1954 – The U.S. Supreme Court declares racially segregated public schools unconstitutional – Despite this landmark decision, de facto racial segregation was upheld for years in some areas of the United States.
1521 – Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, is executed for treason
1536 – Anne Boleyn’s 4 “lovers” executed shortly before her own beheading
1620 – 1st merry-go-round seen at a fair in Philippapolis, Turkey
1630 – Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi saw the belts on Jupiter’s surface.
1681 – Louis XIV sent an expedition to aid James II in Ireland. As a result, England declares war on France.
1683 – Pirates sack Velacruz, New Spain, taking 4,000 prisoners for ransom
1733 – Great Britain passes Molasses Act, putting high tariffs on rum and molasses imported to the colonies from a country other than British possessions
1756 – Britain declared war on France, beginning the French and Indian War.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: the Continental Congress bans trade with Canada
1792 – The New York Stock Exchange was established when a group of 24 brokers and merchants met by a tree on what is now Wall Street and signed the Buttonwood Agreement.
1824 – The diaries of Lord Byron are burnt by six of the poet’s friends at the office of John Murray in London, sometimes described as “the greatest crime in literary history”
1871 – Native American fighter General William T. Sherman escapes from the Comanches in an ambulance
1884 – Alaska becomes a US territory
1897 – The first successful submarine that can run submerged for any considerable distance and combines electric and gasoline engines is launched in the USA by its designer John Philip Holland
1900 – “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” is first published by L. Frank Baum with illustrations by William Wallace Denslow in Chicago
1909 – White firemen on Georgia lroad strike to protest against hiring blacks
1926 – The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires was damaged by bombs that were believed set by sympathizers of Sacco and Vanzetti.
1932 – The U.S. Congress changed the name “Porto Rico” to “Puerto Rico.”
1943 – The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School to develop the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer).
1954 – The U.S. Supreme Court declares racially segregated public schools unconstitutional – Despite this landmark decision, de facto racial segregation was upheld for years in some areas of the United States.
1959 – Sanctuary of Christ the King inaugurated, a 28 meter (92 ft) high monument and shrine overlooking Lisbon, Portugal by sculptor Francisco Franco de Sousa
1961 – Fidel Castro offers to exchange Bay of Pigs prisoners for 500 bulldozers
1972 – The Irish Republican Army (IRA) fires on workers leaving the Mackies engineering works in west Belfast (Although the factory was sited in a Catholic area it had an almost entirely Protestant workforce)
1972 – Germany ratifies the Treaty of Warsaw – Chancellor Willy Brandt signed the treaty, by which Germany gives up any territorial claims and guarantees the Oder-Neisse line as the valid border to Poland.
1973 – Televised Watergate hearings opened, headed by North Carolina senator Sam Ervin.
1980 – Rioting erupted in Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood after an all-white jury in Tampa acquitted four former Miami police officers of fatally beating black insurance executive Arthur McDuffie. Eight people were killed in the rioting.
1987 – An Iraqi warplane attacked the U.S.S. Stark in the Persian Gulf, killing 37 American sailors and wounding 62.
1990 – The WHO deletes homosexuality from its list of mental diseases – Precisely 14 years later, the first same-sex marriages in the United States were performed as Massachusetts became the first state to legalize them.
1996 – U.S. President Clinton signed a measure requiring neighborhood notification when sex offenders move in. Megan’s Law was named for 7-year-old Megan Kanka, who was raped and killed in 1994.
2000 – Thomas E. Blanton Jr. and David Luker surrendered to police in Birmingham, AL. The two former Ku Klux Klan members were arrested on charges from the bombing of a church in 1963 that killed four young black girls.
2001 – US President George W. Bush calls for reduced regulations to encourage more oil, gas, and nuclear production
2004 – In Massachusetts, same-sex couples exchanged marriage vows for the first time in the United States.
2006 – The U.S. aircraft carrier Oriskany was sunk about 24 miles off Pensacola Beach. It was the first vessel sunk under a Navy program to dispose of old warships by turning them into diving attractions. It was the largest man-made reef at the time of the sinking.
2007 – Trains from North and South Korea cross the 38th Parallel in a test-run agreed by both governments. This is the first time that trains have crossed the Demilitarized Zone since 1953.
2016 – The U.S. Senate approved legislation that would allow families of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia.
2018 – Michigan State University will pay $500 million in claims to 300 survivors of sexual abuse involving Larry Nassar. Largest sexual abuse case in sports history.
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
