1964 – Muhammad Ali becomes world heavyweight champion. Ali, who still used his original name Cassius Clay at the time, is considered one of the greatest heavyweight boxers in history
0138 – The Emperor Hadrian adopts Antoninus Pius, effectively making him his successor
1570 – England’s Queen Elizabeth I was excommunicated by Pope Pius V.
1601 – Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex and former favorite of Elizabeth I, is beheaded in the Tower of London for high treason.
1642 – Dutch settlers slaughter lower Hudson Valley Indians in New Netherland, North America, who sought refuge from Mohawk attackers.
1751 – Edward Willet displayed the first trained monkey act in the U.S.
1779 – The British surrender the Illinois country to George Rogers Clark at Vincennes.
1791 – First Bank of the United States (The President, Directors and Company, of the Bank of the United States) was chartered by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Washington.
1793 – The department heads of the U.S. government met with U.S. President Washington for the first Cabinet meeting on U.S. record.
1795 – French Politician and Educator Joseph Lakanal, defines on behalf of the French Revolution an “educational utopia” aiming to “put an end to inequalities of development that affected a citizen’s capacities for judgment.”
1799 – US Congress passes 1st federal quarantine legislation
1803 – In the last significant act of the Holy Roman Empire, more than 100 German polities are abolished in a major internal reorganization
1815 – Napoleon leaves his exile on the island of Elba, returning to France.
1831 – The Polish army halts the Russian advance into their country at the Battle of Grochow.
1836 – Samuel Colt received U.S. Patent No. 138 (later 9430X) for a “revolving-cylinder pistol.” It was his first patent.
1836 – Showman P. T. Barnum exhibits African American slave Joice Heth, claiming she was the 161 year-old nursemaid to George Washington
1855 – Bowery Boys gang leader William Poole “Bill the Butcher” shot in the back by gang of archrival John Morrissey in New York (dies 8th March)
1865 – General Joseph E. Johnston replaces John Bell Hood as Commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.
1870 – Hiram R. Revels is sworn in as 1st African American member of Congress as US Senator from Mississippi (R)
1901 – The United States Steel Corp. was incorporated by J.P. Morgan.
1907 – US proclaims protectorate over Dominican Republic
1910 – The 13th Dalai Lama flees from the Chinese and takes refuge in India.
1913 – The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It authorized a graduated income tax.
1919 – The state of Oregon became the first state to place a tax on gasoline. The tax was 1 cent per gallon.
1921 – The Living Buddha, Hutuktu, is crowned King of Mongolia as the country declares independence from China
1925 – Glacier Bay National Monument established in Alaska
1928 – The Federal Radio Commission issued the first U.S. television license to Charles Jenkins Laboratories in Washington, DC.
1928 – Bell Labs introduces a new device to end the fluttering of the television image.8
1933 – The aircraft carrier Ranger was launched. It was the first ship in the U.S. Navy to be designed and built from the keel up as an aircraft carrier.
1944 – U.S. forces destroy 135 Japanese planes in Marianas and Guam.
1947 – The state of Prussia is dissolved, At its peak, the most important state of the German empire encompassed parts of modern-day Germany, Poland, and Russia.
1948 – Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia.
1956 – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev criticized the late Josef Stalin in a speech before a Communist Party congress in Moscow.
1964 – Muhammad Ali becomes world heavyweight champion. Ali, who still used his original name Cassius Clay at the time, is considered one of the greatest heavyweight boxers in history.
1972 – Attempted assassination of Irish Minister of State for Home Affairs John Taylor who is shot a number of times (the Official Irish Republican Army later claimed responsibility)
1972 – Germany gave a $5 million ransom to Arab terrorists who had hijacked a jumbo jet.
1973 – Mexican serial killer Juan Corona sentenced to 25 life sentences for 25 murders in California
1976 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that states may ban the hiring of illegal aliens.
1981 – Exec Board of Baseball Players’ Association votes unanimously to strike on May 29 if the issue of free-agent compensation remains unresolved
1986 – Thousands of Egyptian military police riot, destroy 2 luxury hotels
1986 – Filippino President Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of rule after a tainted election.
1991 – US, barracks in Dhahran Saudi Arabia, hit by scud missile, kills 28
1991 – The Warsaw Pact is disbanded, Following the end of the Cold War, the defense treaty between 8 communist states had lost its purpose. It had been signed in 1955 as an antagonist of NATO.
1992 – Khojaly massacre: about 613 civilians killed by Armenian armed forces during the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan
1994 – An Israeli doctor kills 30 unarmed Palestinians in the Mosque of Abraham, The massacre by right-wing extremist Baruch Goldstein was widely condemned, also in Israel.
1999 – William King was sentenced to death for the racial murder of James Byrd Jr in Jasper, TX. Two other men charged were later convicted for their involvement.
2000 – In Albany, NY, a jury acquitted four New York City police officers of second-degree murder and lesser charges in the February 1999 shooting death of Amadou Diallo.
2005 – Dennis Rader was arrested for the BTK serial killings in Wichita, KS. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 life prison terms.
2009 – BDR massacre in Pilkhana, Dhaka, Bangladesh. 74 People are being killed, including more than 50 Army officials, by Bangladeshi Boarder Guards inside its headquarter.
2012 – Al Qaeda suicide bombing kills at least 26 people in Mukalla, Yemen
2012 – Syrian Army kills 100 civilians in artillery shelling of Homs and Hama
2013 – Cuban President Raúl Castro announces he will not seek another term in 2018
2018 – China briefly bans the letter ‘N’ as part of widespread censorship efforts
2020 – 147 murders occurred during a five day police strike in Ceará, Brazil, despite army patrolling the streets according to authorities
2021 – More than 200 prisoners escape and 25 people are killed at Croix-des-Bouquets prison near Port-au-Prince, Haiti
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
