1593 – English Separatist Puritans John Greenwood and Henry Barrowe tried and sentenced to death on the charge of devising and circulating seditious books
1657 – France and England formed an alliance against Spain.
1775 – Patrick Henry proclaims “Give me liberty or give me death” in speech in favour of Virginian troops joining US Revolutionary war
1806 – Explorers Lewis and Clark, reached the Pacific coast, and began their return journey to the east.
1808 – Napoleon’s brother Joseph took the throne of Spain.
1857 – Elisha Otis installed the first modern passenger elevator in a public building. It was at the corner of Broome Street and Broadway in New York City.
1877 – The first Easter egg roll was held on the White House lawn.
1880 – John Stevens patented the grain crushing mill. The mill increased flour production by 70 percent.
1889 – U.S. President Harrison opened Oklahoma for white colonization.
1902 – In Italy, the minimum legal working age was raised from 9 to 12 for boys and from 11 to 15 for girls.
1909 – Theodore Roosevelt began an African safari sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society.
1918 – Germany begins using long-range gun, the ‘Kaiser Wilhelm Geschütz’ (‘Emperor William Gun’), aka ‘Paris Gun’ to shell Paris from Crépy-en-Laonnais, 75 miles away; over several days, 303 rounds kill 256 and wound over 600
1919 – 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party re-establishes a five-member Politburo which becomes the center of political power in the Soviet Union. Original members Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Krestinsky
1932 – In the U.S., the Norris-LaGuardia Act established workers’ right to strike.
1942 – During World War II, the U.S. government began evacuating Japanese-Americans from West Coast homes to detention centers
1945 – Battle of Okinawa: US Navy ships bomb the Japanese island of Okinawa in preparation for the Allied invasion; it would become the largest battle of the Pacific War in World War II
1956 – Pakistan became the first Islamic republic. It was still within the British Commonwealth.
1966 – 1st official meeting after 400 years of Catholic & Anglican Church
1972 – Evel Knievel broke 93 bones after successfully jumping 35 cars.
1980 – Archbishop Óscar Romero calls on members of the El Salvador armed forces to stop killing their fellow Salvadorians – A death squad assassinated the archbishop only one day after his famous sermon.
1981 – US Supreme Court rules states could require, with some exceptions, parental notification when teen-age girls sought abortions
1981 – U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law making statutory rape a crime for men but not women.
1983 – U.S. President Reagan first proposed development of technology to intercept enemy missiles. The proposal became known as the Strategic Defense Initiative and “Star Wars.”
1994 – Luis Donaldo Colosio, Mexico’s leading presidential candidate, was assassinated in Tijuana. Mario Aburto Martinez was arrested at the scene and confessed to the killing.
1998 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that term limits for state lawmakers were constitutional.
2001 – Russia’s orbiting Mir space station plunged into the South Pacific after its 15-years of use.
2003 – In Nasiriyah, Iraq, 11 soldiers of the 507th Maintenance Company, including Pfc. Jessica Lynch, as well as 18 U.S. Marines are killed during the first major conflict of Operation Iraqi Freedom
2013 – The US Senate approves its first budget in four years by a margin of 50–49
2016 – GPR investigation of Shakespeare’s tomb at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford concludes the Bard’s skull probably has been stolen
2019 – More than 130 Fulani people killed in Ogossagou, Mali, in attack by Dogon hunters, prompting government ban on the hunters
2021 – Cargo ship Ever Given gets stuck in the Suez Canal, Egypt, a 400m megaship it completely blocks the shipping canal
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
