1862 – American Civil War: Confederate spy Belle Boyd is arrested by Union troops and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C.
0362 – Emperor Julianus of Constantinople’s “School Edict” prohibited Christian teachers from using pagan literature which were standard texts for classical education at the time
1030 – Battle of Stiklestad – Norwegian King Olaf II killed trying to reclaim the throne. One of the most famous Norwegian battles
1221 – Emperor Go-Horikawa aged only 10 years old ascends to the Chrysanthemum Throne of Japan
1279 – Five emissaries dispatched by Kublai Khan from the Mongol Yuan dynasty are beheaded by Japan
1566 – Great Britain executes Agnes Waterhouse, the first British woman convicted of witchcraft in Chelmsford, England
1588 – The English defeated the Spanish Armada in the Battle of Gravelines.
1609 – Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs at Ticonderoga, New York setting the stage for French-Iroquois conflicts for the next 150 years
1676 – Nathaniel Bacon declared a rebel for assembling frontiersmen to protect settlers from Indians
1773 – The first schoolhouse to be located west of the Allegheny Mountains was built in Schoenbrunn, OH.
1786 – “The Pittsburgh Gazette” became the first newspaper west of the Alleghenies to be published. The paper’s name was later changed to “The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.”
1794 – African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia, dedicated
1848 – Irish Potato Famine: Tipperary Revolt – an unsuccessful nationalist revolt against British rule put down by police
1862 – American Civil War: Confederate spy Belle Boyd is arrested by Union troops and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C.
1900 – In Italy, King Umberto I of Italy is assassinated by Italian-born anarchist Gaetano Bresci
1905 – US Secretary of War William Howard Taft makes secret agreement with Japanese Prime Minister Katsura agreeing to Japanese free rein in Korea in return for non-interference with the US in the Philippines
1920 – Mexican rebel Pancho Villa surrenders
1927 – 1st iron lung installed (Bellevue hospital, NY)
1933 – Police shootout with Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow’s gang in Iowa, leaves one member, Clyde’s brother Buck Barrow dead and one captured. Bonnie and Clyde escape.
1948 – The XIV Olympics opened in London, United Kingdom after a 12 year hiatus due to the Second World War
1950 – Disney’s adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” was released.
1957 – Jack Paar began hosting the “Tonight” show on NBC-TV. The name of the show was changed to “The Jack Paar Show.” Paar was host for five years.
1957 – The International Atomic Energy Agency was established.
1966 – In Nigerian counter-coup, Head of State General Aguiyi Ironsi murdered, Yakubu Gowon appointed his successor
1967 – Fire aboard carrier USS Forrestal in Gulf of Tonkin kills 134
1968 – Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church’s stance against artificial methods of birth control.
1970 – 6 days of race rioting in Hartford, Connecticut
1975 – OAS (Organization of American States) members voted to lift collective sanctions against Cuba. The U.S. government welcomed the action and announced its intention to open serious discussions with Cuba on normalization.
1976 – In New York City, the “Son of Sam” kills one person and seriously wounds another in first of a series of attacks
1985 – General Motors announced that Spring Hill, TN, would be the home of the Saturn automobile assembly plant.
1986 – Bomb attack in West-Beirut, 30 killed
1988 – FDIC bails out 1st Republic Bank, Dallas, with $4 billion
1993 – The Israeli Supreme Court acquitted retired Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk of being Nazi death camp guard “Ivan the Terrible.” His death sentence was thrown out and he was set free.
1994 – Jesse Timmedequas rapes and murders Megan Kanka, 7 (results in Megan’s Law)
1994 – American minister and anti-abortionist Paul Jennings Hill murders Dr. John Britton and Britton’s bodyguard, retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel James Barrett, outside of an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Florida
1996 – The controversial child protection portion of the Communications Decency Act (1996) is struck down as too broad by a U.S. federal court
1997 – Minamata Bay in Japan was declared free of mercury 40 years after contaminated food fish were blamed for deaths and birth defects.
1998 – The United Auto Workers union ended a 54-day strike against General Motors. The strike caused $2.8 billion in lost revenues.
2005 – Astronomers announced that they had discovered a new planet (Xena) larger than Pluto in orbit around the sun.
2008 – United States Congress apologizes for slavery, The U.S. House of Representatives publicly apologized for the institution of slavery and Jim Crow laws that discriminated against African Americans.
2013 – 300 prisoners are freed after a Taliban attack in Dera Ismal Khan, Pakistan
2015 – Over 3,500 immigrants over 2 days attempt to enter the Channel Tunnel at Calais, to cross into Britain
2015 – Mohammed Omar, mullah and Taliban leader is confirmed dead (killed 2013) by the Afghan government
2019 – Prison riot kills 58, with 16 decapitated in battle between rival factions at the Altamira prison, Para state, Brazil
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
