1979 – U.S. President Carter granted clemency to four Puerto Rican nationalists who had been imprisoned for an attack on the U.S. House of Representatives in 1954 and an attempted assassination of U.S. President Truman in 1950
0506 – 35 bishops of Visigothic Gaul meet in the Council of Agde, shedding light on the moral conditions of the clergy and laity in southern France
1349 – Jews who survived a massacre in Constance Germany are burned to death
1547 – English demand Edward VI (10) wed Mary Queen of Scots (5)
1608 – John Smith was elected president of the Jamestown, VA colony council.
1776 – George Washington asks for a spy volunteer, Nathan Hale volunteers
1785 – Prussia signs trade agreement with US
1794 – America’s first non-denominational college was chartered. Blount College later became the University of Tennessee.
1813 – The first defeat of British naval squadron occurred in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. The leader of the U.S. fleet, Oliver H. Perry, sent the famous message “We have met the enemy, and they are ours” to U.S. General William Henry Harrison.
1862 – Rabbi Jacob Frankel became the first Jewish Army chaplain.
1869 – Baptist minister supposedly invents rickshaw in Yokohama, Japan
1882 – 1st international conference to promote anti-semitism meets Dresden Germany (Congress for Safeguarding of Non-Jewish Interests)
1897 – British police arrest George Smith for drunken driving. It was the first DWI.
1897 – Lattimer Massacre – a sheriff’s posse kills twenty unarmed immigrant miners in Pennsylvania, United States
1910 – Great Idaho Fire destroys 3 million acres of timber
1913 – The Lincoln Highway opened. It was the first paved coast-to-coast highway in the U.S.
1918 – Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs players threaten to boycott the World Series unless they are guaranteed $2,500 to the winners & $1,000 each for the losers
1919 – New York City welcomed home 25,000 soldiers and General John J. Pershing who had served in the First Division during World War I.
1919 – Austria and the Allies signed the Treaty of St.-Germain-en-Laye. Austria recognized the independence of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
1921 – The Ayus Autobahn in Germany opened near Berlin. The road is known for its nonexistent speed limit.
1923 – The Irish Free state joined the League of Nations.
1924 – Leopold and Loeb found guilty of the murder of Robert Franks in Chicago in the “the crime of the century”
1926 – Germany joined the League of Nations.
1939 – Canada declared war on Germany.
1940 – In Britain, Buckingham Palace was hit by German bomb.
1942 – U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt mandated gasoline rationing as part of the U.S. wartime effort.
1943 – German forces began their occupation of Rome during World War II.
1948 – Mildred “Axis Sally” Gillars was indicted for treason in Washington, DC. Gillars was a Nazi radio propagandist during World War II. She was convicted and spent 12 years in prison.
1951 – Britain began an economic boycott of Iran.
1953 – Swanson began selling its first “TV dinner.”
1960 – Baghdad Conference Begins, The 5-day long conference in Iraq’s capital city ended with the creation of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), an intergovernmental organization of oil-producing countries. Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela were the original members of the group. Today, there are 13 members of the organization. OPEC is responsible for coordinating and unifying oil and gas policies in member states and for creating an efficient and fair system of production, sale, and investment in the petroleum industry.
1963 – Twenty black students entered public schools in Alabama at the end of a standoff between federal authorities and Alabama governor George C. Wallace.
1967 – Gibraltar votes 12,138 to 44 to remain British & not Spanish
1972 – 3 British soldiers are killed in a land mine attack near Dungannon, County Tyrone
1974 – Controversial TV drama “Born Innocent” premieres on NBC TV, starring Linda Blair as an abused teen in a juvenile detention home
1977 – Hamida Djandoubi, convicted of torture and murder, is the last person to be executed by Guillotine in France
1979 – U.S. President Carter granted clemency to four Puerto Rican nationalists who had been imprisoned for an attack on the U.S. House of Representatives in 1954 and an attempted assassination of U.S. President Truman in 1950.
1981 – Pablo Picasso’s mural Guernica was received in the town of Guernica.
1985 – U.S. 7th Circuit Court rules Soviet defector Walter Polovchak can’t be forcibly returned to parents’ country if it’s deemed “not in the best interests” of underage defectors
1989 – Browns allow Pittsburgh only 53 net yards, a team defensive record
1989 – Hungary gave permission to thousands of East German refugees and visitors to immigrate to West Germany.
1990 – Iran agreed to resume full diplomatic ties with past enemy Iraq.
1990 – Iraq’s Saddam Hussein offered free oil to developing nations in an attempt to win their support during the Gulf War Crisis.
1990 – Basilica of Our Lady of Peace consecrated by Pope John Paul II in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire, as the largest church in the world at 30,000 square metres (320,000 sq ft)
1991 – Senate Committee begins hearings on Clarence Thomas’ nomination
1998 – U.S. President Clinton met with members of his Cabinet to apologize, ask forgiveness and promise to improve as a person in the wake of the scandal involving Monica Lewinsky.
1998 – Northwest Airlines announced an agreement with pilots, ending a nearly two-week walkout.
1999 – A bronze sculpture of a war horse just over 24 feet high was dedicated in Milan, Italy.
2002 – Florida tested its new elections system. The test resulted in polling stations opening late and problems occurred with the touch screen voting machines.
2002 – Switzerland became the 190th member of the United Nations.
2008 – Large Hadron Collider Goes Live, The world’s largest particle collider, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). It is an 18-mile (27km) long experimental machine which passes through the French-Swiss border. The Collider was constructed to find the Higgs Boson particle, an elementary particle in physics.
2013 – 16 people are killed after a series of bomb attacks across Iraq
2014 – First Invictus Games Held, The international games bring together wounded armed forces personnel and veterans who compete in athletic competitions. The 2014 Invictus Games were held at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, England. 300 competitors from 13 countries participated in the games. The next games will take place in 2016.
2018 – California passes law to commit to carbon-free electricity sources by 2045
2019 – US President Donald Trump fires his third national security adviser John Bolton
2019 – Iranian woman Sahar Khodayari dies after setting herself on fire during her trial, for entering a stadium disguised as a man in Tehran
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
