1945 – A U.S. invasion force of 30,000 marines land at Iwo Jima, starting a month-long WWII battle against Japanese troops
0197 – Lucius Septimius Severus’ army beats Clodius Albinus at Lyon
0356 – Emperor Constantius II shuts all heathen temples
0842 – Medieval Iconoclastic Controversy ends as a council in Constantinople formally reinstated the veneration of icons in the churches
1516 – Consecration of the Lady Chapel, part of Westminster Abbey, by Henry VII, called “one of the most perfect buildings ever erected in England
1594 – Having already inherited the throne of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth through his mother Catherine Jagellonica of Poland, Sigismund III of the House of Vasa is crowned King of Sweden, succeeding his father John III of Sweden.
1624 – English “Happy Parliament”, the final Parliament of King James I opens at Westminster
1674 – England and the Netherlands sign the Peace of Westminster, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War. A provision of the agreement transfers the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam to England, which renamed it New York
1797 – The Peace of Tolentino : Pope Pius VI cedes Papal territories of Avignon, Venaissin, Ferrara, Bologna, and the Romagna to France
1803 – Congress accepts Ohio’s constitution, statehood not ratified till 1953
1807 – Former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr was arrested in Alabama. He was later tried and acquitted on charges of treason.
1846 – The formal transfer of government between Texas and the United States took place. Texas had officially become a state on December 29, 1845.
1859 – Dan Sickles is acquitted of murder on grounds of temporary insanity first time this defense is successfully used
1878 – Thomas Alva Edison patented a music player (the phonograph).
1881 – Kansas became the first state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages.
1906 – W K Kellogg & Charles D Bolin incorporate Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, Battle Creek M
1910 – Typhoid Mary [Mary Mallon] is freed from her first periods of forced isolation and goes on to cause several further outbreaks of typhoid in the New York area
1913 – Mexican General Victoriano Huerta seizes power after a 10 day coup d’état in Mexico City with US support, deposing the elected President Francisco I. Madero
1914 – Four-year old Charlotte May Pierstorff mailed by train from Grangeville, Idaho to her grandparents’ house 73 miles away in most famous ‘child in the post’ instance
1922 – Ed Wynn became the first big-name, vaudeville talent to sign on as a radio talent.
1934 – US contract air mail service canceled, replaced by US army for 6 months
1937 – During a public ceremony at the Viceregal Palace (the former Imperial residence) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, two Eritrean nationalists attempt to kill viceroy Rodolfo Graziani with a number of grenades
1941 – Nazis raid Koco Amsterdam & round up 429 young Jews for deportation
1942 – U.S. President Roosevelt signed an executive order giving the military the authority to relocate and intern Japanese-Americans.
1945 – A U.S. invasion force of 30,000 marines land at Iwo Jima, starting a month-long WWII battle against Japanese troops
1949 – Mass arrests of communists in India
1953 – The State of Georgia approved the first literature censorship board in the U.S. Newspapers were excluded from the new legislation.
1959 – Cyprus was granted its independence with the signing of an agreement with Britain, Turkey and Greece.
1963 – The Soviet Union informed U.S. President Kennedy it would withdraw “several thousand” of its troops in Cuba.
1968 – National Educational Television (the predecessor to the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States) debuts the children’s television program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
1981 – The U.S. State Department call El Savador a “textbook case” of a Communist plot.
1982 – DeLorean Car factory in Belfast goes into receivership
1985 – William Schroeder became the first artificial-heart patient to leave the confines of the hospital.
1986 – The U.S. Senate approved a treaty outlawing genocide. The pact had been submitted 37 years earlier for ratification.
1987 – Reagan lifts trade boycott against Poland
1997 – FCC makes available 311 for non-emergency calls & 711 for hearing or speech-impaired emergency calls
1998 – US hockey team destroys their rooms at Olympic village in Japan
2001 – The museum at the Oklahoma City National Memorial Center was dedicated.
2002 – NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft began using its thermal emission imaging system to map Mars.
2004 – Former Enron Corp. chief executive Jeffrey Skilling was charged with fraud, insider trading and other crimes in connection with the energy trader’s collapse. Skilling was later convicted and sentenced to more than 24 years in prison.
2005 – The USS Jimmy Carter was commissioned at Groton, CT. It was the last of the Seawolf class of attack submarines.
2008 – Fidel Castro resigned the Cuban presidency. His brother Raul was later named as his successor.
2012 – 44 people killed in prison brawl in Apocada, Mexico, between two rival drug cartels
2018 – Nigeria says 110 girls missing, presumed kidnapped by Boko Haram after attack on school in Dapchi, Yobe state
2019 – New York city bans hair discrimination, to limit racial stereotyping
2021 – In a softening of 4-year WADA ban on Russia from all international sport, Russia to compete under acronym “ROC” after name of the Russian Olympic Committee
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
