Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/All
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[edit] Today's anniversaries
June 12: Independence Day in the Philippines; Russia Day in the Russian Federation; Dia dos Namorados in Brazil
- 1864 – Union General Ulysses S. Grant pulled his troops out of the Battle of Cold Harbor in Hanover County, Virginia, ending one of the bloodiest, most lopsided battles in the American Civil War.
- 1889 – In one of the worst rail disasters in Europe, runaway passenger carriages collided with a following train near Armagh, present-day Northern Ireland, killing 88 people and injuring 170 others.
- 1942 – On her thirteenth birthday, Anne Frank began keeping her diary during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
- 1967 – The U.S. Supreme Court delivered its decision in the landmark civil rights case Loving v. Virginia, striking down laws restricting interracial marriage in the United States.
- 1979 – Pilot Bryan Allen flew the human-powered aircraft Gossamer Albatross (pictured) across the English Channel to win the Kremer prize.
More events: June 11 – June 12 – June 13
[edit] Selected anniversaries for January
- 1801 – Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi (pictured) discovered the dwarf planet Ceres, naming it after the Roman goddess of growing plants.
- 1801 – The Kingdom of Ireland formally merged with the Kingdom of Great Britain, adding St. Patrick's saltire to the Union Flag.
- 1808 – As a result of the lobbying efforts by the Abolitionist Movement, the importation of slaves into the United States was officially banned.
- 1901 – The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia federated as the Commonwealth of Australia.
- 1995 – The World Trade Organization, the international organization designed to supervise and liberalize international trade, came into being to replace the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
More events: December 31 – January 1 – January 2
- 366 – The Alamanni, an alliance of west Germanic tribes, crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers to invade the Roman Empire.
- 533 – Mercurius became Pope John II, the first pope to adopt a regnal name upon elevation to the papacy.
- 1492 – The Reconquista: The Catholic Monarchs, Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, expelled Abu 'abd-Allah Muhammad XII of Granada, the last of the Moorish rulers, from the Iberian Peninsula.
- 1942 – In the largest espionage case in United States history, 33 members of a German spy ring led by former South African Boer soldier and adventurer Fritz Joubert Duquesne (pictured) were convicted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
- 1959 – The Soviet spacecraft Luna 1 (illustrated by model), the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon, was launched by the Vostok rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam, Kazakh SSR.
More events: January 1 – January 2 – January 3
January 3: Perihelion (00:00 UTC, 2008)
- 1521 – Pope Leo X (pictured) issued the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem, excommunicating Martin Luther from the Roman Catholic Church after Luther refused to retract 41 of his 95 theses.
- 1749 – Benning Wentworth, Governor of the New Hampshire Colony, began to issue the New Hampshire Grants on land which was also claimed by New York, and is now Vermont.
- 1958 – Ten former British colonies in the Caribbean joined to form a new self-governing West Indies Federation.
- 1959 – The History of Alaska: The Alaska Territory, an organized incorporated territory of the United States, became the 49th state of the union, and the first U.S. state outside of the 48 contiguous states.
- 1990 – United States invasion of Panama: General Manuel Noriega, the deposed "strongman of Panama", surrendered to American forces.
More events: January 2 – January 3 – January 4
- 1698 – Most of the Palace of Whitehall in London, the main residence of the English monarchs dating from 1530, was destroyed by fire.
- 1884 – The Fabian Society, an intellectual movement whose purpose is to advance the socialist cause by gradualist and reformist methods rather than revolutionary means, was founded in London.
- 1936 – Billboard magazine published its first music hit parade.
- 1948 – Burma achieved independence from the British Empire, with U Nu of the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League as its first Prime Minister.
- 2004 – The NASA Mars Rover Spirit (artist's concept pictured) landed successfully on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC.
- 2007 – Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, becoming the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. Government.
More events: January 3 – January 4 – January 5
January 5: Twelfth Night (Western Christianity)
- 1477 – Burgundian Wars: Charles the Bold (pictured), the Duke of Burgundy, died at the Battle of Nancy, eventually leading to the partition of Burgundy between France and the House of Habsburg.
- 1527 – Felix Manz, co-founder of the original Swiss Brethren Anabaptist congregation in Zürich, was executed by drowning, becoming one of the first martyrs of the Radical Reformation.
- 1968 – The Prague Spring: Alexander Dubček came to power in Czechoslovakia, beginning a political reform known as "Socialism with a human face" that introduced a period of political liberalization that still enabled the Communist Party to maintain real power.
- 2005 – Eris, the largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System, was discovered by a team led by Michael E. Brown using images originally taken on October 21, 2003 at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, USA.
More events: January 4 – January 5 – January 6
January 6: Tenth of Tevet (Judaism, 2009); Epiphany in Western Christianity
- 1661 – Thomas Venner and the Fifth Monarchists unsuccessfully attempted to seize control of London from the newly restored government of Charles II.
- 1781 – At the Battle of Jersey, British forces stopped France's last attempt to militarily invade Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands in the English Channel.
- 1838 – Samuel Morse and his assistant Alfred Vail successfully tested the electrical telegraph for the first time at Speedwell Ironworks in Morristown, New Jersey, USA.
- 1907 – Italian educator Maria Montessori (pictured) opened her first school and day care center for working class children in Rome.
- 1995 – A suspicious fire in a Manila flat led to the foiling of the Bojinka Plot, a precursor to the September 11, 2001 attacks.
More events: January 5 – January 6 – January 7
January 7: Christmas (Christianity-Julian calendar)
- 1558 – Francis, Duke of Guise (pictured) retook Calais, England's last continental possession, for France.
- 1610 – Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei first observed three of Jupiter's natural satellites through his telescope: Io, Europa, and Callisto
- 1785 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries became the first to cross the English Channel by balloon.
- 1924 – The International Hockey Federation, the global governing body for field hockey, was founded in Paris in response to the sport's omission from the 1924 Summer Olympics.
- 1979 – Phnom Penh, Cambodia fell to the People's Army of Vietnam, effectively ending the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot.
More events: January 6 – January 7 – January 8
- 1815 – War of 1812: American forces led by General Andrew Jackson defeated the British army at the Battle of New Orleans near New Orleans, two weeks after the United States and Great Britain signed the Treaty of Ghent to end the war.
- 1889 – Statistician Herman Hollerith received a patent for his electric tabulating machine.
- 1956 – Operation Auca: Five Evangelical Christian missionaries from the United States were killed by the Huaorani in the rainforest of Ecuador shortly after making contact with them.
- 1989 – Kegworth air disaster: British Midland Flight 092 crashed onto the embankment of the M1 motorway near Kegworth, Leicestershire, UK, killing 47 people and injuring 79 others.
- 2004 – RMS Queen Mary 2 (pictured), at the time the longest, widest and tallest passenger ship ever built, was christened by her namesake's granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.
More events: January 7 – January 8 – January 9
January 9: Martyrs' Day in Panama
- 1839 – The French Academy of Sciences announced the Daguerreotype photographic process, named after its inventor, French artist and chemist Louis Daguerre.
- 1861 – The civilian ship Star of the West was fired upon as it attempted to send supplies and reinforcements to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor before the American Civil War.
- 1878 – Umberto I became King of Italy.
- 1916 – World War I: The last British troops evacuated from Gallipoli, as the Ottoman Empire prevailed over of a joint British and French operation to capture Istanbul at the Battle of Gallipoli.
- 1923 – The autogyro (pictured), a type of rotorcraft invented by civil engineer and pilot Juan de la Cierva, made its first successful flight at Cuatro Vientos Airfield in Madrid, Spain.
- 1972 – RMS Queen Elizabeth, an ocean liner which sailed the Atlantic Ocean for the Cunard White Star Line, was destroyed by fire in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong.
- 2005 – Mahmoud Abbas was elected President of the Palestinian National Authority to replace Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004.
More events: January 8 – January 9 – January 10
January 10: The Remembrance of Muharram in Shi'a Islam begins (2008, A.H. 1429)
- 1475 – Moldavian-Ottoman Wars: At the Battle of Vaslui near Vaslui in present-day Romania, Stephen the Great and his Moldavian forces successfully repelled an Ottoman attack led by Hadân Suleiman Pasha, the Beylerbeyi of Rumelia.
- 1776 – Common Sense by English pamphleteer and revolutionary Thomas Paine (pictured), a document denouncing British rule which contributed to stimulating the American Revolution among the populace of the Thirteen Colonies, was published.
- 1863 – Service began on the Metropolitan Railway between Paddington and Farringdon Street, now the oldest segment of the London Underground.
- 1929 – The Adventures of Tintin, a series of comic books created by Belgian artist Hergé that has been sold in over 50 languages and more than 200 million copies to date, first appeared in a children's supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle.
- 1946 – The first session of the United Nations General Assembly convened at the Westminster Central Hall in London with representatives from fifty-one member states.
More events: January 9 – January 10 – January 11
- 1787 – German-born British astronomer and composer William Herschel (pictured) discovered the Uranian moons Oberon and Titania. They were later named by his son John after the King and the Queen of the Faeries from William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, respectively.
- 1922 – Insulin was first administered to a human patient with diabetes at the Toronto General Hospital in Toronto, Canada.
- 1923 – Troops from France and Belgium invaded the Ruhr Area to force the German Weimar Republic to pay its reparation payments in the aftermath of World War I.
- 1964 – In a landmark report, U.S. Surgeon General Luther Leonidas Terry issued the warning that smoking may be hazardous for one's health, concluding that it has a causative role in lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and other illnesses.
- 1986 – The Gateway Bridge in Brisbane, Australia, at the time the longest prestressed concrete free cantilever bridge in the world, opened.
More events: January 10 – January 11 – January 12
- 1838 – In order to avoid anti-Mormon persecution, Latter Day Saint movement founder Joseph Smith, Jr. and his followers fled Kirtland, Ohio for Far West, Missouri.
- 1872 – Yohannes IV (pictured) was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia in Axum, the first imperial coronation in that city in over 200 years.
- 1967 – Seventy-three-year-old psychology professor James Bedford became the first person to be cryonically frozen with intent of future resuscitation.
- 1970 – The self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra in southeastern Nigeria capitulated, ending the Nigerian Civil War.
- 1971 – The American situation comedy All in the Family, starring Carroll O'Connor as reactionary, bigoted, blue-collar worker Archie Bunker, was first broadcast on the CBS television network. The show broke ground in its depiction of issues previously deemed unsuitable for U.S. network television comedy.
More events: January 11 – January 12 – January 13
January 13: St. Knut's Day (Christianity-Scandinavia), Old New Year (unofficial Eastern Orthodox Church tradition)
- 1842 – When he reached the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, William Brydon, an assistant surgeon in the British Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, became the sole European survivor of a party of over 4,500 military personnel and over 10,000 civilian camp followers retreating from Kabul, excluding a few prisoners released later.
- 1898 – The Paris newspaper L'Aurore published "J'accuse...!", an open letter by French writer Émile Zola (pictured) to French President Félix Faure exposing the Dreyfus affair.
- 1968 – American singer Johnny Cash recorded his landmark album At Folsom Prison live at Folsom State Prison in Folsom, California.
- 1986 – A month-long violent struggle began in Aden, South Yemen between supporters of President Ali Nasir Muhammad and his predecessor Abdul Fattah Ismail, resulting in thousands of casualties.
- 1991 – The January Events: Soviet troops attacked Lithuanian independence supporters at the TV Tower in Vilnius, killing 14 people.
