1900 – Civil War hero Sgt. William H. Carney became the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor, 37 years after the Battle of Fort Wagner.
1040 – Battle of Dandanaqan: Tughril’s Seljuk army defeats Ghaznavid force, near Merv (present-day Turkmenistan), brings about the fall of the Ghaznavid Empire
1059 – Henri I crowns his son compassionate King Philip I of France
1275 – King Edward I of England orders cessation of persecution of French Jews
1420 – Jews of Syria & Austria expelled
1430 – Joan of Arc was captured by Burgundians. She was then sold to the English.
1493 – King of France Charles VIII, King of the Romans Maximilian I and Archduke of Austria Philip I sign the Treaty of Senlis, ending hostilities between France and the Seventeen Provinces
1498 – Girolamo Savonarola is burned at the stake, in Florence, Italy, on the orders of Pope Alexander VI
1533 – Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon was declared null and void.
1536 – Pope Paul III installs Portugese inquisition
1568 – Dutch rebels led by Louis of Nassau, brother of William I of Orange, defeat Jean de Ligne, Duke of Aremberg and his loyalist troops in the Battle of Heiligerlee, opening the Eighty Years’ War
1611 – Matthias von Habsburg chosen king of Bohemia
1618 – The Thirty Years War began when three opponents of the Reformation were thrown through a window.
1660 – King Charles II returns from exile sails from Scheveningen to England
1667 – King Afonso VI of Portugal flees
1701 – In London, Captain William Kidd was hanged after being convicted of murder and piracy.
1774 – Chestertown tea party occurs (tea dumped into Chester River)
1785 – Benjamin Franklin wrote in a letter that he had invented bifocals.
1788 – South Carolina became the eighth state to ratify U.S. Constitution.
1813 – South American independence leader Simn Bolvar enters Mrida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and is proclaimed El Libertador (“The Liberator”)
1827 – The first nursery school in the U.S. was established in New York City.
1853 – Buenos Aires gains independence from Argentina (reunited 1859)
1867 – Jesse James-gang rob bank in Richmond MO (2 die, $4,000 taken)
1873 – Canada’s North West Mounted Police force was established. The organization’s name was changed to Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 1920.
1879 – The first U.S. veterinary school was established by Iowa State University.
1895 – The New York Public Library was created with an agreement that combined the city’s existing Astor and Lenox libraries.
1900 – Civil War hero Sgt. William H. Carney became the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor, 37 years after the Battle of Fort Wagner.
1901 – American forces captured Filipino rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo.
1908 – Part of the Great White Fleet arrived in Puget Sound, WA.
1911 – NY Public Library building at 5th Avenue dedicated by President William Howard Taft
1915 – During World War I, Italy joined the Allies as they declared war on Austria-Hungary.
1922 – “Daylight Saving Time” was debated in the first debate ever to be heard on radio in Washington, DC.
1928 – Bomb attack on Italians embassy in Buenos Aires, 22 die
1934 – In Bienville Parish, LA, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were ambushed and killed by Texas Rangers. The bank robbers were riding in a stolen Ford Deluxe.
1938 – “LIFE” magazine’s cover pictured Errol Flynn as a glamour boy.
1939 – British parliament plans to make Palestine independent by 1949
1943 – 826 Allied bombers attack Dortmund
1945 – In Luneburg Germany, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi Gestapo, committed suicide while imprisoned by the Allied forces.
1949 – The Republic of West Germany was established.
1956 – Presbyterian Church begins accepting women ministers
1958 – Mao Zedong starts the “Great Leap Forward” movement in China, kills between 23 and 55 million Chinese citizens due to famine and forced labor
1960 – Israel announced the capture of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Argentina.
1962 – The National Basketball Association (NBA) agreed to transfer the Philadelphia Warriors to San Francisco, CA. The team became the San Francisco Warriors (and later the Golden State Warriors).
1967 – Egypt closes the Straits of Tiran and blockades the port of Eilat at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping, laying the foundations for the Six Day War
1969 – BBC orders 13 episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus
1974 – Italian Red Brigade officer Mario Sossi freed
1977 – Moluccan extremists hold 105 schoolchildren & 50 others hostage on a hijacked train in Netherlands, children released May 27, siege ends June 11
1981 – In Barcelona, Spain, gunmen seized control of the Central Bank and took 200 hostages.
1983 – Radio Moscow announcer Vladimir Danchev praises Afghanistan Muslims standing up to Russia; he is removed from the air
1985 – Thomas Patrick Cavanagh was sentenced to life in prison for trying to sell Stealth bomber secrets to the Soviet Union.
1988 – Maryland stops sale of cheap pistols on Jan 1, 1990
1989 – An estimated one million people in Beijing (and tens of thousands in other Chinee cities) march to demand the resignation of Premier Li Peng
1990 – Cost of rescuing savings & loan failures is put at up to $130 billion
1992 – In Lisbon, Portugal , the U.S. and four former Soviet republics signed an agreement to implement the START missile reduction treaty that had been agreed to by the Soviet Union before it was dissolved.
1995 – The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was demolished.
1998 – British Protestants and Irish Catholics of Northern Ireland approved a peace accord.
1999 – In Kansas City, MO, Owen Hart (Blue Blazer) died when he fell 90 feet while being lowered into a WWF wrestling ring. He was 33 years old.
2004 – Part of Paris Charles De Gaulle International Airport Terminal 2E collapses, killing four people and injuring three others.
2008 – The International Court of Justice (ICJ) awards Middle Rocks to Malaysia and Pedra Branca (Pulau Batu Puteh) to Singapore, ending a 29-year territorial dispute between the two countries.
2010 – Mexican authorities suspend investigation into ex-presidential candidate who went missing. More than 22,700 people killed since Mexico declared war on the drug cartels in December 2006
2014 – Russia and China veto the U.N. Security Council resolution to establish an International Criminal Court for war crimes in Syria
2016 – U.S. President Obama announced that the United States would end its ban of lethal military equipment sales to Vietnam. The restrictions had been in place since the end of the Vietnam War.
2018 – NFL owners approve new NFL national anthem policy whereby players required to stand if they choose to be on the field for pre-game presentations
2019 – Fifty children rescued from an international pedophile ring on the dark web in Thailand, Australia and the US by Interpol under Operation Blackwrist, main organizer sentenced to 146 years
2021 – Belarus accused of “state-sponsored hijacking” after diverting commercial Ryanair flight to Minsk to arrest dissident journalist Roman Protasevich
2022 – US President Joe Biden with countries including India, South Korea and Japan, launches the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework in Tokyo, an economic alliance of Asia-Pacific nations to counter Chinese influence
2023 – 451 Illinois Catholic clergy sexually abused nearly 2,000 children over 70 years, according to state’s attorney general’s office
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
