1963 – Bruno Sammartino defeats Nature Boy Buddy Rogers in 48 seconds in Madison Square Garden for the WWWF Heavyweight Championship. It begins the longest heavyweight championship reign in pro wrestling history.
1521 – Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, is executed for treason.
1536 – Anne Boleyn’s 4 “lovers” executed shortly before her own beheading
1540 – Afghan chief Sher Khan defeated Mongul Emperor Humayun at Kanauj.
1620 – The first merry-go-round seen at a fair (Philippapolis, Turkey)
1630 – Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi saw the belts on Jupiter’s surface.
1673 – Frenchmen Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit, set out from the Saint-Ignace mission on an expedition to explore the Mississippi river (reach border of Louisiana and Arkansas)
1681 – Louis XIV sent an expedition to aid James II in Ireland. As a result, England declares war on France.
1733 – England passes Molasses Act, putting high tariffs on rum & molasses imported to the colonies from a country other than British possessions
1756 – Britain declared war on France, beginning the French and Indian War.
1757 – War speculators raise the prices of bread and meat by 1000%; 4 oz. of bread the daily ration in Quebec
1775 – American Revolutionary War: the Continental Congress bans trade with Canada
1792 – The New York Stock Exchange was founded at 70 Wall Street by 24 brokers.
1814 – Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden. Norway’s constitution, which provided a limited monarchy, was signed.
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”
1846 – Saxophone is patents by Antoine Joseph Sax
1877 – The first telephone switchboard burglar alarm was installed by Edwin T. Holmes.
1883 – Buffalo Bill Cody’s first wild west show premieres in Omaha
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
1902 – Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais discovers the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient mechanical analog computer
1918 – Almost the entire leadership of Sinn Fin are arrested.
1919 – War Department (UK) orders use of National Star Insignia on all airplanes
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.”
1938 – Congress approves Vinson Naval Act, which funds a two-ocean navy
1939 – British issue the Palestine “White Paper” fixing the upper limit to 75,000 Jews to be admitted into Palestine over the next five years
1940 – Germany occupied Brussels, Belgium and began the invasion of France.
1943 – Millionaire Howard Hughes crashes into Lake Mead, while test flying his Sikorsky S-43, killing CAA inspector Ceco Cline and Richard Felt
1944 – US General Dwight Eisenhower sets D-Day for June 5
1946 – U.S. President Truman seized control of the nation’s railroads, delaying a threatened strike by engineers and trainmen.
1948 – The Soviet Union recognized the new state of Israel.
1954 – The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled for school integration in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. The ruling declared that racially segregated schools were inherently unequal.
1956 – The first synthetic mica (synthamica) was offered for sale in Caldwell Township, NJ.
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 – Castro offers to exchange Bay of Pigs prisoners for 500 bulldozers
1963 – Bruno Sammartino defeats Nature Boy Buddy Rogers in 48 seconds in Madison Square Garden for the WWWF Heavyweight Championship. It begins the longest heavyweight championship reign in pro wrestling history.
1967 – Six-Day War: President Abdul Nasser of Egypt demands dismantling of the peace-keeping UN Emergency Force in Egypt.
1969 – Venera program: Soviet Venera 6 begins its descent into the atmosphere of Venus, sending back atmospheric data before being crushed by pressure
1970 – Thor Heyerdahl sets sail from Morocco on the papyrus boat Ra II to sail the Atlantic Ocean.
1971 – Washington State bans sex discrimination
1973 – The U.S. Senate Watergate Committee began its hearings.
1974 – Police in Los Angeles, California, raid the Symbionese Liberation Army’s headquarters, killing six members, including Camilla Hall.
1975 – NBC TV bought the rights to show “Gone With the Wind.” The one time rights cost NBC $5,000,000.
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.
1983 – Lebanon, Israel, and the United States sign an agreement on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon
1987 – An Iraqi warplane attacked the U.S. Navy frigate Stark in the Persian Gulf, killing 37 American sailors. Iraq and the United States called the attack a mistake.
1990 – European court rules pension rights for both men & women
1992 – In Thailand, the so-called Black May begins. Thai police and protestors start attacking one another. By midnight, the current Thai government declares a state of emergency, and military troops open fire
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.
1997 – Rebel leader Kabila declared himself president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire.
1999 – Eric Ford, a tabloid photographer, was sentenced to 6 months at a halfway house, 3 years probation and 150 hours of community service. The sentence stemmed from a charge that Ford had eavesdropped on a call between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and then sold a recording of the conversation.
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.
2002 – Legoland Deutschland opened in Günzburg, Germany.
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 crossed the border dividing North and South Korea for the first time since 1953.
2013 – 90 people are killed and 200 are injured after a series of bombings across Iraq
2015 – Gun fight between rival biker gangs and police in Waco, Texas leaves 9 dead and 18 injured. 170 later arrested for organised crime.
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.
2020 – Former US President Barack Obama criticizes the US government’s handling of the pandemic during an online address to graduates, saying officials “aren’t even pretending to be in charge”
2021 – Long working hours killed 745,000 people a year, in 2016, in the first study of its kind by the World Health Organization
2023 – Montana is the first US state to ban TikTok, with Governor Greg Gianforte signing legislation to ban the Chinese-owned social media network to protect against alleged intelligence gathering
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