More events: January 12 – January 13 – January 14
January 14: Coming-of-Age Day in Japan (2008); Makar Sankranti in India
- 1301 – The Árpád dynasty, who ruled in Hungary since the late 9th century, ended with the death of King Andrew III.
- 1724 – Philip V, the first Bourbon ruler of Spain, abdicated the throne to his eldest son Louis.
- 1761 – The Afghans led by Ahmad Shah Abdali defeated the French-supplied and trained Maratha troops at the Third Battle of Panipat in Panipat, present-day Haryana, India.
- 1814 – Sweden and Denmark–Norway signed the Treaty of Kiel, whereby Frederick VI of Denmark (pictured), a loser in the Napoleonic Wars, ceded Norway to Sweden in return for the Swedish holdings in Pomerania.
- 1939 – Norway claimed Queen Maud Land in Antarctica as a dependent territory.
- 1952 – Today, the world's first morning/breakfast television show, debuted on the American television network NBC.
- 2004 – The national flag of Georgia, the so-called Five Cross Flag, was restored to official use after a hiatus of some 500 years.
More events: January 13 – January 14 – January 15
January 15: Pongal (Tamils, 2008); John Chilembwe Day in Malawi; Korean Alphabet Day in North Korea
- 1759 – The British Museum (pictured) in London, today containing one of the largest and most comprehensive collections in the world, opened to the public in Montagu House, Bloomsbury.
- 1885 – American photographer Wilson Bentley took the first known photograph of a snowflake by attaching a bellows camera to a microscope.
- 1908 – Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first Greek-lettered sorority established by African American women, was founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C. by nine students.
- 1919 – Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two prominent socialists in Germany, were tortured and murdered by the Freikorps.
- 1943 – The highest-capacity office building in the world, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense known as the Pentagon, was dedicated.
- 1993 – Salvatore "The Beast" Riina, one of the most powerful members of the Sicilian Mafia, was arrested after three decades as a fugitive.
More events: January 14 – January 15 – January 16
January 16: Teachers' Day in Thailand
- 27 BC – Gaius Octavianus (pictured) was given the title Augustus by the Roman Senate.
- 929 – Emir Abd-ar-Rahman III of Cordoba declared himself caliph, thereby establishing the Caliphate of Córdoba.
- 1129 – The Council of Nablus was held, establishing the earliest surviving written laws of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.
- 1809 – Peninsular War: French forces under Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult attacked the amphibious evacuation of the British under Sir John Moore at the Battle of Corunna in Corunna, Galicia, Spain.
- 1909 – The Nimrod Expedition led by Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton reached the approximate location of the South Magnetic Pole.
- 1969 – Student Jan Palach set himself on fire in Wenceslas Square in Prague to protest the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia one year earlier. He died three days later from the third-degree burns he suffered.
- 1986 – The Internet Engineering Task Force, a standards organization that develops and promotes Internet standards, held its first meeting, consisting of twenty-one United States-government-funded researchers.
- 2006 – Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was sworn in as President of Liberia, becoming Africa's first female elected head of state.
More events: January 15 – January 16 – January 17
- 1885 – Mahdist War: British troops defeated Mahdist Sudanese forces at the Battle of Abu Klea in Khartoum, Sudan.
- 1899 – The United States took possession of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.
- 1929 – Popeye the Sailor, a cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, first appeared in his newspaper comic strip Thimble Theater.
- 1946 – The United Nations Security Council (chamber pictured), the organ of the United Nations charged with the maintenance of international peace and security, held its first meeting at Church House in London.
- 1966 – The Palomares hydrogen bombs incident: A U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress collided with a KC-135 Stratotanker during aerial refueling over the Mediterranean Sea, dropping three hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares, Spain, and another one into the sea.
- 1995 – The Great Hanshin Earthquake struck near Kobe, Japan, killing over 6,000 people and causing over ¥10 trillion (US$200 billion) worth of damage.
More events: January 16 – January 17 – January 18
January 18: The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins
- 1535 – Conquistador Francisco Pizarro founded Ciudad de los Reyes, present-day Lima, Peru, as the capital of the lands he conquered for the Spanish Crown.
- 1778 – English explorer James Cook became the first known European to reach the Sandwich Islands, now known as the Hawaiian Islands.
- 1871 – Unification of Germany: A number of independent German states unified into the German Empire, with King Wilhelm I of Prussia (pictured) being proclaimed as its first Emperor.
- 1977 – The mysterious Legionnaires' disease was found to be caused by a novel bacterium now known as Legionella.
- 2003 – The 2003 Canberra bushfires: Bushfires burning out of control began blazing through residential areas of Canberra, Australia, eventually killing four people, and damaging or destroying more than 500 homes.
More events: January 17 – January 18 – January 19
January 19: Ashura in Islam (2008)
- 1764 – English radical and politician John Wilkes was expelled from the British Parliament and declared an outlaw for seditious libel.
- 1817 – An army of over 5,400 soldiers led by General José de San Martín (pictured) crossed the Andes from Argentina to liberate Chile and then Peru from Spanish rule.
- 1839 – The Royal Marines landed at Aden to occupy the territory and stop attacks by pirates against the British East India Company's shipping to India. The city in present-day Yemen remained under British control until 1967.
- 1935 – In Chicago, Coopers Inc. sold the world's first briefs, a new style of men's undergarment.
- 1977 – Iva Toguri, allegedly a Tokyo Rose, a generic name given by Allied forces during World War II to approximately twenty English-speaking female broadcasters of Japanese propaganda, was granted a full pardon by U.S. President Gerald Ford.
More events: January 18 – January 19 – January 20
- 1320 – After reuniting Poland, Władysław the Short (sarcophagus figure pictured) was crowned king in Kraków.
- 1885 – LaMarcus Adna Thompson, sometimes called the "Father of Gravity", patented the roller coaster.
- 1921 – The first Turkish Constitution was ratified by the Grand National Assembly, making fundamental changes in Turkey by enshrining the principle of national sovereignty.
- 1942 – World War II: At the Wannsee Conference held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee, senior Nazi German officials decided the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question", accelerating The Holocaust.
- 1990 – Black January: The Soviet Red Army violently cracked down on Azeri pro-independence demonstrations in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR.
More events: January 19 – January 20 – January 21
January 21: Martin Luther King Day in the United States (2008)
- 304 – Saint Agnes was executed for refusing the prefect Sempronius' wish for her to marry his son. She is today the patron saint of girls, chastity, virgins, and others.
- 1525 – The Anabaptist Movement was born when founders Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, and George Blaurock re-baptized each other and other followers in Zürich, Switzerland, believing that the Christian religious practice of infant baptism is invalid because a child cannot commit to a religious faith.
- 1793 – French Revolution: After being found guilty of treason by the National Convention, King Louis XVI (pictured) was guillotined in front of a cheering crowd at the Place de la Révolution in Paris.
- 1919 – The First Dáil Éireann first convened at the Mansion House in Dublin, adopting a Declaration of Independence calling for a new sovereign state: the Irish Republic.
- 1968 – Vietnam War: The Vietnam People's Army attacked Khe Sanh Combat Base, a U.S. Marines outpost in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, starting the Battle of Khe Sanh.
More events: January 20 – January 21 – January 22
January 22: Tu Bishvat (Judaism, 2008)
- 565 – Justinian the Great deposed Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople, after he refused the Byzantine Emperor's order to adopt the tenets of the Aphthartodocetae, a sect of Monophysites.
- 1863 – The January Uprising, the longest Polish, Belarusian and Lithuanian uprising against the Russian Empire, broke out, originally as a spontaneous protest by young Poles against conscription into the Russian Army.
- 1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: In the greatest British military defeat at the hands of native forces in history, Zulu forces of King Cetshwayo (pictured) fought to a pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Isandlwana in Isandlwana, South Africa.
- 1901 – After holding the title Prince of Wales for six decades, King Edward VII ascended to the British throne, replacing Queen Victoria whose death ended her reign that lasted 63 years and seven months, longer than any other British monarch.
- 1973 – The U.S. Supreme Court delivered its decision in the landmark case Roe v. Wade, striking down laws restricting abortion during the first six to seven months of pregnancy.
More events: January 21 – January 22 – January 23
- 1368 – Zhu Yuanzhang ascended to the throne of China as the Hongwu Emperor, initiating Ming Dynasty rule over China that would last for three centuries.
- 1656 – Under the pseudonym Louis de Montalte, French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher Blaise Pascal (pictured) published the first of his Lettres provinciales, attacking the Jesuits and their use of casuistic reasoning.
- 1912 – Twelve nations signed the International Opium Convention, the first international drug control treaty, to regulate the production and distribution of opiates.
- 1968 – USS Pueblo was seized by North Korean forces, who claimed that it had violated their territorial waters while spying.
- 2001 – Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident: Seven people attempted to set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square on the eve of Chinese New Year, an act that many people claim was staged by the Communist Party of China to frame Falun Gong and escalate the persecution.
More events: January 22 – January 23 – January 24
- 41 – Roman Emperor Caligula (pictured) was brutally murdered by Cassius Chaerea and the disgruntled Praetorian Guards. Caligula's uncle Claudius was proclaimed emperor in his place.
- 1639 – The Fundamental Orders, the first written constitution in North American history, was adopted in Connecticut.
- 1848 – James W. Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California, leading to the California Gold Rush.
- 1857 – The University of Calcutta, the first modern university in the Indian subcontinent, was established in Calcutta, India.
- 1984 – The first Apple Macintosh, today known as the Macintosh 128K, went on sale, becoming the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a graphical user interface rather than a command line interface.
More events: January 23 – January 24 – January 25
January 25: Burns Night (Scots culture)
- 1327 – Fourteen-year old Edward III became King of England, but the country was ruled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer.
- 1554 – Jesuit missionaries José de Anchieta (pictured) and Manoel da Nóbrega established a mission at São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga, which grew to become São Paulo, Brazil.
- 1924 – The first Winter Olympic Games opened at the foot of Mont Blanc in Chamonix, Haute-Savoie, France.
- 1971 – General Idi Amin Dada seized power in a military coup d'état from President Milton Obote, beginning eight years of military rule in Uganda.
- 1993 – Five people were shot outside the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, USA, resulting in two deaths.
More events: January 24 – January 25 – January 26
January 26: Australia Day in Australia (1788); Republic Day in India (1950)
- 1500 – Spanish navigator, explorer, and conquistador Vicente Yáñez Pinzón reached the north coast of what today is Brazil.
- 1788 – The British First Fleet, led by Captain Arthur Phillip (pictured), landed at Sydney Cove, establishing the first permanent European settlement in Australia.
- 1905 – The Cullinan Diamond, the largest rough gem-quality diamond ever found, was discovered at the Premier Mine in Cullinan, Gauteng, South Africa.
- 1950 – Indian independence movement: India officially became a republic under a new constitution, with Rajendra Prasad as its first president.
- 1983 – The spreadsheet program Lotus 1-2-3, the IBM Personal Computer's first "killer application", was first released.
More events: January 25 – January 26 – January 27
January 27: International Holocaust Remembrance Day
- 1343 – Pope Clement VI issued the papal bull Unigenitus to justify the power of the pope and the use of indulgences.
- 1888 – Two weeks after a group of over thirty explorers and scientists met in Washington, D.C. to organize "a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge," the National Geographic Society, publisher of the National Geographic Magazine, was incorporated.
