1998 – In Jonesboro, AR, two young boys open fire at students from woods near a school. Four students and a teacher were killed and 10 others were injured. The two boys were 11 and 13 years old cousins.
1401 – Timur attacks city of Damascus, second city of the Mameluke Empire. Though scholar and negotiator Ibn Khaldūn’s life spared, the city is sacked and the Umayyad Mosque destroyed.
1550 – France and England signed the Peace of Boulogne.
1603 – Scottish King James VI son of Mary Queen of Scots, becomes King James I of England in succession to Elizabeth I, thus joining the English and Scottish crowns
1603 – Tokugawa Ieyasu is granted the title of shogun, officially establishing the Tokugawa Shogunate which would rule Japan until 1867
1629 – In Virginia, the first game law was passed in the American colonies.
1663 – Charles II of England awards land known as Carolina in North America to eight members of the nobility who assisted in his restoration.
1664 – A charter to colonize Rhode Island was granted to Roger Williams in London.
1720 – In Paris, banking houses closed due to financial crisis.
1765 – Britain passed the Quartering Act that required the American colonies to house 10,000 British troops in public and private buildings.
1828 – The Philadelphia & Columbia Railway was authorized as the first state owned railway.
1832 – Mormon Joseph Smith was beaten, tarred and feathered in Ohio.
1837 – Canada gave blacks the right to vote
1848 – A state of siege was proclaimed in Amsterdam.
1853 – Anti-slavery newspaper “The Provincial Freeman” first published in Windsor, Ontario, edited by Samuel Ringgold Ward and Mary Ann Shadd Cary, first black woman publisher in North America
1862 – Abolitionist Wendell Phillips speaks to a crowd about emancipation in Cincinnati, Ohio and is pelted by eggs.
1880 – The first “hail insurance company” was incorporated in Connecticut. It was known as Tobacco Growers’ Mutual Insurance Company.
1882 – In Berlin, German scientist Robert Koch announced the discovery of the tuberculosis germ (bacillus).
1900 – Mayor Van Wyck of New York broke the ground for the New York subway tunnel that would link Manhattan and Brooklyn.
1900 – In New Jersey, the Carnegie Steel Corporation was formed.
1904 – Vice Adm. Tojo sank seven Russian ships as the Japanese strengthened their blockade of Port Arthur.
1905 – In Crete, a group led by Eleutherios Venizelos claimed independence from Turkey.
1906 – In Mexico, the Tehuantepec Istmian Railroad opened as a rival to the Panama Canal.
1906 – The “Census of the British Empire” revealed that England ruled 1/5 of the world.
1911 – In Denmark, penal code reform abolished corporal punishment.
1927 – Chinese Communists seized Nanking and break with Chiang Kai-shek over the Nationalist goals.
1934 – U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signed a bill granting future independence to the Philippines.
1938 – The U.S. asked that all countries help refugees fleeing from the Nazis.
1942 – US government begins moving native-born citizens with Japanese ancestry into detention centres under Executive Order 9066, with intention of preventing home-grown espionage
1944 – In Rome, The Gestapo rounded up innocent Italians and shot them to death in response to a bomb attack that killed 32 German policemen. Over 300 civilians were executed.
1947 – The U.S. Congress proposed the limitation of the presidency to two terms.
1955 – Tennessee Williams’ play “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” debuted on Broadway.
1955 – The first oil drill seagoing rig was put into service.
1958 – Elvis Presley trades in his guitar for a rifle and Army fatigues.
1965 – The Freedom Marchers, citizens for civil rights, reach Montgomery, Alabama.
1965 – Millions watch NASA spacecraft Ranger 9 crash into the Moon, The U.S. space probe broadcast live pictures back to Earth, enabling TV viewers to follow its approach to the Moon and its controlled crash.
1967 – Viet Cong ambush a truck convoy in South Vietnam damaging 82 of the 121 trucks.
1972 – Great Britain imposed direct rule over Northern Ireland.
1976 – The president of Argentina, Isabel Peron, was deposed by her country’s military.
1980 – ABC’s nightly Iran Hostage crisis program renamed “Nightline”
1980 – “Nightline” with Ted Koppel premiered.
1982 – Soviet leader Leonid L. Brezhnev stated that Russia was willing to resume border talks with China.
1988 – Former national security aides Oliver L. North and John M. Poindexter and businessmen Richard V. Secord and Albert Hakim pled innocent to Iran-Contra charges.
1989 – The Exxon Valdez spilled 240,000 barrels (11 million gallons) of oil in Alaska’s Prince William Sound after it ran aground.
1991 – The African nation of Benin held its first presidential elections in about 30 years.
1995 – Russian forces surrounded Achkoi-Martan. It was one of the few remaining strongholds of rebels in Chechenia.
1995 – The U.S. House of Representatives passed a welfare reform package that made the most changes in social programs since the New Deal.
1997 – The Australian parliament overturned the world’s first and only euthanasia law.
1998 – In Jonesboro, AR, two young boys open fire at students from woods near a school. Four students and a teacher were killed and 10 others were injured. The two boys were 11 and 13 years old cousins. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/a-school-shooting-in-jonesboro-arkansas-kills-five
1998 – A former FBI agent said papers found in James Earl Ray’s car supports a conspiracy theory in the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
1999 – NATO launched air strikes against Yugoslavia (Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Vojvodina). The attacks marked the first time in its 50-year history that NATO attacked a sovereign country. The bombings were in response to Serbia’s refusal to sign a peace treaty with ethnic Albanians who were seeking independence for the province of Kosovo.
1999 – The 7-mile tunnel under Mont Blanc in France became an inferno after a truck carrying flour and margarine caught fire. At least 30 people were killed.
2002 – Thieves stole five 17th century paintings from the Frans Hals Museum in the Dutch city of Haarlem. The paintings were worth about $2.6 million. The paintings were works by Jan Steen, Cornelis Bega, Adriaan van Ostade and Cornelis Dusart.
2003 – The Arab League votes 21-1 in favor of a resolution demanding the immediate and unconditional removal of U.S. and British soldiers from Iraq.
2005 – The government of Kyrgyzstan collapsed after opposition protesters took over President Askar Akayev’s presidential compound and government offices.
2006 – In Spain, the Basque separatist group ETA announced a permanent cease-fire.
2012 – African Union deploys 5,000 strong force with the aim of catching or killing warlord Joseph Kony
2013 – 17 soldiers are killed by a suicide bomber at a military checkpoint in North Waziristan, Pakistan
2014 – It was announced that the U.S. and its allies would exclude Russia from the G8 meeting and boycott a planned summit in Sochi in response to Russia’s takeover of Crimea.
2016 – Bosnian Serb politician Radovan Karadžić is found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and sentenced to 40 years imprisonment
2018 – Tens of thousands attend ‘March for Our Lives’ rallies held in Washington, D.C. and around the world to protest gun violence
2019 – U.S. Attorney General William Barr released a four-page summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report in U.S. President Donald Trump’s election campaign. The report concluded that there was no collusion with Russia.
2020 – Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzō Abe announces postponement of Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games until summer of 2021 because of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
