1258 – Baghdad, then a city of 1 million, falls to the Mongols as the Abbasid Caliphate is destroyed, tens of thousands slaughtered, ending the Islamic Golden Age
1349 – Jews are expelled from Burgdorf, Switzerland
1542 – Catherine Howard was executed for adultery. She was the fifth wife of England’s King Henry VIII.
1578 – Tycho Brahe first sketches “Tychonic system” of solar system
1633 – Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before the Inquisition.
1692 – Glencoe Massacre: about 38 MacDonalds killed early in the morning by rival Campbell clan members, allegedly for not promptly pledging allegiance to the new king, William of Orange
1741 – “The American Magazine,” the first magazine in the U.S., was published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1832 – First appearance of cholera in London
1866 – Jesse James holds up his first bank, stealing $15,000 from the Clay County Savings Association in Liberty, Missouri
1917 – Dutch exotic dancer Mata Hari is arrested in Paris on suspicion that she is a German spy
1920 – The League of Nations recognized the continued neutrality of Switzerland.
1920 – The National Negro Baseball League was organized.
1935 – In Flemington, New Jersey, a jury found Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty of the kidnapping and death of the infant son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. Hauptmann was later executed for the crimes.
1937 – Boston Redskins receive approval from NFL to move to Washington, D.C; to share baseball’s Griffith Stadium with first Washington Senators of the American League
1943 – Women’s US Marine Corps created
1945 – The German city of Dresden is destroyed by a bombing raid. According to estimates, up to 25,000 people were killed in the raids that lasted 3 days
1945 – USSR captures Budapest, after a 49-day battle with Nazi Germany in which 159,000 die
1955 – Israel acquired 4 of the 7 Dead Sea scrolls.
1968 – US sends 10,500 additional soldiers to Vietnam
1981 – Longest sentence published by “The New York Times” – 1286 words
1981 – A series of sewer explosions destroys more than two miles of streets in Louisville, Kentucky.
1984 – 6 year old Texan Stormie Jones gets 1st heart & liver transplant
1984 – Konstantin Chernenko was chosen to be general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party’s Central Committee, succeeding the late Yuri Andropov.
1990 – In Ottawa, the United States and its European allies forged an agreement with the Soviet Union and East Germany on a two-stage formula to reunite Germany.
1991 – Hundreds of Iraqis were killed by two laser-guided bombs that destroyed an underground facility in Baghdad. U.S. officials identified the facility as a military installation, but Iraqi officials said it was a bomb shelter.
1996 – British boy band Take That officially announce that they are disbanding, prompting UK government to set up counselling phone lines
2000 – Charles M. Schulz’s last original Sunday “Peanuts” comic strip appeared in newspapers. Schulz had died the day before.
2002 – In Alexandria, VA, John Walker Lindh pled innocent to a 10-count federal indictment. He was charged with conspiring to kill Americans and aiding Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network.
2008 – Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologizes to Indigenous Australians for the “stolen generations”. Between 10 and 30 percent of Aboriginal and Torres Islander children were removed from their families until the 1960s.
2008 – The LZR Racer Suit is unveiled in NYC; line of competition swimsuits made by Speedo using high-tech fabric of woven elastane-nylon & polyurethane; times went down dramatically; rules changed 2010
2017 – US President Donald Trump accepts the resignation of national security adviser Michael Flynn over his dealings with Russia
2018 – Israeli Police report recommends Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be prosecuted on bribery, fraud and breach-of-trust charges
2019 – NASA confirms Mars Opportunity rover’s mission has ended after 15 years due to a sandstorm damaging its communications
2019 – Iran marks 40th anniversary of the Islamic revolution with huge street marches and protests against the US
2020 – Scientists overturn current thought about how planets form – not by violent collision but gentle clumping, through study of Arrokoth in Kepler belt, published in “Science”
2021 – Former US President Donald Trump acquitted in second Senate impeachment trial on charge of incitement of insurrection after senators vote 57 to 43 in favor of conviction, less than the two thirds majority required for impeachment
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