- 1945 – The Soviet Red Army liberated over 7,500 prisoners left behind by Nazi personnel in the Auschwitz concentration camp (entrance pictured) in Oświęcim, Poland.
- 1967 – The Apollo 1 spacecraft was destroyed by fire at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, killing astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee.
- 1973 – The Paris Peace Accords were signed in Paris, temporarily ending the Vietnam War with a ceasefire. North Vietnam would violate the treaty one year later when it attacked South Vietnam on December 13, 1974.
More events: January 26 – January 27 – January 28
- 1077 – Walk to Canossa: Pope Gregory VII lifted the excommunication of Henry IV after the Holy Roman Emperor made his trek from Speyer to Canossa Castle to beg the pope for forgiveness for his actions in the Investiture Controversy.
- 1573 – The Warsaw Confederation was signed, sanctioning religious freedom in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
- 1820 – A Russian expedition led by naval officers Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev approached the coast of Antarctica.
- 1855 – A train on the Panama Railway made the world's first transcontinental crossing, a 48-mile (77 km) trip from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean across the Isthmus of Panama.
- 1986 – The NASA Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated (pictured) 73 seconds into its tenth mission, killing all seven crew members.
More events: January 27 – January 28 – January 29
- 904 – Sergius III came out of retirement to take over the papacy from the deposed antipope Christopher.
- 1850 – U.S. Senator Henry Clay introduced the Compromise of 1850, a series of laws designed to balance the interests between the slaveholding Southern United States and the free states of the north.
- 1856 – The Victoria Cross was created, originally to recognise acts of valour by British and Commonwealth military personnel during the Crimean War.
- 1886 – German engine designer and engineer Karl Benz filed a patent for the Motorwagen (replica pictured), the first purpose-built, gasoline-driven automobile.
- 2002 – In his State of the Union Address, U.S. President George W. Bush described governments that he accused of sponsoring terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction as an "axis of evil", specifically naming Iran, Iraq and North Korea.
More events: January 28 – January 29 – January 30
- 1649 – English Civil War: King Charles I was beheaded for high treason in front of the Banqueting House in London.
- 1826 – The Menai Suspension Bridge connecting the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales, one of the world's first modern suspension bridges, opened.
- 1930 – The world's first radiosonde, a device attached to weather balloons to measure various atmospheric parameters, was launched by meteorologist Pavel Molchanov in Pavlovsk, USSR.
- 1948 – Nathuram Godse shot Mahatma Gandhi (pictured), political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement, to death at Birla House in Delhi.
- 1968 – Vietnam War: Forces of the Viet Cong and the Vietnam People's Army launched the Tết Offensive on Tết (Vietnamese New Year's Day) to strike military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam.
More events: January 29 – January 30 – January 31
January 31: Independence Day in Nauru (1968); Fat Thursday (2008)
- 1606 – Explosives expert Guy Fawkes and several others were hanged, drawn and quartered for their involvement in the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to destroy the Houses of Parliament in London during the State Opening.
- 1747 – The London Lock Hospital, the first clinic specialising in the treatment of venereal diseases, opened.
- 1917 – World War I: Germany announced its U-boats would resume unrestricted submarine warfare, less than two years after suspending its attacks when the United States protested about the sinking of the ocean liner RMS Lusitania.
- 1953 – The North Sea flood and its associated storm hit the coastlines of several European countries along the North Sea, killing more than 2,000 people.
- 1961 – Aboard NASA's Mercury-Redstone 2, Ham the Chimp (pictured) became the first hominid launched into outer space.
More events: January 30 – January 31 – February 1
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December
Recent changes to Selected anniversaries - Selected anniversaries editing guidelines
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[edit] Selected anniversaries for February
February 1: Imbolc (Northern Hemisphere); Feast of St. Brigid of Kildare (Western Christianity)
- 1796 – The capital of Upper Canada was moved from Newark to York, which was judged to be less vulnerable to attack by the United States.
- 1884 – The first fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary, a 352-page volume that covered words from A to Ant, was published.
- 1946 – As a result of a compromise between the major powers within the United Nations, Norwegian politician Trygve Lie was elected as the first UN Secretary-General.
- 1957 – Invented by German mechanical engineer Felix Wankel, the first working prototype of the Wankel rotary engine (pictured) ran for the first time at the research and development department of German manufacturer NSU Motorenwerke AG.
- 2003 – The NASA Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere on its 28th and final mission, killing all seven crew members.
More events: January 31 – February 1 – February 2
February 2: Candlemas in Western Christianity; Groundhog Day in Canada and the United States
- 1536 – An expedition to the New World led by Spanish conquistador Pedro de Mendoza founded what is now Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 1709 – Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk was rescued after spending four years as a castaway on an uninhabited island in the Juan Fernández archipelago, providing the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe.
- 1848 – The Mexican–American War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, granting the United States the Mexican Cession.
- 1925 – Medical supplies to combat an outbreak of diphtheria reached Nome, Alaska Territory on dog sleds after a five and a half-day journey, inspiring the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race (pictured in 2003) across Alaska.
- 1943 – World War II: The Soviet Red Army captured 91,000 tired and starving German soldiers, ending the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the bloodiest battles in human history.
More events: February 1 – February 2 – February 3
February 3: Setsubun in Japan; Four Chaplains' Day in the United States
- 1488 – Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias landed in Mossel Bay, having sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and the southern tip of Africa.
- 1509 – Turkish-Portuguese War: Portugal defeated a joint fleet of Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, Ottoman Empire, the Zamorin of Calicut and the Sultan of Gujarat at the Battle of Diu off the coast of Diu, India.
- 1867 – Crown Prince Mutsuhito (pictured) succeeded his father Kōmei as Emperor of Japan, taking the title Meiji.
- 1959 – The Day the Music Died: A small plane crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa, USA, killing American rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson.
- 1966 – The Soviet spacecraft Luna 9 became the first space probe to land on the Moon and transmit pictures from the lunar surface to Earth.
More events: February 2 – February 3 – February 4
February 4: Independence Day in Sri Lanka (1948); Lichun begins in East Asia (11:00 UTC, 2008)
- 1703 – Forty-six of the Forty-Seven Ronin committed seppuku (ritual suicide) in Edo, present-day Tokyo, as recompense for avenging the death of their master, Daimyo of Akō Asano Naganori.
- 1859 – German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf rediscovered the Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th century uncial manuscript of the Greek Bible, in Saint Catherine's Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt.
- 1899 – An American soldier shot a Filipino soldier in Manila after a misunderstanding occurred between the two, igniting the Philippine-American War.
- 1945 – World War II: Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin met at the Yalta Conference (pictured) in Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula.
- 1957 – USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, logged her 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
More events: February 3 – February 4 – February 5
February 5: Constitution Day in Mexico; Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan begins (2008); Shrove Tuesday in Western Christianity and Mardi Gras (2008)
- 1862 – Domnitor Alexander John Cuza (pictured) merged his two principalities, Wallachia and Moldavia, to form the United Principalities (now Romania).
- 1885 – King Leopold II of Belgium established the Congo Free State as his personal possession in Africa through his organization Association Internationale Africaine and his private army, the Force Publique.
- 1924 – Hourly Greenwich Time Signals from the Royal Greenwich Observatory were first broadcast by the BBC.
- 1958 – A hydrogen bomb now known as the Tybee Bomb disappeared off the shores of Tybee Island, Georgia after it was jettisoned during a practice exercise when the bomber carrying it collided in midair with a fighter plane.
- 2004 – The Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front captured Gonaïves, Haiti, starting the 2004 Haitian rebellion against the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
More events: February 4 – February 5 – February 6
February 6: Waitangi Day in New Zealand; Ash Wednesday in Western Christianity (2008)
- 1819 – British official Stamford Raffles (pictured) signed a treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor, establishing Singapore as a new trading post for the British East India Company.
- 1840 – The British and the Māori signed the Treaty of Waitangi, considered as the founding document of New Zealand.
- 1934 – In an attempted coup d'état against the French Third Republic, far right leagues demonstrated on the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
- 1952 – Elizabeth II, today one of the longest-reigning British monarchs, ascended to the thrones of seven countries upon the death of her father, George VI.
- 1958 – British European Airways Flight 609, carrying the Manchester United football team, a number of supporters and journalists, crashed while attempting to take off from Munich-Riem Airport in Munich, West Germany, killing eight players and 15 others.
More events: February 5 – February 6 – February 7
February 7: Chinese New Year's Day (2008); Losar in Tibet (2008); Tết Nguyên Ðán in Vietnam (2008); Independence Day in Grenada
- 1301 – Edward of Carnarvon, the future King Edward II (pictured), became the first English heir apparent to hold the title as Prince of Wales.
- 1807 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Eylau began between the French Empire, and Russian and Prussian forces of the Fourth Coalition near Preußisch Eylau, East Prussia.
- 1863 – HMS Orpheus, a corvette of the Royal Navy, sank off the coast of Auckland, New Zealand, killing 189 crew out of the ship's complement of 259.
- 1984 – During NASA Space Shuttle Challenger mission STS-41-B, astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart performed the first and second untethered spacewalks, respectively, using Manned Maneuvering Units.
- 1992 – The Maastricht Treaty, which led to the formation of the European Union, was signed in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
More events: February 6 – February 7 – February 8
February 8: Prešeren Day in Slovenia
- 1587 – Mary, Queen of Scots (pictured) was executed at Fotheringhay Castle on suspicion of having been involved in the Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England.
- 1855 – The Devil's Footprints, a series of mysteriously hoof-like marks, appeared in the snow in Devon, England, and continued throughout the countryside for over 100 miles (160 km).
- 1904 – The Russo-Japanese War began after a surprise torpedo attack by the Japanese on Russian ships near present-day Lüshunkou, China.
- 1971 – Trading began in NASDAQ, the world's first electronic stock exchange.
- 1979 – Colonel Denis Sassou Nguesso was chosen as the new President of the Republic of the Congo after Joachim Yhombi-Opango was forced from power.
More events: February 7 – February 8 – February 9
- 474 – As the seven-year old Leo II was deemed too young to rule, his father Zeno was crowned as the co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
- 1825 – After no presidential candidate received a majority of electoral votes, the United States House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams (pictured) President of the United States.
- 1895 – William G. Morgan, a YMCA physical education director in Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA, invented a game called Mintonette, which evolved into volleyball.
- 1920 – The Svalbard Treaty was signed, recognizing Norwegian sovereignty over the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.
- 1960 – Actress Joanne Woodward was honored with the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
More events: February 8 – February 9 – February 10
- 1567 – After an explosion destroyed the house in Kirk o' Field, Edinburgh where he was staying, the strangled body of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, the King consort of Scotland, was found in a nearby orchard.
- 1763 – Britain and Spain partitioned New France by the Treaty of Paris, which ended the French and Indian War and the Seven Years' War, and markedly reduced the size of the French colonial empire.
- 1840 – Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha married Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom at the Chapel Royal.
- 1996 – Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in a game of chess, the first game won by a chess-playing computer against a reigning International Grandmaster and World Chess Champion under chess tournament conditions.
- 2008 – A fire (pictured) destroys South Korea's first national treasure, Namdaemun.
More events: February 9 – February 10 – February 11
February 11: National Foundation Day in Japan
- 1808 – Anthracite coal (pictured) was first experimentally burned as a residential heating fuel by Jesse Fell in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, USA.
- 1858 – Fourteen year-old peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous reported the first of eighteen Marian apparitions in Lourdes, France, resulting in the town becoming a major site for pilgrimages by Catholics.
