Siege of Damascus
1148 The Crusaders led by Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany lay siege to Damascus during theSecond Crusade (abandoned 28 July)
- 1411 Battle of Harlaw, one of the bloodiest battles in Scotland, takes place
Cartier Erects a Cross at Gaspé
1534 French explorerJacques Cartier claims for France the lands around Gaspé by erecting a 30-foot cross at Pointe-Penouille[1]
King James VI
1567Mary, Queen of Scots, is forced to abdicate; her 1-year-old son becomes KingJames VI of Scotland
- 1577 Spanish army and German mercenaries conquer Namur
- 1577 Treason of Don Juan in Brussels
- 1651 Anthony Johnson, a free African American, receives grant of 250 acres in Virginia
- 1660 Great Fire of 1660 in Constantinople: two-thirds of the city is destroyed, including 280,000 wooden houses, with a death toll of around 40,000
Halley Enters Queen's College
1673Edmund Halley enters The Queen's College, Oxford, as an undergraduate
- 1683 First settlers from Germany to the US leave aboard the Concord
- 1684 Expedition to establish French colony in Louisiana leaves La Rochelle with four ships led by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (the expedition is disastrous with only 15 survivors)[1]
- 1701 French trader and soldier Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founds trading post at Fort Pontchartrain; later becomes the city of Detroit
- 1704 English and Dutch troops occupy Gibraltar
- 1712 Battle of Denain: France under Villars defeats the Dutch army
George Washington Elected
1758George Washington is elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses, representing Frederick County
William Clark's Slave
1799William Clark is willed the enslaved man York, who goes on to accompany him and play an important role in theLewis and Clark Expedition
- 1823 Slavery is abolished in Chile
1st Public Opinion Poll
1824 Harrisburg Pennsylvanian newspaper publishes results of the first public opinion poll, showing a clear lead forAndrew Jackson
Mormons Arrive at Salt Lake City
1847Brigham Young and his Mormon followers arrive at Salt Lake City, Utah
- 1847 Rotary-type printing press patents received by Richard March Hoe, NYC
Light and Air For All – With No Charge!
1851 The long-hated Window Tax, levied based on the number of windows in a dwelling, is abolished in the United Kingdom
- 1860 Olympics defeat St. George 25-17 at St. George's Cricket Grounds in Philadelphia in the first baseball game played in an enclosed field
- 1863 Battle of Battle Mountain, Virginia
- 1866 Tennessee becomes the first Confederate state readmitted to the Union
- 1870 First trans-US rail service begins
- 1877 First time federal troops are used to combat strikers
- 1880 First commercial hydroelectric power plant in the world begins generating electricity in Grand Rapids, Michigan
- 1883 Arabi Pasha declares a holy war in Egypt
- 1886 China takes British protectorate of Burma
- 1893 For the only time in the history of the US Tennis Championships, an event is held off the Eastern Seaboard: the Men's Doubles Championship in Chicago
- 1900 Race riot in New Orleans kills two white policemen
O. Henry Released from Prison
1901 WriterO. Henry is released from prison in Austin, Texas, after serving three years for embezzlement from a bank
- 1902 In Turkey, the Sultan Abdul-Hamid, under pressure from within the Ottoman Empire, appoints a commission to consider reforms that might pacify Macedonian revolutionaries
Björkö Treaty
1905 TsarNicholas II (Russia) and EmperorWilhelm II (Germany) sign the Björkö Treaty, whereby each country agrees to come to the other's defense if attacked by European powers
- 1908 After days of discussion with his ministers, Sultan Abdul Hamid of Turkey announces he is restoring the liberal constitution of 1876 and will become more responsive to demands of dissidents
- 1908 American Johnny Hayes wins the London Olympic marathon in a Games record time of 2:55:18.4 after Dorando Pietri of Italy is disqualified for receiving assistance before the finish line
- 1909 Brooklyn Superbas pitcher Nap Rucker strikes out 16 Pittsburgh Pirates in a 1-0 victory at Washington Park, Brooklyn
- 1910 Matador Juan Belmonte (18) kills his first bull
