1570 – Pius V excommunicates Queen Elizabeth I of England for heresy and persecution of English Catholics during her reign. Also absolves her subjects from allegiance to the crown.
1643 – Pavonia Massacre: Dutch US colonists kill 120 Algonquin Native Americans at Communipaw (New Jersey)
1751 – Edward Willet displayed the first trained monkey act in the U.S.
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.
1799 – US Congress passes 1st federal quarantine legislation
1836 – Showman P. T. Barnum exhibits African American slave Joice Heth, claiming she was the 161 year-old nursemaid to George Washington
1862 – First Legal Tender Act 1862 is passed by the US Congress, authorizing the United States Note (greenback) into circulation, the first fiat paper money that was legal tender in America
1870 – Hiram Revels became the first black United States senator, taking over the term of Jefferson Davis.
1901 – J.P. Morgan formed U.S. Steel Corporation, the first billion-dollar corporation in the world.
1913 – The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It authorized a graduated income tax.
1916 – Battle of Verdun: German troops conquer Fort Douaumont without firing a shot, the largest and highest fort defending the city of Verdun during World War I
1919 – The state of Oregon became the first state to place a tax on gasoline. The tax was 1 cent per gallon.
1925 – Glacier Bay National Monument established in Alaska
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, then known as Cassius Clay, became world heavyweight boxing champion for the first time by knocking out Sonny Liston in Miami Beach.
1972 – Germany gave a $5 million ransom to Arab terrorists who had hijacked a jumbo jet.
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)
1981 – Exec Board of Baseball Players’ Association votes unanimously to strike on May 29 if the issue of free-agent compensation remains unresolved
1987 – US Supreme Court upholds (5-4) affirmative action
1991 – US, barracks in Dhahran Saudi Arabia, hit by scud missile, kills 28
1992 – Khojaly massacre: about 613 civilians killed by Armenian armed forces during the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan
1994 – Israeli extremist Baruch Goldstein massacres 30 Palestinians in Hebron
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
2014 – 50 students are killed in a Boko Harem attack on a college in Buni, Nigeria
2014 – Hundreds of pro-Russian protesters block the Crimean parliament and demand a referendum on Crimea’s independence
2018 – China briefly bans the letter ‘N’ as part of widespread censorship efforts
2021 – Chinese President Xi Jinping claims the country has eradicated extreme poverty (earning less than US$620 a year), though many observers remain skeptical about the accuracy of Chinese data due to widespread corruption and lack of transparency
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
