1953 – Queen Elizabeth II is crowned – The coronation in London’s Westminster Abbey was the first televised major international event in history. Elizabeth’s accession to the throne followed the death of her father, King George VI, 16 months previously.
455 – King Gaiseric and the Vandals sack Rome – Rome looted for 14 days
1537 – Pope Paul III banned the enslavement of Indians.
1763 – Pontiac’s Rebellion: At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison’s attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort
1774 – Intolerable Acts: Amendment to original Quartering Act enacted, allows governors in colonial America to house British soldiers in uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings if suitable quarters not provided
1793 – Maximillian Robespierre initiated the “Reign of Terror”. It was an effort to purge those suspected of treason against the French Republic.
1835 – P.T. Barnum launched his first traveling show. The main attraction was Joice Heth. Heth was reputed to be the 161-year-old nurse of George Washington.
1851 – Maine became the first U.S. state to enact a law prohibiting alcohol.
1847 – Felix Mendelssohn’s Wedding March is used at a wedding for the first time – Dorothy Carew and Tom Daniel were the first to use the iconic piece for their wedding ceremony. The event that made the work world famous was the wedding of Victoria, Princess Royal and Prince Frederick William of Prussia in 1858.
1863 – Harriet Tubman leads Union guerrillas into Maryland, freeing slaves
1896 – Guglieimo Marconi’s radio telegraphy device was patented in Great Britain.
1910 – Pygmies discovered in Dutch New Guinea
1913 – 1st strike settlement mediated by US Department of Labor – railroad clerks
1924 – President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act (also known as Snyder Act), declaring all Native Americans to be American citizens
1933 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt accepted the first swimming pool to be built inside the White House.
1944 – Herzogenbusch concentration camp near Vught, Netherlands, is disbanded by Allied forces, one of two SS-run camps outside Germany
1952 – 650,000 metal workers go on strike in US
1953 – Queen Elizabeth II is crowned – The coronation in London’s Westminster Abbey was the first televised major international event in history. Elizabeth’s accession to the throne followed the death of her father, King George VI, 16 months previously.
1954 – U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy charged that there were communists working in the CIA and atomic weapons plants.
1966 – Surveyor 1, the U.S. space probe, landed on the moon and started sending photographs back to Earth of the Moon’s surface. It was the first soft landing on the Moon.
1967 – Benno Ohnesorg is killed – A police officer shot the unarmed German student at a demonstration against the state visit of the controversial Shah of Iran. It later ruled that the shooting was not an act of self-defense. The event was pivotal for the foundation of the terrorist organization “Movement 2 June”.
1969 – Australian aircraft carrier Melbourne sliced the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in half off the shore of South Vietnam.
1979 – Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley signs first homosexual rights bill
1986 – Regular TV coverage of US Senate sessions begins
1989 – 10,000 Chinese soldiers are blocked by 100,000 citizens in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, protecting students demonstrating for democracy
1995 – Captain Scott F. O’Grady’s U.S. Air Force F-16C was shot down by Bosnian Serbs. He was rescued six days later.
1998 – Voters in California passed Proposition 227. The act abolished the state’s 30-year-old bilingual education program by requiring that all children be taught in English.
2003 – In the U.S., federal regulators voted to allow companies to buy more television stations and newspaper-broadcasting combinations in the same city. The previous ownership restrictions had not been altered since 1975.
2003 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that companies could not be sued under a trademark law for using information in the public domain without giving credit to the originator. The case had originated with 20th Century Fox against suing Dastar Corp. over their use of World War II footage.
2003 – Europe launches its first voyage to another planet, Mars. The European Space Agency’s Mars Express probe launches from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan.
2014 – The unity government is sworn into power in Palestine; it agrees to the following: recognition of Israel, compliance to diplomatic agreements, renunciation of violence
2015 – US Congress passes new legislation to reform National Security Agency procedures, restricting gathering of phone records
2020 – New outbreak of Ebola has killed five people in city of Mbandaka, Democratic Republic of Congo
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