Machu Picchu Rediscovered
1911 American explorerHiram Bingham rediscovers Machu Picchu, the Lost City of the Incas
- 1915 Excursion ship Eastland capsizes in Lake Michigan, killing 852 people
- 1919 Race riot in Washington, D.C., kills 6 and injures 100
- 1923 Treaty of Lausanne signed by Allied Powers and Turkey recognizes modern boundaries of Turkey and British control of Cyprus
- 1927 The Menin Gate war memorial is unveiled at Ypres
- 1929 New York to San Francisco foot race ends after 2½ months; the winner is 60-year-old Monteverde
Kellogg-Briand Pact
1929 US PresidentHerbert Hoover proclaimsKellogg-Briand Pact which renounces war
- 1931 A fire at a home for the elderly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, kills 48 people
- 1931 George Gunn scores 183, and his son, George Vernon, scores 100* in the same innings
Nurmi Runs World Record
1931Paavo Nurmi runs a world record in the 2 mile (8:59.6)
Reichstag Fire
1933 German judge Vogt signs deed of accusation againstMarinus van der Lubbe for setting the Reichstag fire
- 1934 First ptarmigan hatched and reared in captivity in Ithaca, New York
- 1935 First greetings telegram sent in Britain
- 1935 The world's first children's railway opens in Tbilisi, USSR
- 1936 118°F (48°C) recorded in Minden, Nebraska (state record)
- 1936 121°F (49°C) recorded near Alton, Kansas (state record)
- 1936 Generals Mola and Cabanellas form Spanish anti-government
- 1937 Alabama drops charges against five Blacks accused of rape in Scottsboro
- 1940 First illegal "Newsletter of Pieter It Hen" is published in Netherlands
- 1940 Louis Einthoven, Linthorst Homan, and Jan de Quay found the Nederlandsche Unie (Dutch Union), an organization that seeks to cooperate with Nazi German occupiers without abandoning Dutch sovereignty and culture
- 1941 Nazis kill entire Jewish population of Grodz, Lithuania
- 1942 German troops occupy Rostov-on-Don in Southern Russia for the second time
- 1942 Transport #10 departs Drancy, France, with 1,000 French Jews sent to Auschwitz concentration camp; five survive until the end of the war
- 1943 Operation Gomorrah: RAF begins bombing Hamburg (until 3rd August), creating a firestorm and killing 42,600 people
- 1944 300 Allied bombers drop firebombs on German positions at Saint-Lô, France
- 1944 Soviet forces liberate concentration camp Majdanek
- 1944 US troops land on Tinian
- 1945 WWII: A suicide attack by a Japanese Kaiten manned torpedo sinks the US Navy destroyer USS Underhill west of Guam; nearly half of the 236 crew members are killed
- 1946 Nine Spokane baseball players (Western League) die in a bus crash
- 1946 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Bikini Atoll
- 1948 Four baseball players with the Duluth, Minnesota Dukes (St. Louis Cardinals Class C farm team) die in a crash
- 1948 Marvin the Martian, Warner Bros. cartoon character created by Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese (Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series), first debuts in "Haredevil Hare"
- 1950 V-2/WAC Corporal rocket launch; first launch from Cape Canaveral
- 1952 112°F (44°C) recorded in Louisville, Georgia (state record)
High Noon
1952 American Western film "High Noon" is released, directed by Fred Zinnemann and starringGary Cooper,Grace Kelly and Thomas Mitchell
Quare Fellow
1956Brendan Behan's first play "Quare Fellow" premieres in London
Sports History
1958Ted Williams is fined $250 for spitting at Boston fans again
- 1958 Test cricket debuts against New Zealand for Dexter, Illingworth, and Subba Row
- 1959 500,000th Dutch TV set registered
The Kitchen Debate
1959 US Vice President Richard Nixon argues with Soviet leaderNikita Khrushchev in Moscow, known as the "Kitchen Debate"
- 1961 A US commercial plane is hijacked to Cuba
- 1961 Edwin Newman becomes news anchor of NBC's "Today Show"
- 1963 124 Unification Church couples wed in Korea
- 1963 Dutch government of Marijnen forms
- 1964 Race riot in Rochester, New York, kills 4
- 1965 British rock group "The Animals" appear for the first time in the British charts
Casey Stengel Resigns
1965Casey Stengel resigns as manager of NY Mets
Long live free Quebec!
