1959 – Mattel introduced Barbie at the annual Toy Fair in New York.
141 BC – Liu Che, posthumously known as Emperor Wu of Han, assumes the throne of the Han Dynasty in China and rules for 54 years
1009 – First known written mention of Lithuania, in the annals of Quedlinburg
1496 – Jews are expelled from Carintha, Austria
1497 – Nicolaus Copernicus’ 1st recorded astronomical observation
1500 – Pedro Álvares Cabral departs Lisbon, Portugal at the head of a 13 ship expedition to India that will also claim Brazil for Portugal
1522 – Martin Luther begins preaching his “Invocavit Sermons” in the German city of Wittenberg, reminding citizens to trust God’s word rather than violence and thus helping bring to a close the revolutionary stage of the Reformation
1562 – Kissing in public banned in Naples (punishable by death)
1566 – David Rizzio, the private secretary to Mary I of Scotland, is murdered in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland
1617 – The Treaty of Stolbovo ended the occupation of Northern Russia by Swedish troops.
1734 – The Russians took Danzig (Gdansk) in Poland.
1745 – The first carillon was shipped from England to Boston, MA.
1765 – After a public campaign by the writer Voltaire, judges in Paris posthumously exonerate Jean Calas of murdering his son. Calas had been tortured and executed in 1762 on the charge, though his son had actually committed suicide.
1799 – The U.S. Congress contracted with Simeon North, of Berlin, CT, for 500 horse pistols at the price of $6.50 each.
1804 – Georges Cadoudal, Breton royalist who plotted to overthrow Napoleon in the Pichegru Conspiracy, arrested
1812 – Swedish Pomerania was seized by Napoleon.
1820 – The U.S. Congress passed the Land Act that paved the way for westward expansion of North America.
1822 – Charles M. Graham received the first patent for artificial teeth.
1832 – Abraham Lincoln announced that he would run for a political office for the first time. He was unsuccessful in his run for a seat in the Illinois state legislature.
1841 – The rebel slaves who seized a Spanish slave ship, the Amistad, in 1839 are freed by the Supreme Court despite Spanish demands for extradition.
1860 – The first Japanese ambassador to the U.S. was appointed.
1862 – During the U.S. Civil War, the ironclads Monitor and Virginia (built from the remnants of the USS Merrimack fought to a draw in a five-hour battle at Hampton Roads, Virginia.
1863 – General Ulysses Grant was appointed commander-in-chief of the Union forces.
1889 – Kansas passes 1st general antitrust law in US
1900 – In Germany, women petition Reichstag for the right to take university entrance exams.
1905 – In Egypt, U.S. archeologist Davies discovered the royal tombs of Tua and Yua.
1905 – In Manchuria, Japanese troops surrounded 200,000 Russian troops that were retreating from Mudken.
1905 – In Congo, Belgian Vice Gov. Costermans committed suicide following an investigation of colonial policy.
1906 – In the Philippines, fifteen Americans and 600 Moros were killed in the last two days of fighting.
1907 – 1st involuntary sterilization law enacted, Indiana
1909 – The French National Assembly passed an income tax bill.
1910 – Union men urged for a national sympathy strike for miners in Pennsylvania.
1914 – US Senator Albert B. Fall demands the “Cubanization of Mexico”
1916 – Mexican raiders led by Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, New Mexico. 17 people were killed by the 1,500 horsemen.
1918 – Ukrainian mobs massacre Jews of Seredino Buda
1931 – The electron microscope is invented, German physicist Ernst Ruska is credited with the invention of the microscope. His first instrument allowed a resolution of 50 nanometers (billionths of a meter).
1932 – Eamon De Valera was elected president of the Irish Free State and pledged to abolish all loyalty to the British Crown
1933 – Bulgarian communists Georgi Dimitrov, Blagoy Popov & Vasil Tanev arrested in Berlin, Germany, on charges of complicity in the Reichstag fire; all were acquitted
1933 – The U.S. Congress began its 100 days of enacting New Deal legislation.
1936 – The German press warned that all Jews who vote in the upcoming elections would be arrested.
1939 – Czech President Emil Hacha ousts pro-German Joseph Tiso as the Premier of Slovakia in order to preserve Czech unity.
1945 – During World War II, U.S. B-29 bombers launched incendiary bomb attacks against Japan.
1946 – The A.F.L. accused Juan Peron of using the army to establish a dictatorship over Argentine labor.
1949 – The first all-electric dining car was placed in service on the Illinois Central Railroad.
1951 – Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam submit a classified paper at the Los Alamos lab, in which they proposed their revolutionary new design, staged implosion, for a practical megaton-range hydrogen bomb
1956 – British authorities arrested and deported Archbishop Makarios from Cyprus. He was accused of supporting terrorists.
1957 – Egyptian leader Nasser barred U.N. plans to share the tolls for the use of the Suez Canal.
1959 – Mattel introduced Barbie at the annual Toy Fair in New York.
1964 – Production began on the first Ford Mustang.
1968 – General William Westmoreland asks for 206,000 more troops in Vietnam.
1974 – Last Japanese soldier, a guerrilla operating in the Philippines, surrenders, 29 years after World War II ended
1975 – Work began on the Alaskan oil pipeline.
1975 – Iraq launched an offensive against the rebel Kurds.
1976 – The deadliest cable car accident in history occurs in Italy, 43 people died when the cable car plunged 160 ft (50 meters) to the ground after the steel cable had snapped. 14-year-old Alessandra Piovesana was the only survivor.
1977 – About a dozen armed Hanafi Muslims invaded three buildings in Washington, DC. They killed one person and took more than 130 hostages. The siege ended two days later.
1983 – The official Soviet news agency TASS says that U.S. President Reagan is full of “bellicose lunatic anti-communism.”
1986 – U.S. Navy divers found the crew compartment of the space shuttle Challenger along with the remains of the astronauts.
1987 – Chrysler Corporation offered to buy American Motors Corporation.
1989 – The U.S. Senate rejected John Tower as a choice for a cabinet member. It was the first rejection in 30 years.
1989 – In Maylasia, 30 Asian nations conferred on the issue of “boat people.”
1989 – In the U.S., a strike forced Eastern Airlines into bankruptcy.
1989 – In the U.S., President George H.W. Bush urged for a mandatory death penalty in drug-related killings.
1990 – Dr. Antonia Novello was sworn in as the first female and Hispanic surgeon general.
1993 – Rodney King testified at the federal trial of four Los Angeles police officers accused of violating his civil rights.
1994 – IRA launch 1st of 3 mortar attacks on London’s Heathrow Airport
2006 – Liquid water is discovered on Enceladus, the sixth largest moon of Saturn
2007 – The US Justice Department releases an internal audit that found that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had acted illegally in its use of the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about US citizens
2011 – Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed legislation that abolished the death penalty in his state.
2011 – Space Shuttle Discovery completes its final mission, The shuttle touched down at Kennedy Space Center in Florida after its journey to the International Space Station
2012 – Senior members of hacking group Lulz Sec are arrested, including one member of the FBI, in the United States, United Kingdom and Ireland
2013 – 19 people are killed in two suicide bombings in Kabul, Afghanistan
2015 – US President Barack Obama signs an executive order declaring Venezuela a national security threat to the US
2020 – National one-day women’s strike held in Mexico to protest high rates of femicide (more than 10 women murdered every day)
2021 – China and Russia agree to build a research station on or around the Moon and collaborate on lunar missions, in move that could start another space race
2022 – Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian city of Mariupol hit a hospital, killing at least three people, as attempts to create a humanitarian corridor out of the city fail
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
