1918 – By order of the Bolshevik Party and carried out by Cheka, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, his immediate family, and retainers were murdered at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, Russia
0180 – Twelve inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa executed for being Christians. This is the earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world.
0924 – Edward the Elder of Wessex and Mercia dies and is succeeded by his son Athelstan, 29, who will reign until 940, continuing his father’s conquest of the Danelaw north of the Thames-Lea line from the Vikings who have been in Britain since 787
1054 – Holy Roman Emperor Henry III crowns his son Henry IV king
1203 – Fourth Crusade captures Constantinople by assault; the Byzantine emperor Alexius III Angelus flees from his capital into exile.
1212 – The Moslems were crushed in the Spanish crusade.
1429 – Dauphin crowned King Charles VII of France (despite having been king since 1422)
1453 – France defeated England at Castillon, France, which ended the 100 Years’ War.
1549 – Jews are expelled from Ghent, Belgium
1585 – English secret service discovers Anthony Babington’s murder plot against Queen Elizabeth I
1695 – Establishment of the Bank of Scotland under an Act of the Scottish Parliament,The Three Estates.
1762 – Catherine II becomes tzar of Russia upon the accidental murder of Peter III of Russia
1771 – Bloody Falls Massacre: Chipewyan chief Matonabbee traveling as the guide to Samuel Hearne on his Arctic overland journey, massacre a group of unsuspecting Inuit
1785 – France limited the importation of goods from Britain.
1791 – Members of the French National guard under the command of General Lafayette open fire on a crowd of radical Jacobins at the Champ de Mars, Paris, during the French Revolution, killing as many as 50 people.
1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered to the British at Rochefort, France.
1821 – Spain ceded Florida to the U.S.
1856 – The Great Train Wreck of 1856, occurs in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania killing over 60 people
1863 – Battle of Honey Springs, largest battle of war in Indian Territory
1866 – Authorization was given to build a tunnel beneath the Chicago River. The three-year project cost $512,709.
1897 – Klondike gold rush begins when first successful prospectors arrive in Seattle, Washington.
1898 – U.S. troops under General William R. Shafter took Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish-American War.
1917 – King George V of the United Kingdom issues a Proclamation stating that the male line descendants of the British royal family will bear the surname Windsor.
1918 – By order of the Bolshevik Party and carried out by Cheka, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, his immediate family, and retainers were murdered at the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, Russia https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/romanov-family-executed
1920 – Sinclair Lewis finished his novel “Main Street.”
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.
1944 – 2 ammunition ships explodes at Port Chicago, California kills 322
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.”
1946 – Chinese communists opened a drive against the Nationalist army on the Yangtze River.
1954 – The Brooklyn Dodgers made history as the first team with a majority of black players.
1955 – Disneyland opens its doors for the first time, The popular theme park (“The Happiest Place on Earth”) was opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California.
1959 – Tibet abolishes serfdom
1960 – Francis Gary Powers pled guilty to spying charges in a Moscow court after his U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union.
1966 – Ho Chi Minh ordered a partial mobilization of North Vietnam forces to defend against American air strikes.
1967 – Race riots in Cairo Illinois
1968 – The date of the July 17 Revolution in Iraq when Abdul Rahman Arif was overthrown and the Ba’ath Party installed as the governing power in Iraq with Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as the new Iraqi President.
1973 – King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan is deposed by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan while in Italy undergoing eye surgery.
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 – Indonesia annexes East Timor and declares it its 27th province
1979 – Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza resigned and fled to Miami, FL, in exile.
1981 – Fulton County (Atlanta) grand jury indicts Wayne B William 23 year old photographers, for murder of 2 of 28 blacks killed in Atlanta
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.
1992 – Slovak parliament declares independence from Czechoslovakia, beginning the so-called Velvet Divorce
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 – In St. Petersburg, Nicholas II of Russia and his family are buried in St. Catherine Chapel exactly 80 years after he and his family were killed by Bolsheviks
2007 – Bear Stearns tells clients that the assets of one of it’s troubled funds are essentially worthless, while those in another are worth 9% of their value at the end of April. Weeks later, both funds file for bankruptcy protection
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
2015 – Suicide bomber in Khan Bani Saad, Iraq, kills 120, ISIS claims responsibility
2019 – Bulgaria announces 5 million people, virtually every adult, has had their personal information exposed after national tax agency hacked
2020 – India becomes the third country to record 1 million cases of COVID-19, 56% concentrated in Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