1967Charles de Gaulle says "Vive le Quebec libre! Long live free Quebec!"
- 1967 Chinese army, air force, and fleet repress uprising in Wuhan City
First Modern Hospice
1967 First modern hospice, St. Christopher's, is founded by Dr.Cicely Saunders in London, beginning modern palliative care and the hospice movement
- 1967 Norway requests European Economic Community membership
- 1967 Race riots in Cambridge, Maryland
- 1967 Race riots in Detroit force postponement of Tigers-Orioles game
- 1967 The Beatles sign a petition in The Times newspaper to legalize marijuana
Hoyt Wilhelm
1968Hoyt Wilhelm pitches in a record 907th major league game breakingCy Young's record for pitching appearances
Apollo 11 Returns Home
1969 At 12:51 EDT, Apollo 11 returns to Earth after taking the first astronauts to the Moon and returning them safely
- 1970 International Lawn Tennis Association institutes 9-point tiebreak rule
- 1970 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1971 WUHQ TV channel 41 in Battle Creek, Michigan (ABC) begins broadcasting
- 1972 Bugojno group is caught by Yugoslav security forces
- 1972 Jigme Singye Wangchuk becomes King of Bhutan at 16
Death Wish
1974 "Death Wish," based on the novel by Brian Garfield, directed by Michael Winner, and starringCharles Bronson is released in the US
Fulfillingness' First Finale
1974 Tamla/Motown Records releases "Fulfillingness' First Finale," the 17th studio album byStevie Wonder; the album tops both pop and soul charts and includes the hit single "Boogie On Reggae Woman"
- 1974 US Supreme Court unanimously rules Nixon to turn over Watergate tapes
Armani Founded
1975Giorgio Armani and Sergio Galeotti found fashion house Giorgio Armani S.p.A. in Milan, Italy
- 1976 John Naber is the first to swim 200 m backstroke in under 2 minutes
Baseball Record
1977 MLB Cincinnati RedsPete Rose passesFrankie Frisch as switch-hit leader with 2,881
- 1977 Seattle's John Montague pitches 6 2/3 innings of perfect relief, tying the two-game record of retiring 33 consecutive batsmen
Billy Martin Resigns
1978Billy Martin resigns as Yankees manager after saying "one is a born liar, the other a convicted one" about Steinbrenner and Jackson
- 1978 MLB Cincinnati RedsPete Rose ties NL hitting streak of 37 games
Baseball History
1979 Boston Red SoxCarl Yastrzemski hits his 400th home run
Paul Volcker Heads Federal Reserve
1979 US PresidentJimmy Carter namesPaul Volcker as Chairman of the Federal Reserve
- 1981 Mohammed Ali Rajai is elected president of Iran
- 1982 Heavy rain causes a mudslide that destroys a bridge at Nagasaki, Japan, killing 299
- 1982 KHJ (LA) and KFRC (San Francisco) become second and third stereo AM stations
- 1982 Single "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor from "Rocky III" soundtrack starts a 6-week run at #1 on US charts (Grammy for Best Rock Performance)
Baseball History
1983 Pine Tar Game:George Brett's home run is disallowed against the Yankees (overturned)
- 1983 Sonya Robinson (Milwaukee), 23, crowned 16th Miss Black America
Careless Whisper
1984 "Careless Whisper" single is released byGeorge Michael (credited in the US to Wham!) (Billboard Song of the Year 1985)
The Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior
1985 French DGSE officers Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart are arrested and charged with murder over the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior
Punjab Crisis Peace Accord
1985 Indian Prime MinisterRajiv Gandhi signs a peace accord with Sikh leader Harchand Singh Longowai to settle the three-year Punjab crisis[1]
- 1986 13th Commonwealth Games open in Edinburgh, Scotland
- 1986 SF Federal jury convicts navy radioman Jerry Whitworth of espionage
- 1987 IBM-PC DOS Version 3.3 (updated) is released
- 1987 USSR performs underground nuclear test
- 1988 US and Jamaica play a scoreless tie in the second round of the 1990 World Cup
- 1989 Paula Gwynn, 22, is crowned the 21st Miss Black America
- 1990 Ms. Magazine hits newsstands again after an 8-month hiatus
- 1990 US warships in the Persian Gulf are placed on alert after Iraq masses nearly 30,000 troops near its border with Kuwait
- 1991 A team of international astronomers led by Georgina Dransfield from the University of Birmingham announces the discovery of a planet outside the solar system
- 1991 Ottawa Rough Riders Board of Directors resigns
Sports History
1992Fay Vincent reinstates Yankees ownerGeorge Steinbrenner (effective 3/1/93)
- 1992 Mandala airlines plane crashes on Ambon island, eastern Indonesia, killing 70
- 1992 Shankar Dayal Sharma is elected ninth Indian President
- 1993 New York MetAnthony Young loses a record 27th consecutive game
- 1993Vince Coleman injures three when he throws a cherry bomb at Dodger fans
- 1994 Asociación de Estados del Caribe (AEC) forms
- 1994 Bodo kills 37 Muslims in Bashbari NE India
Saving Private Ryan
1998 "Saving Private Ryan," directed bySteven Spielberg and starringTom Hanks, Edward Burns, andMatt Damon, is released (Academy Award for Best Director 1999)
- 1998 Russell Eugene Weston Jr. bursts into the United States Capitol and opens fire killing two police officers. He is later ruled to be incompetent to stand trial.
