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.
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.”
1382 – Battle of Beverhoutsveld near Bruges in modern-day Belgium – the army of Ghent beats a drunken Bruges militia
1491 – Kongo monarch Nkuwu Nzinga is baptized by Portuguese missionaries, adopting the baptismal name of João I
1568 – French forces in Florida slaughtered hundreds of Spanish.
1558 – Ferdinand I officially appointed Holy Roman Emperor after his brother Charles abdicated in 1556
1654 – Bridge at Rowley, Massachusetts begins charging tolls for animals
1715 – Edmond Halley observes total eclipse phenomenon “Baily’s Beads”
1808 – Finnish War: Sweden loses the fortress of Sveaborg to Russia
1808 – Peninsular War: The Madrid rebels who rose up on May 2 are fired upon near Príncipe Pío hill
1846 – Mexican Army begins the Siege of Fort Texas near Brownsville, Texas, during the Mexican–American War
1855 – Macon B. Allen became the first African American to be admitted to the Bar in Massachusetts.
1859 – France declared war on Austria.
1916 – Irish nationalist Padraic Pearse and two others were executed by the British for their roles in the Easter Rising.
1921 – West Virginia imposed the first state sales tax.
1926 – Britain’s Trade Union Congress calls for the country’s first ever general strike, begins at 1 minute to midnight in support striking coal miners, lasts 9 days
1933 – The U.S. Mint was under the direction of a woman for the first time when Nellie Ross took the position.
1937 – Margaret Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize for “Gone With The Wind.”
1938 – Concentration camp at Flossenburg goes into use
1944 – Wartime rationing of most grades of meats ended in the U.S.
1945 – Indian forces captured Rangoon, Burma, from the Japanese.
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 black people and other minorities were legally unenforceable.
1952 – The first airplane landed at the geographic North Pole.
1956 – A new range of mountains discovered in Antarctica (2 over 13,000′)
1958 – Truman Capote’s book Breakfast at Tiffany’s is published, The novella is one of the U.S. author’s most popular works. The 1961 film of the same name starring Audrey Hepburn is classic in its genre.
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.
1971 – Anti-war protesters began four days of demonstrations in Washington, DC.
1971 – National Public Radio broadcast for the first time.
1971 – James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King’s assassin, was caught in a jailbreak attempt.
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.
1982 – NY Times reports that military will get 25% of NASA’s budget
1982 – President Reagan begins 5 minute weekly radio broadcasts
1986 – In NASA’s first post-Challenger launch, an unmanned Delta rocket lost power in its main engine shortly after liftoff. Safety officers destroyed it by remote control.
1987 – The Miami Herald reported that Donna Rice had been spending “Friday night and most of Saturday” at Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart’s Washington townhouse. The resulting controversy ended Hart’s presidential bid.
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.
1999 – Oklahoma City, Oklahoma is slammed by an F5 tornado killing forty-two people, injuring 665, and causing $1 billion in damage. The tornado was one of 66 from the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak.
2000 – The trial of two Libyans accused of killing 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 (over Lockerbie) opened.
2001 – The United States loses its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission was formed in 1947.
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.
2013 – Aorun zhaoi, a Theropod dinosaur, dating from 161 million years ago, is discovered in China
2018 – In Detroit, a federal grand jury indicted former Volkwagen CEO Martin Winterkorn on charges related to the company’s diesel emission cheating scandal. Winterkorn could not be extradited to the U.S. under Germany’s constitution.
2018 – Indian government confirms around 110 people have died in dust storms in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in the last 9 days
2020 – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says China responsible for the spread and severity of COVID-19 and should be held accountable
2021 – DR Congo announces the end of the latest Ebola outbreak after three months with a death toll of six
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
