1982 – The first computer virus is released “into the wild”, Elk Cloner was created by 15-year-old Richard Skrenta as a practical joke.
1018 – The Holy Roman Empire and Poland conclude the Peace of Bautzen
1164 – English King Henry II passes the Constitutions of Clarendon, attempting to restrict power of the papal clergy in England – only Thomas Beckett objects, the beginning of their quarrel
1349 – Jews of Freilsburg Germany are massacred
1607 – Massive flooding in England destroys around 200 square miles of coastline and results in approximately 2,000 casualties
1615 – Japanese Keichō embassy, the first to travel to Europe, headed by Hasekura Tsunenaga meets with Spanish King Philip III in Madrid
1647 – After nine months of negotiations, Scottish Presbyterians sell captured Charles I to English Parliament for around £100,000
1649 – England’s King Charles I was beheaded.
1661 – Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England is ritually executed after having been dead for two years
1790 – The first purpose-built lifeboat was launched on the River Tyne.
1798 – The first brawl in the U.S. House of Representatives took place. Congressmen Matthew Lyon and Roger Griswold fought on the House floor.
1806 – The original Lower Trenton Toll Bridge, which spans the Delaware River between Morrisville, Pennsylvania and Trenton, New Jersey, is opened. A later bridge opened in 1935 is also known as the Trenton Makes – the World Takes Bridge.
1835 – Richard Lawrence misfires at President Andrew Jackson in Washington, D.C. in 1st attempted assassination of a US President
1844 – Richard Theodore Greener became the first African American to graduate from Harvard University.
1847 – The town of Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco.
1854 – 1st election in Washington Territory; 1,682 votes cast
1862 – The U.S. Navy’s first ironclad warship, the “Monitor”, was launched.
1889 – Rudolph, crown prince of Austria, and his 17-year-old mistress, Baroness Marie Vetsera, were found shot in his hunting lodge at Mayerling, near Vienna.
1900 – The British fighting the Boers in South Africa ask for a larger army.
1902 – Britain and Japan sign a treaty after months of negotiating which commits each country to supporting an independent China and Korea, although it acknowledges Japan’s ‘special interest’ in Korea
1911 – The first airplane rescue at sea was made by the destroyer “Terry.” Pilot James McCurdy was forced to land in the ocean about 10 miles from Havana, Cuba.
1922 – World Law Day 1st celebrated
1933 – “The Lone Ranger” was heard on radio for the first time. The program ran for 2,956 episodes and ended in 1955.
1933 – Adolf Hitler was named the German Chancellor.
1945 – American Rangers and Filipino resistance fighters liberate over 500 Allied POWs from Japanese at Cabanatuan
1945 – 9,400 people die in the deadliest maritime disaster in history, The “Wilhelm Gustloff” was sunk by a Soviet submarine during World War II.
1948 – Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi was murdered by a Hindu extremist.
1956 – Home of Martin Luther King Jr. is bombed
1958 – The first two-way moving sidewalk was put in service at Love Field in Dallas, TX. The length of the walkway through the airport was 1,435 feet.
1962 – Two members of the “Flying Wallendas” high-wire act were killed when their seven-person pyramid collapsed during a performance in Detroit, MI.
1965 – State funeral for Winston Churchill at St Paul’s Cathedral in London; at the time, the world’s largest ever state funeral
1968 – The Tet Offensive began as Communist forces launched surprise attacks against South Vietnamese provincial capitals.
1969 – The Beatles give their last public performance, The concert was played on the rooftop of the Apple Corps building at 3 Savile Row in London
1972 – In Northern Ireland, British soldiers shot and killed thirteen Roman Catholic civil rights marchers. The day is known as “Bloody Sunday.”
1975 – Ernő Rubik applies for a patent for his “Magic Cube” invention, later to be known as a Rubik’s cube
1979 – The civilian government of Iran announced it had decided to allow Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to return. He had been living in exile in France.
1982 – The first computer virus is released “into the wild”, Elk Cloner was created by 15-year-old Richard Skrenta as a practical joke.
1989 – Five Pharaoh sculptures from 1470 BC found at temple of Luxor
1989 – The U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan was closed.
1995 – Car bomb explodes in Algiers, killing 42 and wounding 296
1995 – The U.N. Security Council authorized the deployment of a 6,000-member U.N. peace-keeping contingent to assume security responsibilities in Haiti from U.S. forces.
1995 – Researchers from the U.S. National Institutes of Health announced that clinical trials had demonstrated the effectiveness of the first preventative treatment for sickle cell anemia.
1996 – Gino Gallagher, the reputed leader of the Irish National Liberation Army, was shot and killed as he queued for his unemployment benefit.
1997 – A New Jersey judge ruled that the unborn child of a female prisoner must have legal representation. He denied the prisoner bail reduction to enable her to leave the jail and obtain an abortion.
2002 – Slobodan Milosevic accused the U.N. war crimes tribunal of an “evil and hostile attack” against him. Milosevic was defending his actions during the Balkan wars.
2002 – Japan’s last coal mine was closed. The closures were due to high production costs and cheap imports.
2014 – 24 hostages are killed after 6 suicide bombers temporarily take over the Iraqi Ministry of Transportation in Baghdad
2016 – Boko Haram militants on motorcycles attack Dalori village near Maiduguri, Nigeria, killing at least 65 and injuring 136
2019 – Continuous 24 hr church mass lasting 97 days to prevent deportation of Armenian asylum seekers ends after Dutch authorities reconsider at Protestant Bethel Church in The Hague
2019 – Scientists reveal discovery of cavity six miles long, 1,000 feet deep under Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica, leading to fears it might collapse and raise sea levels by two feet
2022 – Kurdish-led militia and American forces regain control of Sinaa prison in Hasaka, Syria, after a week-log assault by ISIS fighters, with the loss of 500 lives
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