- 2001 An Iranian warship in the Caspian Sea threatens a BP oil exploration ship off the coast of Azerbaijan
- 2001 Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Tsar of Bulgaria when he was a child, is sworn in as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, becoming the first monarch in history to regain political power through a democratic election to a different office
- 2002 James Traficant is expelled from the United States House of Representatives on a vote of 420 to 1
Alexandre Dumas Reinterred
2002 On the 200th anniversary of his birth, French authorAlexandre Dumas's (The Three Musketeers) ashes are interred in the Panthéon in Paris in a televised ceremony
Ringo Starr's Eighth All-Starr Band
2003Ringo Starr's eighth All-Starr Band debuts in concert; members include Colin Hay, Paul Carrack, John Waite, Sheila E., and Mark Rivera
Tour de France
2005 92nd Tour de France: no winner;Lance Armstrong retires after winning a record seventh consecutive victory but disqualified in 2012 for doping
Friends Forever: A Novel
2012Danielle Steel’s novel “Friends Forever: A Novel” is published
- 2012 Four barrels containing 248 human fetuses are found in Sverdlovsk, Russia
- 2012 John Dramani becomes President of Ghana after the death of President John Atta Mills
- 2013 A conflict between the Knights Templar Cartel and Mexican police in Michoacán leaves 22 people dead
- 2013 A high-speed train derails in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, killing 80 people and injuring 140
- 2014 Air Algérie Flight 5017 crashes in Mali, killing 116 people
- 2014 Fuad Masum is elected as the president of Iraq
- 2014 Over 10,000 Palestinians protest Israel's operation in Gaza; two Palestinians killed after Al-Aqsa Brigades members fire at Israeli forces
- 2014 Reuven Rivlin is sworn in as the president of Israel
Obama Visits Kenya
2015 US PresidentBarack Obama begins a historic 2-day visit to Kenya
Kushner Deneys Russia Collusion
2017Donald Trump’s son-in-law,Jared Kushner, says he did not collude with Russia after meeting with Senate investigators
- 2017 Polish President Andrzej Duda vetoes two laws to put Polish courts under political control
- 2017 Taliban suicide bomber on a motorbike kills at least 26 and injures 50 in Lahore, Pakistan
- 2017 Taliban suicide bus bombing in Kabul kills at least 38, mainly employees of the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Petroleum
Demi Lovato Hospitalized
2018 American singerDemi Lovato is hospitalized after a drug overdose in Los Angeles
- 2018 First bison born in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada, in 140 years after being reintroduced
- 2018 Wildfires near Athens, Greece, kill 91 and injure 104, with over 600 rescued from the coast by boats
Milák Breaks Phelps' Record
2019 19-year-old Hungarian swimmer Kristóf Milák breaksMichael Phelps' 10-year-old 200m butterfly world record at the World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, swimming 1:50.73, 0.78s faster than Phelps
- 2019 Facebook agrees to pay a $5 billion fine, the largest ever for violating consumer privacy, to the US Federal Trade Commission
- 2019 Global warming is the fastest in 2,000 years and scientific consensus that humans are the cause is at 99%, according to three major reports published in journals "Nature" and "Nature Geoscience"
Boris Johnson's Reshapes Cabinet
2019 New UK PMBoris Johnson drastically reshapes cabinet in his first day in office, appointing Dominic Raab as Foreign Secretary, Priti Patel as Home Secretary and Sajid Javid as Chancellor
- 2019 Second heatwave of the summer in Western Europe sets record temperatures in Belgium at Kleine Brogel 39.9°C (102°F), in the Netherlands at Eindhoven 39.3°C (102°F), and in Germany at Geilenkirchen 40.5°C (104°F)