- 1929 – To settle the "Roman Question", Italy and the Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church signed the first Lateran Treaty, establishing Vatican City as an independent sovereign enclave within Italy.
- 1979 – During the Iranian Revolution, the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran collapsed when the military declared itself "neutral" after rebel troops overwhelmed forces loyal to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in armed street fighting.
- 1990 – Anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner for 27 years, was released from Victor Verster Prison near Paarl, South Africa.
More events: February 10 – February 11 – February 12
February 12: Darwin Day; Red Hand Day
- 1429 – Hundred Years' War: At the Battle of the Herrings, English forces under John Fastolf successfully defended a supply convoy carrying rations to the army besieging Orleans from attack by the French.
- 1818 – Led by General Bernardo O'Higgins, Chile formally proclaimed its independence from Spain.
- 1909 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, one of the oldest and most influential civil rights organizations in the United States, was founded to work on behalf of the rights of African Americans.
- 1912 – Xinhai Revolution: Puyi (pictured), the last Emperor of China, abdicated under a deal brokered by military official and politician Yuan Shikai, formally replacing the Qing Dynasty with a new republic in China.
- 2001 – NASA's robotic space probe NEAR Shoemaker touched down on Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
More events: February 11 – February 12 – February 13
- 1689 – Glorious Revolution: Instead of James Francis Edward Stuart, the Prince of Wales, acceding to the throne, his half-sister Mary (pictured) and her husband William were proclaimed co-rulers of England.
- 1815 – The Cambridge Union Society, one of the oldest debating societies in the world, was founded at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.
- 1867 – Work began on the covering of the Senne, burying Brussels' polluted main waterway to allow urban renewal in the centre of the city.
- 1880 – American inventor Thomas Edison observed the Edison Effect, which later formed the basis of vacuum tube diodes designed by English electrical engineer John Ambrose Fleming.
- 1945 – World War II: The Allies began the strategic bombing of Dresden in Dresden, Saxony, Germany, resulting in a lethal firestorm which killed tens of thousands of civilians.
More events: February 12 – February 13 – February 14
February 14: Valentine's Day; Feast of St. Brigid of Kildare in Eastern Christianity
- 1876 – Electrical engineer Elisha Gray and inventor Alexander Graham Bell each filed a patent for the telephone, starting a controversy on who invented the telecommunications device first.
- 1949 – Asbestos miners began a labour strike around Asbestos, Quebec, Canada, considered one of the causes of the Quiet Revolution.
- 1989 – A fatwa was issued for the execution of Salman Rushdie (pictured) for authoring The Satanic Verses, a novel Islamic fundamentalists considered blasphemous.
- 1989 – The first of at least twenty-four Medium Earth Orbit satellites in the satellite constellation of the Global Positioning System was launched into orbit.
- 2005 – Former Prime Minister of Lebanon Rafik Hariri was assassinated when explosives were detonated as his motorcade drove past the St. George Hotel in Beirut, sparking the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon.
More events: February 13 – February 14 – February 15
February 15: Candlemas in Eastern Christianity; Flag Day in Canada; National Day in Serbia
- 1898 – The United States Navy battleship USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana, Cuba, killing more than 260 people and precipitating the Spanish-American War.
- 1942 – World War II: Japanese forces led by General Tomoyuki Yamashita (pictured) captured Singapore, the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in British history.
- 1971 – The British pound sterling and the Irish pound were decimalised on what is called Decimal Day.
- 1989 – The Soviet Union officially announced that all of its troops had withdrawn from Afghanistan after a nine-year conflict.
- 2003 – In one of the largest anti-war rallies in history, millions around the world in approximately 800 cities took part in protests against the impending invasion of Iraq.
More events: February 14 – February 15 – February 16
February 16: Statehood Day in Lithuania (1918)
- 1804 – Lt. Stephen Decatur led a raid to destroy the captured USS Philadelphia in Tripoli, denying her use to the Barbary States in the First Barbary War.
- 1918 – The Council of Lithuania signed the Act of Independence of Lithuania, proclaiming the restoration of an independent Lithuania governed by democratic principles, despite the presence of German troops in the country during World War I.
- 1923 – English archaeologist and Egyptologist Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber of Tutankhamun (mummy mask pictured), an Egyptian Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty.
- 1985 – "The Hizballah Program", the manifesto of Hezbollah, was released, describing the ideology of the Shia Islamic political and paramilitary organization.
- 2005 – The Kyoto Protocol, an amendment to the international treaty on climate change, entered into force.
More events: February 15 – February 16 – February 17
- 1801 – The U.S. House of Representatives elected Thomas Jefferson (pictured) as President and Aaron Burr as Vice President of the United States, resolving an electoral tie in the 1800 presidential election.
- 1854 – Britain recognized the independence of the Orange Free State in the present-day Free State Province, South Africa.
- 1936 – The Phantom, one of the first modern comic book superheroes with the hallmark skintight costume and a mask with no visible pupils, made his first appearance in a daily newspaper comic strip.
- 1995 – In the presence of the four guarantor countries of the Rio Protocol, Ecuador and Peru signed a peace declaration confirming a ceasefire, leading to the official end of the Cenepa War eleven days later.
- 2003 – The London congestion charge, a fee that is levied on motorists travelling within designated parts of London, came into operation.
More events: February 16 – February 17 – February 18
February 18: Presidents' Day in the United States and Family Day in various regions of Canada (2008); Independence Day in The Gambia
- 1861 – With Italian unification almost complete, Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont, Savoy and Sardinia assumed the title King of Italy.
- 1861 – Jefferson Davis (pictured) was inaugurated as the first and only President of the Confederate States of America.
- 1908 – The Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, Sweden's national stage for "spoken drama", opened with playwright August Strindberg's play Master Olof.
- 1932 – The Empire of Japan established Manchukuo, a puppet state in northeastern China during the Sino-Japanese War.
- 1943 – Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Propaganda Minister, delivered the Sportpalast speech to motivate the German people when the tide of World War II was turning against Germany.
- 2003 – An arsonist started a fire aboard a Daegu Metropolitan Subway train in Daegu, South Korea, killing almost two hundred passengers.
More events: February 17 – February 18 – February 19
- 197 – Septimius Severus defeated usurper Clodius Albinus at the Battle of Lugdunum in present-day Lyon, France, securing full control over the Roman Empire.
- 1594 – King Sigismund III Vasa of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (pictured) was crowned King of Sweden, succeeding his father John III.
- 1942 – World War II: In the largest attacks mounted by a foreign power against Australia, more than 240 bombers and fighters of the Imperial Japanese Navy bombed Darwin, Northern Territory.
- 1978 – Attempting to intervene in a hijacking situation at Larnaca International Airport in Larnaca without authorisation from Cyprus authorities, Egyptian commando forces ended up exchanging gunfire with the Cypriot National Guard.
- 1986 – The space station Mir of the Soviet space program was launched, establishing the first long-term research station in space.
More events: February 18 – February 19 – February 20
- 1472 – James III of Scotland annexed Orkney and Shetland from Denmark–Norway.
- 1816 – Italian composer Gioachino Rossini's opera buffa The Barber of Seville, based on the first Figaro play by French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais, debuted at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.
- 1913 – Australian politician King O'Malley (pictured) drove in the first survey peg to mark the commencement of work on the construction of Canberra, a planned city designed by American architect Walter Burley Griffin.
- 1959 – The Canadian government under Prime Minister John Diefenbaker cancelled the Avro CF-105 Arrow interceptor aircraft programme amid much political debate.
- 2005 – Spanish voters passed a referendum on the ratification of the proposed Constitution of the European Union, despite the lowest turnout in any election since the transition to democracy in the 1970s.
More events: February 19 – February 20 – February 21
February 21: Daeboreum in Korea (2008); Lantern Festival in the Chinese lunar calendar (2008); Language Movement Day in Bangladesh; International Mother Language Day
- 1613 – Mikhail I was elected unanimously by the Zemsky Sobor to become Tsar, beginning the Romanov dynasty in Imperial Russia.
- 1804 – Built by Cornish inventor Richard Trevithick, the first self-propelled steam engine or locomotive (replica pictured) first ran in Wales.
- 1848 – The Communist Manifesto by communist theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was first published, becoming one of the world's most influential political tracts.
- 1958 – British artist Gerald Holtom designed a logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament that became more commonly known as the peace symbol.
- 1971 – The Convention on Psychotropic Substances, a United Nations treaty designed to control psychoactive drugs, was signed at a conference of plenipotentiaries in Vienna.
More events: February 20 – February 21 – February 22
February 22: Independence Day in Saint Lucia (1979); Feast of Cathedra Petri (Catholicism)
- 1819 – By the Adams-Onís Treaty, Spain sold Florida to the United States for five million U.S. dollars.
- 1943 – Members of the White Rose Society were found guilty of treason and guillotined by the Nazi regime in Germany.
- 1980 – At the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, USA, the United States ice hockey team defeated the Soviet Union in an unlikely victory that became known as the Miracle on Ice.
- 1986 – The People Power Revolution, a series of nonviolent mass street demonstrations in the Philippines against the regime of President Ferdinand Marcos, began.
- 1997 – Scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland announced the birth of a cloned sheep named Dolly (pictured) seven months after the fact.
More events: February 21 – February 22 – February 23
February 23: Defender of the Fatherland Day in Russia; Mashramani in Guyana (1970); National Day in Brunei (1984)
- 1820 – British authorities arrested the conspirators of the Cato Street Conspiracy, an attempt to murder Prime Minister Lord Liverpool (pictured) and all the British cabinet ministers.
- 1903 – The Cuban-American Treaty was finalized, allowing the United States to perpetually lease Guantánamo Bay from Cuba for the purposes of operating coaling and naval stations.
- 1945 – American photographer Joe Rosenthal took the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II, an image that was later reproduced as the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial.
- 1947 – The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) was founded. It is responsible for worldwide industrial and commercial ISO standards.
- 2005 – The controversial French law on colonialism was passed, requiring lycée teachers to teach "the positive role" of French colonialism to their students.
More events: February 22 – February 23 – February 24
February 24: Independence Day in Estonia (1918); Flag Day in Mexico
- 303 – Roman Emperor Diocletian's first "Edict against the Christians" was published, beginning the Diocletianic Persecution, the last and most severe episode of the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.
- 1582 – Pope Gregory XIII issued the papal bull Inter gravissimas to promulgate the Gregorian calendar, a modification of the Julian calendar in use since 45 BC.
- 1803 – In their ruling in Marbury v. Madison, the U.S. Supreme Court established judicial review in the United States.
- 1848 – Amid a revolt, French King Louis-Philippe (pictured) abdicated and escaped to England, leading to the creation of the French Second Republic.
- 1946 – Colonel Juan Perón, founder of the political movement that became known as Peronism, was elected to his first term as President of Argentina.
More events: February 23 – February 24 – February 25
February 25: National Day in Kuwait (1950)
- 1570 – Pope Pius V (pictured) issued the papal bull Regnans in Excelsis to excommunicate Queen Elizabeth I and her followers in the Church of England.
- 1836 – American inventor and industrialist Samuel Colt received a patent for a "revolving gun", later known as a revolver.
- 1956 – In his speech On the Personality Cult and its Consequences to the 20th Party Congress, Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced the personality cult and dictatorship of his predecessor Joseph Stalin.
