1987 – President Reagan takes full responsibility for the Iran-Contra affair in a national address. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/reagan-iran-contra/
0051 – Nero, later to become Roman Emperor, is given the title princeps iuventutis (head of the youth)
0852 – Croatian Duke Trpimir I issued a statute, a document with the first known written mention of the Croats name in Croatian sources
0938 – Translation of the relics of martyr Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia, the patron saint of the Czech state
1152 – Frederick Barbarossa is chosen as emperor and unites the two factions, which emerged in Germany after the death of Henry V.
1215 – King John of England makes an oath to the Pope as a crusader to gain the support of Innocent III
1238 – Battle of the Sit River: Mongol forces of Batu Khan overcome Russians under Yuri II of Vladimir-Suzdal near Yaroslavl in Russia, ending Russian resistance
1461- Henry VI is deposed and the Duke of York is proclaimed King Edward IV.
1522 – Anne Boleyn makes her debut at the English court at the Green Castle pageant
1570 – King Philip II bans foreign Dutch students
1681 – England’s King Charles II granted a charter to William Penn for an area that later became the state of Pennsylvania.
1699 – Jews are expelled from Lübeck, Germany
1766 – The British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, which had caused bitter and violent opposition in the U.S. colonies.
1778 – The Continental Congress voted to ratify the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance. The two treaties were the first entered into by the U.S. government.
1789 – The first Congress of the United States met in New York and declared that the U.S. Constitution was in effect.
1791 – Vermont was admitted as the 14th U.S. state. It was the first addition to the original 13 American colonies.
1791 – First Jewish member of US Congress, Israel Jacobs (PA), takes office
1794 – The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. Congress. The Amendment limited the jurisdiction of the federal courts to automatically hear cases brought against a state by the citizens of another state. Later interpretations expanded this to include citizens of the state being sued, as well.
1813 – The Russians fighting against Napoleon reached Berlin. The French garrison evacuated the city without a fight.
1826 – The first railroad in the U.S. was chartered. It was the Granite Railway in Quincy, MA.
1829 – Unruly crowd mobs White House during President Andrew Jackson’s inaugural ball
1849 – US President Zachary Taylor delays his swearing-in and inauguration ceremony for one day due to religious reasons, rising to the false belief by some that Senator David Atchison (President pro tempore) technically assumed the office of President for one day
1861 – The Confederate States of America adopted the “Stars and Bars” flag.
1870 – On command of Louis Riel, Thomas Scott is executed by a firing squad. Riel rejects all appeals and requests to intervene in an attempt to demonstrate to the Canadian government that the Métis must be taken seriously
1880 – Halftone engraving was used for the first time when the “Daily Graphic” was published in New York City.
1881 – Eliza Ballou Garfield became the first mother of a U.S. President to live in the executive mansion.
1902 – The American Automobile Association was founded in Chicago.
1904 – In Korea, Russian troops retreated toward the Manchurian border as 100,000 Japanese troops advanced.
1908 – The New York board of education banned the act of whipping students in school.
1912 – The French council of war unanimously votes a mandatory three-year military service.
1914 – Dr. Gustave Le Fillatre successfully separated three-month-old Siamese twins. One of the twins died four days later.
1917 – Jeanette Rankin of Montana took her seat as the first woman elected to the House of Representatives.
1918 – US Army mess cook Private Albert Gitchell of Fort Riley, Kansas becomes the first documented military case of Spanish flu; start of worldwide pandemic killing 50-100 million
1925 – Calvin Coolidge took the oath of office in Washington, DC. The presidential inauguration was broadcast on radio for the first time.
1929 – National Revolutionary Party founded in Mexico by Plutarco Elías Calles (will go on to hold power until 2000)
1933 – U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt gave his inauguration speech in which he said “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.”
1933 – Labor Secretary Frances Perkins became the first woman to serve in a Presidential administrative cabinet.
1941 – 18 Geuzen resistance fighters sentenced to death in The Hague
1944 – Berlin is bombed by the American forces for the first time.
1947 – France and Britain signed an alliance treaty.
1952 – North Korea accuses the United nations of using germ warfare.
1952 – U.S. President Harry Truman dedicated the “Courier,” the first seagoing radio broadcasting station.
1954 – In Boston, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital reported the first successful kidney transplant.
1963 – Six people get the death sentence in Paris plotting to kill President Charles de Gaulle.
1964 – Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa convicted of jury tampering
1966 – John Lennon says “We (the Beatles) are more popular than Jesus”
1969 – London East End gang bosses twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray are found guilty of murder. Both will die in captivity.
1970 – Fifty-seven people are killed as the French submarine Eurydice sinks in the Mediterranean Sea.
1972 – Abercorn Restaurant bombing: a bomb explodes in a crowded restaurant in Belfast, killing two civilians and wounding 130
1979 – US Voyager I photo reveals Jupiter’s rings
1980 – Robert Mugabe becomes Zimbabwe’s first black prime minister
1983 – U.S. Public Health Service’s publishes its guidelines for blood donors and AIDS
1985 – Virtual ban on leaded gas ordered by US Environment Protection Agency
1987 – President Reagan takes full responsibility for the Iran-Contra affair in a national address.
1991 – Iraq releases 6 US, 3 British & 1 Italian POW
1991 – Sheik Saad al-Jaber al-Sabah, the prime minister of Kuwait, returned to his country for the first time since Iraq’s invasion.
1994 – Bosnia’s Croats and Moslems signed an agreement to form a federation in a loose economic union with Croatia.
1997 – U.S. President Clinton barred federal spending on human cloning.
1998 – Microsoft repaired software that apparently allowed hackers to shut down computers in government and university offices nationwide.
1998 – The U.S. Supreme Court said that federal law banned on-the-job sexual harassment even when both parties are the same sex.
2001 – Tests in recent days confirm the world’s largest oil find in three decades in the Kashagan field in the Caspian Sea
2002 – Canada banned human embryo cloning but permitted government-funded scientists to use embryos left over from fertility treatment or abortions.
2002 – Multinational Force in Afghanistan: Seven American Special Operations Forces soldiers are killed as they attempt to infiltrate the Shahi Kot Valley on a low-flying helicopter reconnaissance mission.
2007 – The world’s first national internet election is held, Estonia was the first country to allow its citizens to vote in a parliamentary election through the world wide web.
2009 – International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur becoming the first sitting head of state to be indicted
2012 – Vladimir Putin won re-election in Russia’s presidential election.
2012 – Over 10,000 illegal Peruvian gold miners clash with police to gain control of Puerto Maldonado
2013 – 40 Syrian soldiers are killed in an ambush in Western Iraq
2018 – Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal are poisoned by nerve agent in Salisbury, England
2018 – World’s worst listeria outbreak suspected of killing 180 tracked to processed meat factory in Polokwane, South Africa
2022 – Four-ton rocket debris crashes into the far side of the moon, unconfirmed booster from China’s Chang’e 5-T1 mission in first unintentional collision with the moon
2022 – Suspected suicide bomb attack on a shia mosque in Pakistani city of Peshawar kills at least 56 and injures 190
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