Mueller Reports Russian Interference
2019 Special counsel Robert Mueller reports to the US Senate thatPresident Trump was not exonerated of obstruction of justice and that Russia interfered in US election to benefit Trump
- 2019 Ten millionth Mini car produced during its 60th anniversary year in Oxford, England
Folklore
2020 "Folklore," the eighth studio album by the American singer-songwriterTaylor Swift, is released via Republic Records
Baseball Hall of Fame
2022David Ortiz,Gil Hodges, Bud Fowler, Jim Kaat, Minnie Miñoso, and Buck O’Neil are inducted into Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY
- 2022 Évian Championship Women's Golf, Évian Resort GC: Brooke Henderson of Canada edges American rookie Sophia Schubert by one stroke to win her second major title
- 2022 Heatwave across America's Northeast with many cities, including Boston, St. Louis, and Philadelphia, declaring heat emergencies[1]
- 2022 Over 1,100 refugees rescued in separate operations across the Mediterranean in a few days by coast guards and charities, with five bodies recovered[1]
Pope Francis in Canada
2022Pope Francis arrives in Edmonton, Canada, to begin a penitential trip to meet with and apologize to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities for their treatment at church-run residential schools[1]
Mitchells' 1st Concert in 19 Years
2022 Singer-songwriter iconJoni Mitchell makes a surprise concert appearance, joining Brandi Carlile at Newport Folk Festival in Mitchell's first public performance in 19 years
- 2022 Wild monkey attacks at least 42 people, including in their homes, in Yamaguchi City, Japan, leading police to be armed with tranquilizer guns[1]
- 2023 Dengue outbreak in Bangladesh, caused by heavy monsoon rains, claims more than 170 lives, with 33,000 hospitalizations, according to local health officials[1]
- 2023 Gender pay gap in America drops to its lowest level with women earning 84 cents for every $1 men earn full-time (up from 78 cents a decade ago)[1]
- 2023 Israel’s parliament passes a controversial “reasonableness” bill, taking away the ability of the Supreme Court to declare government decisions unreasonable, as the first bill in a plan to weaken the judiciary amid large, widespread protests[1]
- 2023 Ugandan-English runner Deo Kato (36) begins trek from the Long March to Freedom monument in Cape Town, South Africa, to London, England to highlight the story of human migration[1]
- 2023 US Justice department sues Texas over a floating barrier installed in the Rio Grande river between the US and Mexico to deter migrants, citing humanitarian concerns[1]
- 2023 Wildfires across Algeria kill at least 34 people amid temperatures of 48°C (118°F)[1]
- 2024 "Inside Out 2" surpasses "Frozen II" to become the highest-grossing animated film in history, making $1.46 billion worldwide[1]
Event of Interest
2024 Israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu delivers a defiant address to a joint session of US Congress, defending his country's war in Gaza against Hamas[1]
- 2024 Meta announces it has removed 63,000 Instagram accounts tied to sextortion schemes associated with Nigerian Yahoo Boys criminal group[1]
- 2024 Philippine officials declare a “state of calamity” around Manila as Typhoon Gaemi/Carina causes massive flooding, displacing 600,000 people and sinking an oil tanker[1]
- 2024 Taiwan declares a Typhoon Day, closing all schools and businesses as Typhoon Gaemi makes landfall in eastern Taiwan with winds of 240 kmh (150 mph)[1]
- 2024 The Park Fire is started by an arsonist in Butte County, California, and later grows to become the seventh-largest in state history[1]
- 2024 Wildfire destroys much of the historic Canadian town of Jasper, Alberta, inside Jasper National Park[1]
