1920 – The U.S. Post Office Department ruled that children may not be sent by parcel post.
1325 – Ibn Battuta begins his travels, leaving his home in Tangiers to travel to Mecca (gone 24 years)
1611 – John Fabricius dedicates earliest sunspot publication
1774 – Rhode Island becomes first colony to prohibit importation of slaves
1777 – The Marquis de Lafayette arrived in the American colonies to help with their rebellion against the British.
1789 – Ice cream was served to General George Washington by Mrs. Alexander Hamilton.
1837 – 1st Mormon missionaries to British Isles leave Kirtland, Ohio
1865 – President Andrew Johnson proclaims reconstruction of confederate states
1866 – The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. Congress. It was ratified on July 9, 1868. The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. It did this by prohibiting states from denying or abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, depriving any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
1881 – The USS Jeannette, under the command of George Washington De Long, sinks in the Arctic circle following 21 months of drifting after becoming trapped in the ice
1888 – The U.S. Congress created the Department of Labor.
1898 – The Canadian Yukon Territory was organized.
1900 – In China, Baron von Kettler, the German minister to China, beats two young Boxers with his walking stick; when word of this circulates, rioting and arson spread throughout Peking during the night
1900 – China’s Boxer Rebellion against foreigners and Chinese Christians erupted into violence.
1917 – World War I: the deadliest German air raid on London during World War I is carried out by Gotha G bombers and results in 162 deaths, including 46 children with 432 injuries
1920 – The U.S. Post Office Department ruled that children may not be sent by parcel post.
1923 – The French set a trade barrier between the occupied Ruhr and the rest of Germany.
1927 – For the first time, an American Flag was displayed from the right hand of the Statue of Liberty.
1933 – German Secret State Police (Gestapo – Geheime Staats Polizei) established by Hermann Goering
1940 – Paris was evacuated before the German advance on the city.
1942 – US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) formed
1943 – German spies landed on Long Island, New York. They were soon captured.
1944 – Germany launched 10 of its new V1 rockets against Britain from a position near the Channel coast. Of the 10 rockets only 5 landed in Britain and only one managed to kill (6 people in London).
1962 – “Lolita” film based on Vladimir Nabokov’s novel directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring James Mason and Sue Lyon is released
1966 – The landmark “Miranda v. Arizona” decision was issued by the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision ruled that criminal suspects had to be informed of their constitutional rights before being questioned by police.
1967 – Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall was nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.
1971 – The New York Times began publishing the “Pentagon Papers”. The articles were a secret study of America’s involvement in Vietnam.
1974 – IMF establishes its “oil facility”, a special fund for loans to nations whose balance of payments have been severely affected by high oil prices
1977 – Convicted Martin Luther King assassin James Earl Ray recaptured
1979 – Sioux Indians were awarded $105 million in compensation for the U.S. seizure in 1877 of their Black Hills in South Dakota.
1980 – Rep John Jenrette Jr (D-SC) indicted in “Abscam” investigation
1981 – Teenager fires 6 blank rounds at Queen Elizabeth II
1983 – The unmanned U.S. space probe Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to leave the solar system. It was launched in March 1972. The first up-close images of the planet Jupiter were provided by Pioneer 10.
1988 – The Liggett Group, a cigarette manufacturer, was found liable for a lung-cancer death. They were, however, found innocent by the federal jury of misrepresenting the risks of smoking.
1989 – U.S. President George H.W. Bush exercised his first Presidential veto on a bill dealing with minimum wage.
1994 – A jury in Anchorage, Alaska, blames recklessness by Exxon and Captain Joseph Hazelwood for the Exxon Valdez disaster, allowing victims of the oil spill to seek $15 billion in damages
1996 – Montana Freemen surrender after an 81-day standoff with FBI agents
1997 – American fugitive Ira Einhorn is arrested in France for the murder of Holly Maddux after 16 years on the run, though he would not return for another four years
2000 – In Pyongyang, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Il welcomed South Korea’s President Kim Dae for a three-day summit. It was the first such meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea.
2002 – The United States withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty – The ABM Treaty was signed in 1972 by the Soviet Union and the United States. It regulated the establishment of anti-ballistic missile shields against nuclear missiles. Critics bemoaned the treaty’s termination for its potential negative effect on nuclear proliferation.
2006 – The US Senate issues a formal resolution apologizing for failure to create anti-lynching legislation
2007 – The Al Askari Mosque in Samarra is bombed reportedly by Iraqi Baathists, destroying the mosque’s two ten-story minarets
2012 – A series of bombings across Iraq kill 93 and wound 300 people
2017 – US Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifies before Senate Intelligence Committee, denies secretly meeting Russians
2017 – Otto Warmbier returns to the US in an unresponsive state after being held in Norther Korean jail for 17 months
2019 – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Iran is responsible for recent attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman
2019 – Kenyan MP Rashid Kassim arrested for slapping female MP Fatuma Gedi, following a walk out of parliament by female MPs after claiming male MPs joked “its slapping day”
2021 – Israel’s Knesset votes in a new coalition government with Naftali Bennett as Prime Minister, ousting Benjamin Netanyahu after a record 12 years
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