- 1986 – Corazon Aquino was inaugurated as the first female President of the Philippines after Ferdinand Marcos fled the nation after twenty years of rule because of the People Power Revolution.
- 1992 – Nagorno-Karabakh War: Armenian armed forces killed over 600 ethnic Azerbaijani civilians from the town of Khojali in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.
More events: February 24 – February 25 – February 26
February 26: Liberation Day in Kuwait (1991); Savior's Day in the Nation of Islam
- 1266 – King Manfred of Sicily was killed at the Battle of Benevento, fighting Angevin forces led by Charles of Anjou near Benevento, Italy.
- 1658 - Treaty of Roskilde: After a devastating defeat in the Northern Wars (1655-1661), the King of Denmark-Norway is forced to give up nearly half his Danish territory to Sweden to save the rest.
- 1815 – Napoleon Bonaparte (pictured) escaped from Elba, an island off the coast of Italy whereto he was exiled after the signing of the Treaty of Fontainebleau one year earlier.
- 1935 – In Daventry, England, Scottish engineer and inventor Robert Watson-Watt first demonstrated the use of radar.
- 1991 – British computer programmer Tim Berners-Lee introduced WorldWideWeb, the world's first web browser and WYSIWYG HTML editor.
- 1993 – A bomb-laden van exploded in the underground garage of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six and injuring more than one thousand people.
More events: February 25 – February 26 – February 27
February 27: Arba'een in Shi'a Islam (2008); Independence Day in the Dominican Republic
- 1594 – The King of Navarre was crowned King Henry IV of France at the Cathedral of Chartres near Paris, beginning the Bourbon dynasty.
- 1801 – Washington, D.C., a new planned city and capital of the United States, was placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress.
- 1933 – The Reichstag building in Berlin, the assembly location of the German Parliament, was set on fire (pictured), a pivotal event in the establishment of the Nazi regime in Germany.
- 1940 – American biochemists Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discovered the radioactive isotope carbon-14, which today is used extensively as the basis of the radiocarbon dating method to date archaeological, geological, and hydrogeological samples.
- 1976 – The rebel movement Polisario Front proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in Western Sahara.
More events: February 26 – February 27 – February 28
February 28: Peace Memorial Day in Taiwan
- 1838 – Lower Canada Rebellion: Robert Nelson (pictured), leader of the Patriotes, proclaimed the independence of Lower Canada.
- 1870 – The Bulgarian Exarchate, the official name of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church before its autocephaly was recognized by the other Orthodox churches in the 1950s, was established by the firman of Sultan Abdülâziz of the Ottoman Empire.
- 1947 – Civil disorder in Taiwan was brutally suppressed by the Chinese Nationalist military in the 228 Incident.
- 1972 – U.S. President Richard Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China concluded with the two countries issuing the Shanghai Communiqué, pledging to work toward the full normalization of diplomatic relations.
- 1986 – Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was assassinated by a lone gunman in Stockholm while walking home from a movie theatre with his wife Lisbet Palme.
More events: February 27 – February 28 – February 29
February 29: A leap day in the Gregorian calendar
- 1704 – Joint French and Native American forces destroyed Deerfield, Massachusetts during Queen Anne's War, killing over fifty colonists.
- 1720 – Unable to establish a joint sovereignty similar to England's William and Mary, Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden (pictured) abdicated in favour of her husband, who became Frederick I.
- 1940 – At the 12th Academy Awards ceremony, Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to be awarded an Oscar, winning Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind.
- 1944 – The Admiralty Islands campaign during the Pacific War of World War II began when American forces assaulted Los Negros Island, the third largest of the Admiralty Islands off the coast of the Papua New Guinea mainland.
- 1960 – Playboy Enterprises founder Hugh Hefner opened his first Playboy Club in Chicago, featuring the first service uniform registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
More events: February 28 – February 29 – March 1
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
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[edit] Selected anniversaries for March
March 1: Independence Day in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992); Saint David's Day in Wales; Mărţişor in Romania and Moldova; Martenitsa in Bulgaria
- 1565 – Portuguese knight Estácio de Sá founded the city of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro (St Sebastian of the January River) in honour of King Sebastian I.
- 1872 – Yellowstone National Park, one of the first national parks in the world, was established.
- 1896 – Ethiopia won the decisive Battle of Adwa over Italy, ending the First Italo-Abyssinian War.
- 1919 – Korea under Japanese rule: The Samil Movement began with numerous peaceful protests in Korea, but was brutally suppressed by the Japanese police and army.
- 1954 – The 15-megaton hydrogen bomb Castle Bravo was detonated (pictured) on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, resulting in one of the worst cases of radioactive contamination ever caused by nuclear testing.
More events: February 29 – March 1 – March 2
March 2: Mothering Sunday in the United Kingdom (2008); Laetare Sunday in Western Christianity (2008); Maslenitsa begins in Russia (2008); Independence Day in Morocco
- 1836 – Texas Revolution: At a convention in Washington-on-the-Brazos, the Mexican state of Texas adopted a declaration of independence from Mexico, establishing the Republic of Texas.
- 1865 – Second Taranaki War: Protestant missionary Carl Sylvius Völkner died at the hands of Hauhau militants in Opotiki for working as an agent for George Grey, Governor-General of New Zealand.
- 1943 – World War II: Australian and American air forces attacked and destroyed a large convoy of the Japanese Navy at the Battle of the Bismarck Sea in the Bismarck Sea north of the island of Papua New Guinea.
- 1970 – Rhodesia formally broke its links with the British crown and declared itself a republic.
- 1978 – Aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 28 (insignia patch pictured), Czech Vladimír Remek became the first person not from the Soviet Union or the United States to go into space.
More events: March 1 – March 2 – March 3
March 3: Casimir Pulaski Day in Illinois (2008); Liberation Day in Bulgaria (1878); Hinamatsuri in Japan
- 1585 – The Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy, a theatre designed by the Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, was inaugurated.
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Samuel Nicholas (pictured) and the Continental Marines successfully landed on New Providence and captured Nassau in the Bahamas.
- 1878 – The signing of the Treaty of San Stefano established Bulgaria as an autonomous principality in the Ottoman Empire.
- 1931 – "The Star-Spangled Banner", originally a poem written by American author Francis Scott Key after watching the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812, officially became the national anthem of the United States.
- 1958 – Nuri as-Said became the Prime Minister of Iraq for the 14th time.
- 1997 – The Sky Tower in Auckland, the tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere at 328 metres (1,080 ft), opened.
More events: March 2 – March 3 – March 4
- 1461 – Wars of the Roses in England: Lancastrian King Henry VI (pictured) was deposed by his Yorkist cousin, who then became King Edward IV.
- 1681 – King Charles II of England granted Quaker William Penn a charter for the Pennsylvania Colony.
- 1769 – French astronomer Charles Messier first noted the Orion Nebula, a bright nebula visible to the naked eye in the night sky situated south of Orion's Belt, later cataloguing it as Messier 42 in his List of Messier objects.
- 1849 – According to urban legend, President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate David Rice Atchison became the de jure U.S. President for one day after Zachary Taylor refused to be sworn into office on a Sunday when his predecessor James Polk's term expired.
- 1980 – Robert Mugabe of the Zimbabwe African National Union was elected to head the first government in Zimbabwe.
More events: March 3 – March 4 – March 5
March 5: Lei Feng Day in the People's Republic of China
- 1770 – The pelting of British soldiers with snowballs soon escalated into a riot in Boston, Massachusetts, leaving at least five civilians dead.
- 1824 – Britain officially declared war on Burma, beginning the First Anglo–Burmese War.
- 1850 – The Britannia Bridge, a tubular bridge of wrought iron rectangular box-section spans crossing the Menai Strait between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales, opened.
- 1872 – American entrepreneur and engineer George Westinghouse patented the air brake for trains to stop more reliably.
- 1946 – The term "Iron Curtain" was popularized by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (pictured) during a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, USA.
- 1970 – The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, an international treaty to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, entered into force.
- 1999 – Paul Okalik was elected as the first Premier of the Canadian territory of Nunavut.
More events: March 4 – March 5 – March 6
March 6: Independence Day in Ghana (1957)
- 1836 – Texas Revolution: Mexican forces captured the Alamo after a 13-day siege.
- 1869 – Dmitri Mendeleev presented the first Periodic Table of Elements to the Russian Chemical Society.
- 1899 – The German chemical and pharmaceutical company Bayer registered Aspirin as a trademark.
- 1945 – Petru Groza (pictured) of the Ploughmen's Front, a party closely associated with the Communists, became Prime Minister of Romania.
- 1964 – In a radio broadcast, Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad announced that American boxer Cassius Clay would change his name to Muhammad Ali, symbolizing his new identity as a member of the religious, social and political organization.
- 1988 – In Operation Flavius, the British Special Air Service killed Provisional Irish Republican Army volunteers Daniel McCann, Seán Savage and Mairéad Farrell while they were conspiring to bomb a parade of British military bands in Gibraltar.
More events: March 5 – March 6 – March 7
March 7: Teachers' Day in Albania
- 161 – Following the death of Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus agreed to become co-Emperors in an unprecedented arrangement in the Roman Empire.
- 1277 – Étienne Tempier, Bishop of Paris, promulgated a Condemnation of 219 philosophical and theological propositions that were being discussed at the University of Paris.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Union forces engaged Confederate troops at the Battle of Pea Ridge in Pea Ridge, Arkansas, fighting to a victory one day later that essentially cemented their control in Missouri.
- 1945 – World War II: In Operation Lumberjack, Allied forces seized the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine in Remagen, enabling them to establish and expand a lodgement on German soil that changed the entire nature of the conflict on the Western Front.
- 1950 – The Soviet Union issued a statement denying that German nuclear physicist Klaus Fuchs (pictured) had served as a Soviet spy.
More events: March 6 – March 7 – March 8
March 8: International Women's Day; Mother's Day in various European countries
- 1702 – Princess Anne (pictured) became the Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, succeeding William III.
- 1782 – American Revolutionary War: Almost 100 Native Americans in Gnadenhutten, Ohio died at the hands of Pennsylvanian militiamen in a mass murder known as the Gnadenhutten massacre.
- 1966 – Nelson's Pillar, a large granite pillar with a statue of Lord Nelson on top in Dublin, Ireland, was destroyed by a bomb.
- 1983 – The Cold War: During a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida, U.S. President Ronald Reagan described the Soviet Union as an "evil empire".
- 1985 – A failed assassination attempt on Islamic cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah in a car-bombing in Beirut killed more than 80 people and injured almost 200 others.
More events: March 7 – March 8 – March 9
March 9: Baron Bliss Day in Belize
- 1841 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that captive Africans who seized control of La Amistad, the trans-Atlantic slave-trading ship carrying them, had been taken into slavery illegally.
- 1842 – Nabucco, an opera by Italian Romantic composer Giuseppe Verdi, premiered at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.
- 1862 – American Civil War: In the world's first major battle between two powered ironclad warships, the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia fought to a draw at the Battle of Hampton Roads near the mouth of Hampton Roads in Virginia.
- 1945 – World War II: A bomb raid on Tokyo by American B-29 heavy bombers started a firestorm, killing over 100,000 people.
- 1959 – Barbie (pictured), the world's best-selling doll, debuted at the American International Toy Fair in New York City.
