1918 – The Romanov royal family and several of their retainers are executed by a Bolshevik firing squad in the basement of Ipatiev House, in Yekaterinburg, Siberia
0180 – 6 inhabitants of Carthage, North Africa executed for being Christians. Earliest record of Christianity in this part of the world.
0855 – St Leo IV dies, ending his reign as Catholic Pope; he will be succeeded by Benedict III
1203 – Siege of Constantinople begins during the fourth Crusade; Roman Catholic Crusaders aboard a Venetian fleet attack the city
1212 – The Moslems were crushed in the Spanish crusade.
1453 – France defeated England at Castillon, France, which ended the 100 Years’ War.
1585 – English secret service discovers Anthony Babington’s murder plot against Queen Elizabeth I
1686 – A meeting takes place at Lüneburg between several Protestant powers in order to discuss the formation of an ‘evangelical’ league of defense, called the ‘Confederatio Militiae Evangelicae’, against the Catholic League.
1762 – Catherine II becomes Tsarina of Russia following the murder of Peter III
1785 – France limited the importation of goods from Britain.
1791 – Members of the French National Guard under command of General Lafayette open fire on crowd of radical Jacobins at Champ de Mars, Paris, during the French Revolution, killing up to 50 people
1816 – “L’Argus” accidentally discovers raft holding survivors from wrecked French frigate “Méduse.” After 13 days at sea only 15 of 151 remain, the rest having been cannibalised, murdered, or committed suicide. This event was made famous by Théodore Gericault’s painting “The Raft of the Medusa”
1821 – Spain ceded Florida to the U.S.
1841 – British humorous and satirical magazine “Punch” first published; it finally closed in 2002
1862 – National cemeteries were authorized by the U.S. government.
1863 – Battle of Honey Springs – largest battle in Indian Territory
1866 – Authorization was given to build a tunnel beneath the Chicago River. The three-year project cost $512,709.
1898 – U.S. troops under General William R. Shafter took Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish-American War.
1903 – The Russian Social Democratic Workers Party meets, first in Brussels and then London because their leaders have been forced into exile by the Russian Government
1917 – Royal Proclamation by King George V changes name of British Royal family from German Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor
1918 – The Romanov royal family and several of their retainers are executed by a Bolshevik firing squad in the basement of Ipatiev House, in Yekaterinburg, Siberia
1936 – Spanish generals Francisco Franco and Emilio Mola lead a right-wing uprising, starting the Spanish Civil War
1941 – Brigadier General Soervell directed Architect G. Edwin Bergstrom to have basic plans and architectural perspectives for an office building that could house 40,000 War Department employees on his desk by the following Monday morning. The building became known as the Pentagon.
1945 – U.S. President Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill began meeting at Potsdam in the final Allied summit of World War II. During the meeting Stalin made the comment that “Hitler had escaped.”
1948 – US Air Force pilot Gail Halvorsen encounters children in at Templehof Airport in Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, giving him the idea to drop candy in ‘Operation Little Vittles’
1954 – The Brooklyn Dodgers made history as the first team with a majority of black players.
1955 – Arco, Idaho, becomes 1st US city lit by nuclear power
1955 – Disneyland opened in Anaheim, CA.
1966 – Ho Chi Minh ordered a partial mobilization of North Vietnam forces to defend against American air strikes.
1967 – Jimi Hendrix quits as opening act of the Monkees’ tour, after playing 7 of a planned 29 shows
1974 – John Lennon is (again) ordered to leave US in 60 days, due to a 1968 marijuana charge in the UK
1975 – An Apollo spaceship docked with a Soyuz spacecraft in orbit. It was the first link up between the U.S. and Soviet Union.
1976 – 21st modern Olympic games opens in Montreal: 25 African teams (later rising to 33 nations) boycott the games due to New Zealand playing rugby in apartheid South Africa
1976 – Indonesia annexes East Timor and declares it its 27th province – This was the culmination of an 8-month long Indonesian invasion and occupation of the Southeast Asian country that began just after East Timor declared its independence from Portugal in November, 1975.
1979 – Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza resigned and fled to Miami, FL, in exile.
1984 – US passes National Minimum Drinking Age Act, prohibiting under 21’s from buying or possessing alcohol as a condition of receiving federal highway funds
1986 – The largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history took place when LTV Corporation asked for court protection from more than 20,000 creditors. LTV Corp. had debts in excess of $4 billion.
1987 – Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and rear Admiral John Poindexter begin testifying to Congress at the “Iran-Contra” hearings.
1989 – The Stealth Bomber makes its debut – The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit made its first public flight from Palmdale, California.
1990 – Hussein’s Revolutionary Day speech claims Kuwait stole oil from Iraq
1997 – After 117 years, the Woolworth Corp. closed its last 400 stores.
1998 – Biologists reported that they had deciphered the genome (genetic map) of the syphilis bacterium.
1998 – The Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC) is adopted – The ICC is the first international judicial body that has the power to try individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
1998 – Russia buries Tsar Nicholas II and family, 80 years after they died
2009 – Jakarta double bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton Hotels killed 9 people including 4 foreigners
2012 – 17 people are wounded in a bar shooting in Tuscaloosa, Alabama
2014 – Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 is shot down over Eastern Ukraine by a Buk surface-to-air missile launched from pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board
2015 – Scientists solve mystery of sleeping sickness in two villages in northern Kazakhstan – uranium mining had caused increase in carbon monoxide
2019 – Irrigation canal system collapses near Fort Laramie, Wyoming parching 100,000 acres of farmland across Nebraska and Wyoming
2019 – Bulgaria announces 5 million people, virtually every adult, has had their personal information exposed after national tax agency hacked
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
