1587 – Mary, Queen of Scots, is beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle aged 44 after being convicted of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth I in the Babington Plot
1600 – Vatican convicts scholar and friar Giordano Bruno (who believed in an infinite universe ) of heresy and sentences him to be burnt at the stake
1627 – Gunpowder is used in a mining operation instead of mechanical tools in present-day Slovakia, reportedly the first time explosives had been used in mining
1693 – A charter was granted for the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA.
1855 – The Devil’s Footprints, hoof-like marks mysteriously appear for over 60km after a snowfall in southern Devon, England
1861 – The Confederate States of America was formed.
1861 – A Cheyenne delegation and some Arapaho leaders accepted a new settlement (Treaty of Fort Wise) with the U.S. Federal government. The deal ceded most of their land but secured a 600-square mile reservation and annuity payments.
1879 – Sandford Fleming proposes the use of time zones. The later introduction of Universal Standard Time, which is based on time zones, revolutionized time keeping.
1887 – The Dawes Act authorizes the President of the United States to survey Native American tribal land and divide it into individual allotments. Those who accepted allotments and lived separately from the tribe were granted United States citizenship.
1904 – The Russo-Japanese War began with Japan attacking Russian forces in Manchuria.
1910 – William D. Boyce incorporated the Boy Scouts of America.
1911 – US helps overthrow President Miguel Devila of Honduras
1915 – “The Birth of a Nation” the first 12-reel film in America, directed by D. W. Griffith, starring Lillian Gish and Mae Marsh, opens at Clune’s Auditorium in Los Angeles
1918 – “Stars & Stripes,”, weekly US armed forces newspaper, 1st published
1942 – Congress advises FDR that, Americans of Japanese descent should be locked up en masse so they wouldn’t oppose the US war effort
1950 – The Stasi, East Germany’s notorious secret police, is established, The “Staatssicherheit”, which was dissolved in 1990, is considered one of the most repressive intelligence agencies in the world.
1960 – Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom issued an Order-in-Council, stating that she and her family would be known as the House of Windsor, and that her descendants will take the name “Mountbatten-Windsor”.
1963 – The Kennedy administration prohibited travel to Cuba and made financial and commercial transactions with Cuba illegal for U.S. citizens.
1963 – Lamar Hunt, owner of the American Football League franchise in Dallas, TX, moved the operation to Kansas City. The new team was named the Chiefs.
1965 – President Johnson deploys 1st US combat troops to South Vietnam, with 3500 marines sent to protect key US airbase near Da Nang
1968 – Orangeburg Massacre: highway patrol officers kill 3 students and injure 27 others demonstrating at South Carolina State University, 1st student killing by law enforcement in the US
1969 – The last issue of the “Saturday Evening Post” was published. It was revived in 1971 as a quarterly publication and later a 6 times a year.
1971 – The Nasdaq stock-market index debuted.
1973 – U.S. Senate leaders named seven members of a select committee to investigate the Watergate scandal.
1980 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced a plan to re-introduce draft registration.
1983 – Ariel Sharon resigns from Israeli government after an inquiry shows he was indirectly responsible for the killings of hundreds of people in 1982
1992 – Ulysses spacecraft passes Jupiter
1993 – General Motors sued NBC, alleging that “Dateline NBC” had rigged two car-truck crashes to show that some GM pickups were prone to fires after certain types of crashes. The suit was settled the following day by NBC.
2005 – Leaders of both Palestine and Israel declare a truce in what many hope will be a “new era of peace”
2008 – Nebraska bans electric chair as sole execution method
2013 – 29 people are killed and 69 are injured in a series of Iraq bombings
2013 – 16 people are killed and 27 are wounded by a market bombing in Kalaya, Pakistan
2017 – US Senate confirms Jeff Sessions Attorney General, after controversy and protests
2020 – Gunman shoots and kills 29 people in a shopping center in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, with 57 injured. Shooter shot and killed by security forces a day later.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