More events: March 8 – March 9 – March 10
March 10: Great Lent begins in Eastern Christianity (2008); Commonwealth Day in the Commonwealth of Nations (2008); Canberra Day in the Australian Capital Territory (2008)
- 241 BC – The Roman Republic defeated Carthage at the Battle of the Aegates Islands, a naval battle off the coast of the Aegadian Islands near the western coast of the island of Sicily, ending the First Punic War.
- 1831 – King Louis-Philippe of France created the French Foreign Legion as a unit of foreign volunteers because foreigners were forbidden to serve in the French Army after the 1830 July Revolution.
- 1861 – Toucouleur forces led by El Hadj Umar Tall seized Ségou and conquered the Bamana Empire in present-day Mali.
- 1906 – More than a thousand coal miners were killed in the Courrières mine disaster in Northern France, Europe's worst mining accident.
- 1952 – Forbidden by law to seek re-election, former President Fulgencio Batista (pictured) staged a coup d'état to resume control in Cuba.
- 2000 – The NASDAQ stock market index peaked at 5048.62, the high point of the dot-com boom.
More events: March 9 – March 10 – March 11
March 11: Independence Day in Lithuania (1990)
- 1649 – The Peace of Rueil was signed, signaling an end to the opening episodes of the Fronde, France's civil war, after little blood had been shed.
- 1801 – Russian Emperor Paul I was assassinated in his bedroom by a band of dismissed officers, leading the way for his son Alexander I to accede the throne.
- 1848 – Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin become the first Prime Ministers of the Province of Canada to be democratically elected under a system of responsible government.
- 1917 – World War I: British forces led by Sir Stanley Maude captured Baghdad, the southern capital of the Ottoman Empire.
- 1966 – In power since World War II, President Sukarno of Indonesia (pictured) was essentially ousted by Suharto and the military after being forced to sign the Presidential Order Supersemar.
- 2003 – The International Criminal Court, a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression, held its inaugural session.
More events: March 10 – March 11 – March 12
March 12: Independence Day in Mauritius (1968); Arbor Day in China
- 1881 – Andrew Watson made his debut with the Scotland national football team and became the world's first black international football player.
- 1930 – Gandhi began the Dandi March (pictured), a 24-day walk to defy the British tax on salt in colonial India.
- 1938 – Anschluss Österreichs: Austria was occupied by the Wehrmacht, and subsequently became Ostmark, a province within the German Reich.
- 1940 – The Moscow Peace Treaty was signed, ending the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union.
- 1993 – A series of thirteen coordinated bomb explosions took place in Bombay, India, killing over 250 civilians and injuring over 700 others.
- 2003 – Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić was assassinated in Belgrade.
More events: March 11 – March 12 – March 13
- 1781 – German-born British astronomer and composer William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus while in the garden of his house in Bath, Somerset, England, thinking it was a comet.
- 1845 – German composer Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, one of the most popular and most frequently performed violin concertos of all time, was first played in Leipzig, with violinist Ferdinand David as soloist.
- 1943 – The Holocaust: Nazi troops under SS Hauptsturmführer Amon Göth began liquidating the Jewish Ghetto in Kraków, Poland, sending about 8,000 Jews deemed able to work to the Plaszow labor camp. Those deemed unfit for work were either killed or sent to die at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
- 1954 – Viet Minh forces under Vo Nguyen Giap (pictured) unleashed a massive artillery barrage on the French military to begin the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the climactic battle in the First Indochina War.
- 1996 – In the deadliest attack on children in the history of the United Kingdom, a spree killer killed sixteen children and a teacher at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland before committing suicide.
More events: March 12 – March 13 – March 14
March 14: New Year's Day in the Sikh Nanakshahi calendar; White Day in Japan; Pi Day
- 1590 – French Wars of Religion: Henry of Navarre and the Huguenots defeated the forces of the Catholic League under the Duc de Mayenne at the Battle of Ivry in Ivry, France.
- 1757 – British Royal Navy Admiral John Byng was court-martialled and executed by firing squad for breaching the Articles of War when he failed to "do his utmost" during the Battle of Minorca at the start of the Seven Years' War.
- 1794 – American inventor Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin (pictured).
- 1978 – Israeli-Lebanese conflict: The Israel Defense Forces began Operation Litani, invading and occupying southern Lebanon, and pushing Palestine Liberation Organization troops north up to the Litani River.
- 1991 – The "Birmingham Six", wrongly convicted of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings in Birmingham, England, were released after sixteen years in prison.
More events: March 13 – March 14 – March 15
March 15: Saint Patrick's Day (observed, 2008); National Day in Hungary; Hōnen Matsuri in Japan
- 44 BC – Dictator Julius Caesar of the Roman Republic was stabbed to death by Marcus Junius Brutus and several other Roman senators on the Ides of March.
- 1311 – The Catalan Company defeated Walter V of Brienne in the Battle of Halmyros and took control of the Duchy of Athens, a Crusader state in Greece.
- 1877 – Cricketers representing England and Australia began the first match in Test cricket at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
- 1917 – Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (pictured) was forced to abdicate in the February Revolution, ending three centuries of Romanov rule.
- 1939 – Nazi German troops began their occupation of Czechoslovakia and established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
- 1988 – Iran–Iraq War: Iraqi forces began attacking the Kurdish town of Halabja with chemical weapons, killing up to 5,000 people.
More events: March 14 – March 15 – March 16
March 16: Palm Sunday in Western Christianity (2008)
- 1660 – The Long Parliament, originally called by King Charles I of England in 1640 following the Bishops' Wars, dissolved itself.
- 1872 – In the first-ever final of the FA Cup, the world's oldest football (soccer) competition, Wanderers F.C. defeated Royal Engineers A.F.C. 1–0 at The Oval in Kennington, London.
- 1926 – At the then-Asa Ward Farm in Auburn, Massachusetts, American scientist Robert H. Goddard (pictured) launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket, a 10-foot (3 m) cylinder that reached an altitude of about 41 feet (12 m) and flew for two-and-a-half seconds before falling to the ground.
- 1968 – Vietnam War: American soldiers killed hundreds of unarmed civilians in the Sơn Mỹ village in the Sơn Tịnh district of South Vietnam.
- 1978 – The oil tanker Amoco Cadiz split in two after running aground on Portsall Rocks, about 3 miles (5 km) off the coast of Brittany, France, resulting in one of the largest oil spills ever.
More events: March 15 – March 16 – March 17
March 17: Saint Patrick's Day (Traditional date)
- 45 BC – Caesar's civil war: Julius Caesar scored his final military victory at the Battle of Munda, defeating the Optimate forces of Titus Labienus and Pompey the Younger.
- 624 – History of Islam: The Muslims of Medina defeated the Quraysh of Mecca at the Battle of Badr in Badr, present-day Saudi Arabia, a victory that has been attributed to divine intervention or the genius of Muhammad.
- 1958 – Vanguard 1 (pictured), the first solar-powered satellite, was launched. It is the oldest human-launched object still in Earth orbit today.
- 1969 – Golda Meir of the Labor Party became the first female Prime Minister of Israel.
- 2004 – Unrest in Kosovo broke out, resulting in more than 20 killed, 200 wounded, and the destruction of several Serb Orthodox churches and shrines.
More events: March 16 – March 17 – March 18
March 18: Flag Day in Aruba (1976)
- 1229 – Sixth Crusade: Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II crowned himself King of Jerusalem, although this was technically improper since his wife Queen Yolande of Jerusalem had died, leaving their infant son Conrad as the rightful heir.
- 1871 – French President Adolphe Thiers ordered the evacuation of Paris after an uprising broke out as the result of France's defeat in the Franco–Prussian War, leading to the establishment of the Paris Commune government.
- 1892 – Canadian Governor General Frederick Stanley of Preston pledged to donate what would become the Stanley Cup (1893 version pictured), today the oldest professional sports trophy in North America, as an award for Canada's top-ranking amateur ice hockey club.
- 1921 – The Polish–Soviet War, which determined the borders between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia, formally concluded with the signing of the Peace of Riga.
- 1965 – Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov donned a space suit and ventured outside the Voskhod 2 spacecraft, becoming the first person to walk in space.
More events: March 17 – March 18 – March 19
March 19: Father's Day in various countries
- 1279 – The Song Dynasty in Imperial China ended with a victory by the Yuan Dynasty at the Battle of Yamen off the coast of Xinhui, Guangdong Province.
- 1687 – The search for the mouth of the Mississippi River led by French explorer René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (pictured) ended with a mutiny and his murder in present-day Texas.
- 1915 – Pluto was photographed for the first time, 15 years before it was eventually discovered by Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory.
- 1941 – The Tuskegee Airmen, the first all-African American unit of the United States Army Air Corps, was activated.
- 1978 – In response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the United Nations called on Israel to immediately withdraw its forces from Lebanon, and established the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.
- 1982 – Argentine forces led by Alfredo Astiz occupied South Georgia, precipitating the Falklands War against the United Kingdom.
More events: March 18 – March 19 – March 20
March 20: Equinox (05:48 UTC, 2008); International Earth Day (2008); Nowruz in Iran, Central Asia, and Zoroastrianism (2008); Mawlid (Sunni Islam, 2008); Fast of Esther begins at dawn (Judaism, 2008); Purim begins at sundown (Judaism, 2008); Maundy Thursday (Western Christianity, 2008); Independence Day in Tunisia
- 1852 – Uncle Tom's Cabin, a novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe (pictured) about slavery in the United States before the Civil War, was first published.
- 1883 – Eleven countries signed the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, one of the first intellectual property treaties.
- 1987 – The antiretroviral drug zidovudine (AZT) became the first antiviral medication approved for use against HIV and AIDS.
- 1995 – The Aum Shinrikyo sect carried out a poison gas attack on the Tokyo Subway, killing 12 people and injuring thousands of others with sarin.
- 2003 – A U.S.-led coalition force invaded Iraq, beginning the Iraq War.
More events: March 19 – March 20 – March 21
March 21: Good Friday (Western Christianity, 2008); Purim ends at sundown (Judaism, 2008); Naw-Rúz in the Bahá'í calendar; Benito Juárez Day in Mexico; World Poetry Day
- 1556 – Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer (pictured), one of the founders of Anglicanism, was burnt at the stake in Oxford, England for heresy.
- 1800 – Pius VII was crowned Pope in Venice with a temporary papal tiara made of papier-mâché.
- 1804 – The Napoleonic code, the French civil code established under Napoleon, entered into force.
- 1960 – Police in Sharpeville, South Africa opened fire on a group of unarmed black demonstrators who were protesting pass laws, killing almost 70 people and wounding about 180 others.
- 1980 – The United States announced the boycott of the Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.
- 1990 – Formerly known as South West Africa, Namibia gained independence from South Africa, with Sam Nujoma as its first President.
More events: March 20 – March 21 – March 22
March 22: Holi in Hinduism (2008); Holy Saturday in Western Christianity (2008); World Day for Water
- 238 – Because of his advanced age, both Gordian I and his son Gordian II were proclaimed Roman Emperors.
- 1622 – The Powhatan Confederacy under Chief Opchanacanough killed almost 350 English settlers around Jamestown, a third of the Colony of Virginia's population.
- 1765 – The Parliament of Great Britain passed the Stamp Act, adding fuel to the growing separatist movement in the Thirteen Colonies in British North America.
- 1784 – The Emerald Buddha of Thailand was installed at the Wat Phra Kaew on the grounds of the Grand Palace in Bangkok.
- 1849 – First Italian War of Independence: After capturing the fortress town of Mortara, forces led by Austrian General Joseph Radetzky von Radetz (pictured) routed Sardinian troops at the Battle of Novara.
