1943 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to fly in an airplane while in office. He flew from Miami, FL, to French Morocco where he met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to discuss World War II.
378 – General Siyaj K’ak’, a Mayan warlord, conquers Tikal and increases the domain of Teotihuacan
1129 – Formal approval of the Order of Templars at the Council of Troyes
1343 – Arnost of Pardubice becomes the first Archbishop of Prague (and the last bishop of Prague)
1514 – Pope Leo X issues a papal bull against slavery
1526 – Charles V and Francis I sign the Treaty of Madrid, forcing Francis to give up claims to Burgundy, Italy and Flanders
1559 – Elizabeth I is crowned Queen of England, “The Virgin Queen” was the daughter of Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII.
1601 – Church authorities in Rome burn Hebrew books
1639 – Connecticut’s first constitution, the “Fundamental Orders,” was adopted.
1699 – Massachusetts holds day of fasting for wrongly persecuting “witches”
1724 – Spanish King Philip V abdicates throne
1761 – Third Battle of Panipat: In one of the largest battles of the century, the mostly Muslim Afghani Durrani Empire defeats the mostly Hindu Maratha Empire in Northern India. An estimated 60,000–70,000 were killed in the fighting and about 40,000 Maratha prisoners massacred afterwards.
1784 – The United States ratified a peace treaty with England ending the Revolutionary War.
1794 – Dr Jessee Bennet of Edom, Virginia, performs 1st successful Cesarean section operation in the US on his wife
1799 – Eli Whitney receives government contract for 10,000 muskets
1814 – King of Denmark cedes Norway to King of Sweden by treaty of Kiel
1858 – French emperor Napoleon III escaped an attempt on his life.
1873 – John Hyatt’s 1869 invention ‘Celluloid’ was registered as a trademark.
1873 – Prominent African American Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback elected to US Senate (though never seated due to state elections controversy)
1878 – US Supreme court rules race separation on trains unconstitutional
1882 – The Myopia Hunt Club, in Winchester, MA, became the first country club in the United States.
1907 – An earthquake killed over 1,000 people in Kingston, Jamaica.
1914 – The Gandhi-Smuts Agreement is reached between Gen. J.C. Smuts and Mahatma Gandhi, regarding voluntary registration, poll tax, recognition of Indian marriages and other matters
1935 – Iraq-Mediterranean oil pipeline goes into use
1939 – Norway claims Queen Maud Land in Antarctica
1943 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to fly in an airplane while in office. He flew from Miami, FL, to French Morocco where he met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to discuss World War II.
1945 – In Greece, Communists and the British agree to a cease-fire in the struggle to control Athens (and with it Greece)
1952 – NBC’s “Today” show premiered.
1953 – Josip Broz Tito was elected president of Yugoslavia by the country’s Parliament.
1954 – The Hudson Motor Car Company merged with Nash-Kelvinator. The new company was called the American Motors Corporation.
1963 – “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath is published by Heinemann in the UK, the author commits suicide a month later
1963 – George Wallace sworn in as Governor of Alabama, his address states “segregation now; segregation tomorrow; segregation forever!”
1967 – The Summer of Love is launched with the Human Be-In, San Francisco was the epicenter of the Hippie Revolution, which soon influenced cultures around the world.
1967 – New York Times reports Army is conducting secret germ warfare experiments
1969 – An explosion aboard the U.S. aircraft carrier Enterprise off Hawaii killed 25 crew members.
1972 – NBC-TV debuted “Sanford & Son.”
1973 – The Miami Dolphins defeated the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII and became the first NFL team to go undefeated in a season.
1975 – USSR breaks trade agreement with US
1979 – US President Jimmy Carter proposes Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday be a federal holiday
1985 – 16 indicted by US for granting sanctuary to Central American refugees
1986 – Vinicio Cerezo becomes only the second freely elected President of Guatemala since CIA-sponsored coup in 1954
1993 – The British government pledged to introduce legislation to criminalize invasions of privacy by the press.
1994 – The Duchess of Kent converts to Catholicism, the first member of the Royal Family to do so in more than 300 years
1994 – U.S. President Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed Kremlin accords to stop aiming missiles at any nation and to dismantle the nuclear arsenal of Ukraine.
1995 – Mexico pledges profits from state-owned Pemex’s $7-billion-per-year oil revenues in an effort to secure US congressional approval of loan guarantees; President Clinton approves a $20-billion U.S. aid package for Mexico
1996 – Juan Garcia Abrego was arrested by Mexican agents. The alleged drug lord was handed over to the FBI the next day.
1998 – Whitewater prosecutors questioned Hillary Rodham Clinton at the White House for 10 minutes about the gathering of FBI background files on past Republican political appointees.
1998 – In Dallas, researchers report an enzyme that slows the aging process and cell death.
1999 – The U.S. proposed the lifting of the U.N. ceilings on the sale of oil in Iraq. The restriction being that the money be used to buy medicine and food for the Iraqi people.
2000 – A U.N. tribunal sentenced five Bosnian Croats to up to 25 years for the 1993 massacre of over 100 Muslims in a Bosnian village.
2004 – The national flag of Georgia, the so-called “five cross flag” restored to official use after a hiatus of some 500 years
2005 – A probe, from the Cassini-Huygens mission, sent back pictures during and after landing on Saturn’s moon Titan. The mission was launched on October 15, 1997.
2011 – Stampede near Sabarimala in Kerala, India kills 104 devotees and injures 100 more
2012 – Suicide bomber kills 53 and injures 130 in Basra, Iraq
2019 – Americans chance of dying from an accidental opioid overdose higher than a car accident for the first time, according to US National Safety Council
2019 – US President Donald Trump denies he is a Russian agent after NY Times article states the FBI started an investigation and the Washington Post raised issues over a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin
2019 – US Republican leaders strip Congressman Steve King from House committees after series of racist comments
2021 – Uganda elections re-elect President Museveni (in power since 1986), with main opposition presidential candidate Bobi Wine disputing the result
2021 – US Secret Service takes control of Joe Biden’s inauguration as 20,000 troops authorized to guard Washington D.C., more than those stationed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Somalia
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
