1978 – Mass suicides in Jonestown, Over 900 people committed suicide at the behest of Jim Jones the founder and head of a group called Peoples Temple. Formed in Indianapolis, Indiana, in the mid-1050s, members of the group moved to Guyana in 1974 and set up a settlement outside Georgetown and called in Jonestown.
0326 – Old St. Peter’s Basilica consecrated in Rome (stood 4th – 16th century), later replaced by current Basilica
1307 – William Tell reputedly shoots apple off his son’s head
1477 – William Caxton produced “Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres,” which was the first book to be printed in England.
1497 – Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama reaches the Cape of Good Hope
1626 – St. Peter’s Basilica is consecrated, replacing an earlier basilica on the same site and becoming the world’s largest Christian basilica
1686 – Charles Francois Felix operates on King Louis XIV of France’s anal fistula after practising the surgery on several peasants.
1755 – Worst quake in Massachusetts Bay area strikes Boston; no deaths reported
1776 – Hessians capture Ft Lee, NJ
1805 – 30 women meet at Mrs Silas Lee’s home in Wiscasset, Maine, organizes Female Charitable Society, first woman’s club in America
1820 – Captain Nathaniel Palmer became the first American to sight the continent of Antarctica.
1865 – Samuel L. Clemens published “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” under the pen name “Mark Twain” in the New York “Saturday Press.”
1872 – Suffragette Susan B. Anthony is arrested by a U.S. Deputy Marshal and charged with illegally voting
1874 – National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union organizes in Cleveland
1883 – Canadian and American railroads adopt time zones, Prior to this, most cities had their own local time, making it difficult for railways to be on time and confusing passengers. To solve this problem, private railways decided to divide the continent into 4 distinct time zones – the lines of which are very close to the time zone lines today.
1902 – Brooklyn toymaker Morris Michton names the teddy bear after US President Teddy Roosevelt
1903 – The U.S. and Panama signed a treaty that granted the U.S. rights to build the Panama Canal.
1906 – Anarchists bomb St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome
1909 – US invades Nicaragua, later overthrows President Zelaya
1916 – Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force in World War I, called off the Battle of the Somme in France. The offensive began on July 1, 1916.
1928 – The first successful sound-synchronized animated cartoon premiered in New York. It was Walt Disney’s “Steamboat Willie,” starring Mickey Mouse.
1936 – Germany and Italy recognized the Spanish government of Francisco Franco.
1940 – George Matesky, New York City’s Mad Bomber places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison.
1950 – South Korean President Syngman Rhee forced to end mass executions
1956 – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev says the phrase “we will bury you!” to Western ambassadors at a reception at the Polish embassy in Moscow
1961 – JFK sends 18,000 military advisors to South Vietnam
1964 – J. Edgar Hoover describes Martin Luther King Jr. as a “most notorious liar”
1966 – U.S. Roman Catholic bishops did away with the rule against eating meat on Fridays.
1969 – Apollo 12 astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr. and Alan L. Bean landed on the lunar surface during the second manned mission to the moon.
1973 – Arab oil ministers cancel the scheduled 5 percent cut in production for EEC
1976 – The parliament of Spain approved a bill that established a democracy after 37 years of dictatorship.
1978 – Mass suicides in Jonestown, Over 900 people committed suicide at the behest of Jim Jones the founder and head of a group called Peoples Temple. Formed in Indianapolis, Indiana, in the mid-1050s, members of the group moved to Guyana in 1974 and set up a settlement outside Georgetown and called in Jonestown.
1978 – Leo J Ryan, American politician, and 4 others, killed in Jonestown, Guyana by members of Peoples Temple, followed by ritual mass suicide of 914 members of the religious cult
1983 – Argentina announced its ability to produce enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons.
1984 – The Soviet Union helps deliver American wheat during the Ethiopian famine
1987 – The U.S. Congress issued the Iran-Contra Affair report. The report said that President Ronald Reagan bore “ultimate responsibility” for wrongdoing by his aides.
1988 – U.S. President Reagan signed major legislation provided the death penalty for drug traffickers who kill.
1989 – Pennsylvania is first to restrict abortions after US Supreme Court gave states the right to do so
1991 – Muslim Shi’ites release hostages Terry Waite & Thomas Sutherland
1993 – The U.S. House of Representatives joined the U.S. Senate in approving legislation aimed at protecting abortion facilities, staff and patie
1993 – American Airlines flight attendants went on strike. They ended their strike only 4 days later.
1993 – Representatives from 21 South African political parties approved a new constitution.
1999 – In College Station, Texas, 12 are killed and 27 injured at Texas A&M University when a massive bonfire under construction collapses.
2001 – Nintendo released the GameCube home video game console in the United States.
2003 – In England, the Local Government Act 2003, repealing controversial anti-gay amendment Section 28, becomes effective
2003 – Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules the state’s ban on same-sex marriages is unconstitutional
2011 – Former Filipino President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is arrested and held at Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City under charges of electoral sabotage
2015 – 2 female suicide bombers aged 18 and 11 blow themselves up in Kano, Nigeria, killing 15 and injuring over 100
2015 – French police raid terrorist cell in Saint Denis, killing 2 including the leader of the Paris terror attacks Abdelhamid Abaaoud
2018 – American missionary John Allen Chau killed on forbidden North Sentinel Island, Bay of Bengal by one of world’s most isolated tribe
2018 – APEC Summit in Papa New Guinea fails to produce a joint agreement for first time in two decades after US and China clash on definition of trade
2019 – Deforestation of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest worst since 2008, has lost 9,762 sq km (3,769 sq miles) of vegetation in 12 months according to country’s Space Agency
2020 – Thailand’s parliament agrees to reforms, but not to the monarchy, after massive public protests were met by tear gas and water canons
2021 – US judge exonerates two men for the killing of Malcolm X in 1965, saying they were “wrongly convicted”
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