- 1963 – Please Please Me, the first album recorded by The Beatles, was released.
More events: March 21 – March 22 – March 23
March 23: Easter in Western Christianity (2008); Republic Day in Pakistan; Day of Hungarian–Polish Friendship in Hungary and Poland
- 1775 – American Revolution: Patrick Henry (pictured) made his "Give me liberty or give me death" speech to the Virginia House of Burgesses, urging the legislature to take military action against the British Empire.
- 1801 – Tsar Alexander I acceded to the Russian throne after his father Paul I was murdered in his bedroom at St. Michael's Castle.
- 1933 – The Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, giving Chancellor Adolf Hitler dictatorial powers in Germany.
- 1940 – Pakistan Movement: The All India Muslim League adopted the Lahore Resolution, calling for greater autonomy in British India.
- 1996 – Lee Teng-hui was elected President of the Republic of China in the first direct presidential election in Taiwan.
More events: March 22 – March 23 – March 24
March 24: Easter Monday in Western Christianity (2008); World Tuberculosis Day
- 1603 – King James VI of Scotland acceded to the throne of England and Ireland, unifying the crowns of the three kingdoms for the first time.
- 1882 – German physician Robert Koch (pictured) announced the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a bacterium that causes tuberculosis.
- 1976 – Dirty War: President Isabel Perón of Argentina was kidnapped and deposed in a bloodless coup d'état.
- 1989 – The tanker Exxon Valdez spilled more than 10 million U.S. gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska, causing one of the most devastating man-made environmental disasters at sea.
- 1999 – Kosovo War: NATO launched air strikes against Yugoslavia, marking the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign country.
More events: March 23 – March 24 – March 25
March 25: Mawlid in Shi'a Islam (2008); Struggle for Human Rights Day in Slovakia; Independence Day in Greece
- 1306 – Robert the Bruce was crowned King of Scotland at Scone near Perth.
- 1634 – Lord Baltimore, his younger brother Leonard Calvert, and a group of Catholic settlers founded the English colony of Maryland.
- 1655 – Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens (pictured) discovered Titan, the largest natural satellite of the planet Saturn.
- 1802 – France and the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Amiens, temporarily ending the hostilities between the two during the French Revolutionary Wars.
- 1807 – The Slave Trade Act became law, abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire.
- 1918 – The Belarusian People's Republic was established during World War I, when Belarus was occupied by the German Empire according to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
More events: March 24 – March 25 – March 26
March 26: Independence Day in Bangladesh (1971)
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- 1027 – Pope John XIX crowned Conrad II as Holy Roman Emperor.
- 1636 – Utrecht University, one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands and one of the largest in Europe, was established.
- 1971 – After the Pakistan Army attempted to curb the Bengali nationalist movement in Operation Searchlight, East Pakistan declared its independence from Pakistan to form Bangladesh (original 1971 flag pictured), starting the Bangladesh Liberation War.
- 1973 – The first episode of The Young and the Restless was broadcast, eventually becoming the most watched daytime drama on American television from 1988 onwards.
More events: March 25 – March 26 – March 27
March 27: Feast day of Rupert of Salzburg in the Roman Catholic Church
- 1513 – Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León (pictured) first sighted Florida, purportedly while searching for the Fountain of Youth in the New World.
- 1794 – To protect American merchant ships from Barbary pirates, the United States Congress passed the Naval Act to establish a naval force of six frigates, which eventually became the United States Navy.
- 1964 – The Good Friday Earthquake and subsequent tsunamis devastated Anchorage, Alaska, killing over 130 people.
- 1998 – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug Viagra for use as a treatment for erectile dysfunction, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States.
- 2002 – A suicide bomber killed about 30 Israeli civilians and injured about 140 others at the Park Hotel in Netanya, triggering Operation Defensive Shield, a large-scale counter-terrorist Israeli military incursion into the West Bank, two days later.
More events: March 26 – March 27 – March 28
March 28: Teachers' Day in the Czech Republic
- 193 – Praetorian Guards assassinated Roman Emperor Pertinax and sold the throne in an auction to Didius Julianus.
- 845 – According to a Legendary Norse saga, Viking raiders under Ragnar Lodbrok captured Paris and held the city for a huge ransom.
- 1795 – Partitions of Poland: The Duchy of Courland, a northern fief of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, ceased to exist and became part of the Russian Empire.
- 1979 – British Prime Minister James Callaghan (pictured) was defeated by one vote in a motion of no confidence by the House of Commons after his government struggled to cope with widespread strikes by trade unions during the "Winter of Discontent".
- 2005 – The Sumatra earthquake hit Indonesia, killing approximately 1,300 people.
More events: March 27 – March 28 – March 29
March 29: Earth Hour (20:00 local time in various areas, 2008)
- 1461 – Yorkist troops defeated Lancastrian forces at the Battle of Towton in Yorkshire, England, the largest battle in the Wars of the Roses up until that time with approximately 20,000 casualties.
- 1638 – Swedish settlers founded New Sweden near Delaware Bay, the first Swedish colony in America.
- 1807 – German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers (pictured) discovered 4 Vesta, the brightest asteroid and the second-most massive body in the asteroid belt.
- 1831 – Bosniak general Husein Gradaščević began an uprising against Sultan Mahmud II and the Ottoman Empire.
- 1911 – The M1911 single-action, semi-automatic pistol developed by American firearms designer John Browning became the standard-issue side arm in the United States Army.
More events: March 28 – March 29 – March 30
March 30: Spiritual Baptist/Shouter Liberation Day in Trinidad and Tobago
- 1282 – Sicilians began to rebel against the rule of the Angevin King Charles I of Naples, starting the War of the Sicilian Vespers.
- 1867 – U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward (pictured) negotiated the purchase of Alaska for US$7.2 million from Russia.
- 1912 – Sultan Abdelhafid signed the Treaty of Fez, making Morocco a French protectorate.
- 1940 – World War II: Wang Jingwei was installed by Japan as head of the puppet government in China.
- 1964 – Jeopardy!, the popular international game show created by Merv Griffin, made its debut on the NBC television network.
- 1981 – Trying to impress actress Jodie Foster, obsessed fan John Hinckley, Jr. shot and wounded U.S. President Ronald Reagan and three others outside the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C.
More events: March 29 – March 30 – March 31
March 31: Feast of the Annunciation in Western Christianity (observed, 2008); César Chávez Day in various U.S. states; Freedom Day in Malta
- 1778 – English explorer James Cook landed on Vancouver Island and claimed it for Great Britain.
- 1854 – Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy signed the Treaty of Kanagawa, forcing the opening of Japanese ports to American trade.
- 1889 – The Eiffel Tower (pictured) was inaugurated in Paris, becoming a global icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world.
- 1903 – New Zealand inventor Richard Pearse reportedly flew in one of the first powered flying machines for a distance of several hundred metres, about nine months before the Wright brothers flew their Wright Flyer.
- 1917 – The Danish West Indies became the U.S. Virgin Islands after the United States paid Denmark US$25 million for the Caribbean islands.
More events: March 30 – March 31 – April 1
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
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[edit] Selected anniversaries for April
April 1: Independence Day in San Serriffe (1967); April Fools' Day; Assyrian New Year
- 1865 – Ordered to hold five forks, Confederate General George Pickett instead lost almost 3,000.
- 1918 – The British Armed Forces established a new branch to grant personnel the power to fly.
- 1969 – The British-born model Hawker Siddeley Harrier was introduced at a Royal Air Force event, becoming the only one in the 1960s to successfully perform on a short runway.
- 1976 – Two college dropouts and a business partner with cold feet founded what is now Apple Inc. to sell their handicrafts (pictured), eventually offering them at a market-price of US$666.66 because they liked repeating digits.
- 1999 – Under the terms of two laws passed by the Canadian Parliament in 1993, the Northwest Territories carved all of their inhabitants into two pieces.
- 2002 – The Netherlands, on their one-year anniversary of recognising a new form of marriage, legalized euthanasia.
More events: March 31 – April 1 – April 2
April 2: Malvinas Day in Argentina
- 1792 – By the Coinage Act, the United States Mint was founded and the U.S. currency was decimalized.
- 1801 – War of the Second Coalition: British forces led by Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson (pictured) defeated the Dano-Norwegian fleet at the Battle of Copenhagen off the coast of Copenhagen.
- 1982 – Argentine special forces invaded the Falkland Islands, sparking the Falklands War.
- 1984 – Aboard Soyuz T-11, Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian to be launched into space.
- 2002 – Operation Defensive Shield: Approximately 200 Palestinians fled advancing Israeli forces into the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, starting a month-long standoff.
More events: April 1 – April 2 – April 3
- 1882 – Jesse James, an outlaw in the American Old West, was shot in the back and killed for a bounty of US$5,000.
- 1895 – The libel trial instigated by Irish author Oscar Wilde began, eventually resulting in Wilde's arrest, trial and imprisonment on charges of homosexuality.
- 1922 – Joseph Stalin became the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
- 1948 – The Marshall Plan (poster pictured), an economic recovery program established by U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall to assist the post-World War II re-building of Europe, was signed into law.
- 1971 – The Japanese tokusatsu television series Kamen Rider premiered, marking the beginning of the long-running Kamen Rider franchise.
- 1973 – On a New York City street, Motorola researcher Martin Cooper made the first public call on a handheld mobile phone.
More events: April 2 – April 3 – April 4
April 4: Qingming Festival in the Chinese calendar; Hansik in South Korea; (2008); Children's Day in Taiwan
- 1660 – Charles II of England issued the Declaration of Breda, describing his conditions for the Restoration of the crown of England.
- 1721 – Robert Walpole took office as First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons, becoming the first British Prime Minister, though the term "Prime Minister" was not used at the time.
- 1949 – Twelve nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty, creating NATO.
- 1968 – American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. (pictured) was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
- 1969 – Surgeons Denton Cooley and Domingo Liotta implanted the first total artificial heart.
- 1976 – Norodom Sihanouk abdicated from the role of leader of Cambodia and was arrested by the Khmer Rouge.
More events: April 3 – April 4 – April 5
- 1242 – Northern Crusades: In the Battle of the Ice, Novgorod forces led by Alexander Nevsky rebuffed an invasion attempt by the Teutonic Knights at Lake Peipus on the present-day border of Estonia and Russia.
- 1614 – Native American Pocahontas (pictured) married English colonist John Rolfe in Virginia, and was christened Lady Rebecca.
- 1847 – Britain's first civic public park, Birkenhead Park in Birkenhead, Merseyside, England, opened.
- 1976 – The Tiananmen Incident, a protest against the repression of the Chinese regime nearing the end of the Cultural Revolution, took place in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
- 1998 – Japan's Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge, linking Awaji Island and Kobe, opened to traffic, becoming the longest suspension bridge in the world to date with a main span length of 1,991 metres (6,532 ft).
More events: April 4 – April 5 – April 6
April 6: Cheti Chand, Gudi Padwa and Ugadi in various parts of India (2008); Tartan Day
- 1652 – Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck (pictured) established the first permanent European settlement in South Africa at what eventually became known as Cape Town.
- 1782 – Rama I succeeded King Taksin of Siam, founding the Chakri Dynasty.
- 1830 – Joseph Smith, Jr., Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and others formally organized the Church of Christ, starting the Latter Day Saint movement.
