 – The first dog race track to use an imitation rabbit opened in Emeryville, CA.
1923 – The first successful chinchilla farm opened in Los Angeles, CA. It was the first farm of its kind in the U.S.
1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge delivered the first presidential radio broadcast from the White House.
1934 – André Malraux and Édouard Corniglion-Molinier set out to find the lost capital of the Queen of Sheba, as mentioned in the Old Testament
1935 – All plane flights over the White House are barred because they are disturbing President Roosevelt‘s sleep.
1941 – Nazi police raid Amsterdam and round up 429 young Jews for deportation to be sent to Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps
1944 – World War II: US Army Air Forces accidentally bomb Dutch town of Nijmegen, around 800 civilians die
1948 – Czechoslovakia becomes a communist state following a coup d’etat, The country became a parliamentary republic following the non-violent “Velvet Revolution” in 1989 and was split into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic in 1993.
1951 – The Atomic Energy Commission discloses information about the first atom-powered airplane.
1954 – U.S. is to install 60 Thor nuclear missiles in Britain.
1967 – Operation Junction City becomes the largest U.S. operation in Vietnam.
1973 – The U.S. and Communist China agreed to establish liaison offices.
1980 – “Miracle on Ice”: US ice hockey team beats heavily favoured Soviet Union, 4-3 at Lake Placid in one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history; Americans go on to win gold medal
1980 – Afghanistan declares martial law
1984 – Britain and the U.S. send warships to the Persian Gulf following an Iranian offensive against Iraq.
1984 – The U.S. Census Bureau statistics showed that the state of Alaska was the fastest growing state of the decade with an increase in population of 19.2 percent.
1986 – The People Power Revolution begins in the Philippines, The nonviolent campaign resulted in the fall of President Ferdinand Marcos and the restoration of the country’s democracy.
1989 – Finnish ministry of Public health installs sex vacation to thwart stress
1994 – The U.S. Justice Department charged Aldrich Ames and his wife with selling national secrets to the Soviet Union. Ames was later convicted to life in prison. Ames’ wife received a 5-year prison term.
1995 – Algiers police kill at least 99 prison rioters
1997 – Scottish scientist Ian Wilmut and colleagues announced that an adult sheep had been successfully cloned. Dolly was actually born on July 5, 1996. Dolly was the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult cell.
2002 – Angolan revolutionary politician and military leader of UNITA, Jonas Savimbi is killed in a military ambush in the province of Moxico
2011 – An earthquake measuring 6.3 in magnitude strikes Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 181 people
2013 – 13 Chadian soldiers and 65 Muslim insurgents are killed in conflict in Northern Mali
2013 – 29 people are killed and 150 are injured by 3 Syrian army missiles in Aleppo
2016 – 10 million people are without water in Delhi after caste protests in Jat sabotage the Munak water canal
2017 – Discovery of 7 Earth-sized planets orbiting star Trappist-1 announced in Journal “Nature” – raises possibility of alien life
2017 – US President Donald Trump overturns Obama directive on Transgender rights to use toilets
2019 – Robert Kraft, owner of NFL team the New England Patriots, charged with soliciting prostitution, as part of human-trafficking sting operation in Jupiter, Florida
2021 – US death toll from COVID-19 passes 500,000, higher than US deaths in World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War combined. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris hold a candle-lighting ceremony outside the White House and say “we must not grow numb to the sorrow”.
2022 – US President Joe Biden announces new sanctions against Russia, saying its latest moves in Ukraine amount to “the beginning of a Russian invasion”
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
