1374 BC – Solar eclipse (2m 07s) seen at Ugarit by Mesopotamian astronomers “On the day of the new moon, in the month of Hiyar, the Sun was put to shame, and went down in the daytime, with Mars in attendance.”
1568 – French forces in Florida slaughtered hundreds of Spanish.
1654 – Bridge at Rowley, Massachusetts begins charging tolls for animals
1845 – Macon B. Allen became the first African American to be admitted to the Bar in Massachusetts.
1846 – Mexican Army begins the Siege of Fort Texas near Brownsville, Texas, during the Mexican–American War
1851 – Sixth major fire in San Francisco destroys 1500-2000 buildings
1861 – General Winfield Scott presents his Anaconda Plan for the North against the South in American Civil War
1888 – Thomas Edison organized the Edison Phonograph Works.
1916 – Irish Nationalists Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh and Thomas Clarke are executed by firing squad following their involvement in the Easter Rising
1921 – West Virginia imposed the first state sales tax.
1921 – Northern Ireland is created under the UK Government of Ireland Act partitioning off six north eastern counties with a Protestant majority
1927 – Francis E.J. Wilde of Meadowmere Park, NY, patented the electric sign flasher.
1944 – Wartime rationing of most grades of meats ended in the U.S.
1945 – World War II: German ship “Cap Arcona” laden with prisoners sunk by Royal Air Force in East Sea, 5,800 killed – one of largest maritime losses of life
1947 – Japan’s post-war constitution goes into effect, granting universal suffrage, stripping Emperor Hirohito of all but symbolic power and outlawing Japan’s right to make war
1948 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities were legally unenforceable.
1952 – The first airplane landed at the geographic North Pole.
1963 – Birmingham officials turn high pressure hoses and dogs on children’s crusade protest against segregation prompting widespread condemnation
1967 – African American students seize finance building at Northwestern University
1968 – After three days of battle, the U.S. Marines retook Dai Do complex in Vietnam. They found that the North Vietnamese had evacuated the area.
1970 – Trans-Arabian Pipeline delivery from Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean interrupted in Syria, driving oil tanker rates to all time highs
1971 – Nixon administration arrests 13,000 anti-war protesters in 3 days
1971 – National Public Radio broadcast for the first time.
1978 – The Digital Equipment Corporation sends the world’s first spam email – A representative sent out 600 emails and sold computers for $12 million. Unsolicited bulk emails have since become a scourge of the digital age as spammers attempt to achieve a similar success.
1979 – Margaret Thatcher became the first woman elected prime minister of England.
1982 – President Reagan begins 5 minute weekly radio broadcasts
1988 – The White House acknowledged that first lady Nancy Reagan had used astrological advice to help schedule her husband’s activities.
1992 – Five days of rioting and looting ended in Los Angeles, CA. The riots, that killed 53 people, began after the acquittal of police officers in the beating of Rodney King.
1997 – The “Republic of Texas” surrendered to authorities ending an armed standoff where two people were held hostage. The group asserts the independence of Texas from the U.S.
1999 – Mark Manes, at age 22, was arrested for supplying a gun to Eric Harris and Dylan Kleibold, who later killed 13 people at Columbine High School in Colorado.
2000 – The trial of two Libyans accused of killing 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 (over Lockerbie) opened.
2003 – New Hampshire’s symbol, the granite Old Man of the Mountain, collapsed in the state’s Franconia Mountains.
2006 – In Alexandria, VA, Al-Quaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was given a sentence of life in prison for his role in the terrorist attack on the U.S. on September 11, 2001.
2007 – British girl Madeleine McCann disappears from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal
2021 – German police announce operation and arrests into ‘Boystown’ world’s largest child abuse image website with 400,000 members worldwide
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