- 1886 – Vancouver, one of British Columbia's youngest cities, was incorporated.
- 1896 – The first modern Olympic Games opened in Athens.
- 1994 – The airplane carrying Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down as it prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda, marking the beginning of the Rwandan Genocide.
More events: April 5 – April 6 – April 7
- 529 – Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (pictured) issued the first draft of the Corpus Juris Civilis, a first attempt to codify Roman law.
- 1348 – King Charles of Bohemia issued a Golden Bull to establish Charles University in Prague, the first university in Central Europe.
- 1868 – D'Arcy McGee, a Canadian Father Of Confederation, was assassinated – to date, the only Canadian political assassination at the federal level.
- 1945 – World War II: American forces sunk the Japanese battleship Yamato during Operation Ten-Go.
- 1948 – The United Nations established the World Health Organization.
- 1954 – Cold War: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower introduced the domino theory, speculating that if one nation in a region came under the influence of communism, then its surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect.
More events: April 6 – April 7 – April 8
April 8: Hanamatsuri in Japan
- 217 – Roman Emperor Caracalla (bust pictured) was assassinated at a roadside near Harran.
- 1093 – Winchester Cathedral at Winchester in Hampshire, one of the largest cathedrals in England, was dedicated by Bishop Walkelin.
- 1341 – Italian scholar and poet Petrarch took the title poet laureate at a ceremony in Rome.
- 1886 – British Prime Minister William Gladstone introduced the first Irish Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons.
- 1904 – France and the United Kingdom signed the entente cordiale, agreeing to a peaceful coexistence after centuries of intermittent conflict.
- 1904 – British occultist and writer Aleister Crowley began transcribing The Book of the Law, a Holy Book in Thelema.
- 1929 – Indian independence movement: Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh with the help of Batukeshwar Dutt bombed the Central Assembly in Delhi.
More events: April 7 – April 8 – April 9
April 9: Araw ng Kagitingan in the Philippines
- 1865 – Confederate forces under Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union troops led by Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War.
- 1917 – World War I: The Canadian Corps began the first wave of attacks at the Battle of Vimy Ridge in Vimy, France.
- 1942 – World War II: Japanese forces defeated Allied troops at the Battle of Bataan on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines before beginning to forcibly transfer more than 90,000 prisoners of war to prison camps in the Bataan Death March.
- 1959 – NASA announced the selection of the Mercury Seven (pictured), the first astronauts in Project Mercury.
- 1989 – An anti-Soviet demonstration in Tbilisi, Georgia was quashed by the Soviet army, resulting in 20 deaths and hundreds of injuries.
More events: April 8 – April 9 – April 10
- 1606 – The Charter of the Virginia Company of London was established by Royal Charter by King James I of England with the purpose of establishing colonial settlements in North America.
- 1815 – Mount Tambora in Indonesia began one of the most violent volcanic eruptions in recorded history, killing at least 71,000 people.
- 1919 – Mexican Revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata (pictured) was shot to death near Ciudad Ayala, Morelos.
- 1959 – Crown Prince Akihito, the future Emperor of Japan, wedded Michiko, the first commoner to marry into the Japanese Imperial Family.
- 1998 – The Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom signed the Belfast Agreement in Belfast, a major step in the Northern Ireland peace process.
More events: April 9 – April 10 – April 11
April 11: Juan Santamaría Day in Costa Rica
- 1241 – Mongol invasion of Europe: Mongols led by Batu Khan and Subutai crushed the Hungarian army of King Béla IV at the Battle of Mohi near the Sajó River in Hungary.
- 1713 – The main agreements of the Treaty of Utrecht were signed in the Dutch city of Utrecht, helping to end the War of the Spanish Succession.
- 1888 – The Concertgebouw concert hall in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, was inaugurated.
- 1945 – World War II: American forces liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany.
- 1979 – Ugandan–Tanzanian War: The Uganda National Liberation Army and Tanzanian forces captured Kampala, forcing Ugandan President Idi Amin to flee.
- 2002 – In a coup attempt, members of the Venezuelan military detained President Hugo Chávez (pictured) and demanded his resignation.
More events: April 10 – April 11 – April 12
April 12: Cosmonautics Day in Russia; Yuri's Night
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- 1204 – Alexios V fled Constantinople as forces under Boniface the Marquess of Montferrat and Enrico Dandolo the Doge of Venice entered and sacked the Byzantine capital, effectively ending the Fourth Crusade.
- 1606 – A royal decree established the Union Flag (pictured) to symbolise the Union of the Crowns, merging the designs of the Flag of England and the Flag of Scotland.
- 1861 – Confederate forces began firing at Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, starting the American Civil War.
- 1927 – Chinese Civil War: A large-scale purge of communists from the nationalist Kuomintang began in Shanghai.
- 1961 – Aboard Vostok 3KA-2, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to enter outer space, completing one orbit in a time of 108 minutes.
More events: April 11 – April 12 – April 13
- 1598 – King Henry IV of France (pictured) issued the Edict of Nantes, allowing freedom of religion to the Huguenots.
- 1873 – In the wake of a contested election for local political offices in Colfax, Louisiana, USA, armed white supremacists overpowered freedmen and the African American state militia trying to control the parish courthouse, killing over 100 of them.
- 1919 – British Indian Army troops opened fire on a peaceful gathering in Amritsar, Punjab in India, killing hundreds of unarmed men, women and children.
- 1943 – World War II: Germany announced the discovery of a mass grave of Polish prisoners-of-war executed by Soviet forces in the Katyn Forest Massacre.
- 1984 – Indian forces launched a preemptive attack on the disputed Siachen Glacier region of Kashmir, triggering a military conflict with Pakistan.
More events: April 12 – April 13 – April 14
April 14: Pohela Baishakh in Bengal; Vaisakhi in India; N'Ko Alphabet Day in West Africa
- 1471 – Wars of the Roses: The Yorkists under Edward IV (pictured) defeated the Lancastrians near the town of Barnet, killing Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick.
- 1865 – Actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth shot U.S. President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.
- 1931 – King Alfonso XIII left Spain. The Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed by a provisional government led by Niceto Alcalá-Zamora.
- 1970 – An oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 exploded, causing the NASA spacecraft to lose most of its oxygen and electrical power.
- 1978 – Thousands of Georgians demonstrated in Tbilisi against an attempt by the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR to change the constitutional status of the Georgian language.
More events: April 13 – April 14 – April 15
April 15: Tax Day in the United States; Father Damien Day in Hawaii; Birthday of the Great Leader in North Korea
- 1755 – A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson was first published.
- 1912 – The passenger liner RMS Titanic sank about two hours and forty minutes after colliding with an iceberg (pictured), killing over 1,500 people.
- 1947 – Jackie Robinson, the first African American to break the baseball color line, played his first game in Major League Baseball.
- 1986 – U.S. armed forces launched Operation El Dorado Canyon against Libya.
- 1989 – The death of former Chinese General Secretary Hu Yaobang triggered a series of events that led to the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing.
More events: April 14 – April 15 – April 16
April 16: Education and Sharing Day in the United States (2008); Emancipation Day in Washington, D.C.
- 1853 – Indian Railways, the state-owned railway company of India, launched its first passenger service between Bombay and Thane.
- 1912 – Harriet Quimby (pictured) became the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
- 1917 – Vladimir Lenin returned to Petrograd from Switzerland, and joined the Bolshevik movement in Russia.
- 1943 – Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann discovered the psychedelic effects of the semisynthetic drug LSD.
- 1947 – American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch first described the post-World War II tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States as a "cold war".
More events: April 15 – April 16 – April 17
April 17: Fast of the Firstborn (Judaism, 2008)
- 1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: British Lieutenant General Ralph Abercromby and a force of over 6,000 men invaded Spanish-controlled Puerto Rico.
- 1895 – The Empire of Japan and the Chinese Qing Empire signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, an unequal treaty that ended the First Sino-Japanese War.
- 1942 – World War II: Captured French General Henri Giraud (pictured) escaped from German captivity in the Königstein Castle.
- 1961 – Armed Cuban exiles backed by the CIA invaded Cuba, landing in the Bay of Pigs, with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro.
- 1975 – The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot captured Phnom Penh, ending the Cambodian Civil War, and established the Democratic Kampuchea.
- 1986 – The Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly declared peace, ending the Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War.
More events: April 16 – April 17 – April 18
April 18: Independence Day in Zimbabwe (1980)
- 1506 – Construction of the current St. Peter's Basilica (interior pictured) in Vatican City, to replace the old St. Peter's Basilica built in the 4th century, began.
- 1942 – World War II: Sixteen B-25 Mitchell bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet carried out the Doolittle Raid, the first Allied attack on the Japanese home islands.
- 1988 – Iran–Iraq War: U.S. naval forces launched Operation Praying Mantis in retaliation for the Iranian mining of the Persian Gulf and the subsequent damage to the American frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts.
- 1992 – General Abdul Rashid Dostum revolted against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and allied with Ahmad Shah Massoud to capture the Afghan capital of Kabul.
- 1996 – Israeli forces shelled Qana, Lebanon during Operation Grapes of Wrath, killing over 100 civilians and injuring over 110 others at a UN compound.
More events: April 17 – April 18 – April 19
April 19: Passover begins at sunset (Judaism, 2008); Feast of Saint Alphege (Western Christianity);
- 1713 – With no living male heirs, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI issued the Pragmatic Sanction to ensure one of his daughters would inherit the Habsburg monarchy.
- 1775 – The American Revolutionary War began with the Battles of Lexington and Concord in Middlesex County, Massachusetts.
- 1943 – Nazi German troops entered the Warsaw Ghetto to round up the remaining Jews (pictured), sparking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the first mass uprising in Poland against the Nazi occupation during the Holocaust.
- 1971 – The first space station, Salyut 1, was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam, Kazakh SSR, USSR.
- 1995 – A car bomb was detonated in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, killing 168 people and injuring over 800 others.
More events: April 18 – April 19 – April 20
April 20: Palm Sunday in Eastern Christianity (2008); Ridván begins at sunset in the Bahá'í Faith; 4/20 in cannabis culture
- 1653 – Oliver Cromwell dissolved the Rump Parliament of the Commonwealth of England by force, eventually replacing it with the Barebone's Parliament.
- 1862 – French chemist Louis Pasteur (pictured) and physiologist Claude Bernard completed the first test on pasteurization.
- 1884 – Pope Leo XIII published the encyclical Humanum Genus, denouncing Freemasonry, the doctrine of a separation of church and state, and many other principles, some of which are today equated by most people with the founding ones of the United States.
- 1968 – British Member of Parliament Enoch Powell made his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech in opposition to immigration and anti-discrimination legislation, resulting in his removal from the Shadow Cabinet.
- 1978 – Soviet fighters shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 902 after it violated Soviet airspace and failed to respond to Soviet interceptors.
More events: April 19 – April 20 – April 21
April 21: Patriots' Day in Massachusetts and Maine (2008); Grounation Day in the Rastafari movement; First day of Ridván in the Bahá'í Faith; Tiradentes Day in Brazil
- 753 BC – Romulus and Remus founded Rome, according to the calculations by Roman scholar Varro Reatinus.
- 1836 – Texan forces led by Sam Houston (pictured) defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna and his Mexican troops in the Battle of San Jacinto near La Porte, the decisive battle in the Texas Revolution.
- 1894 – Norway formally adopted the Krag-Jørgensen, a repeating bolt action rifle designed by the Norwegians Ole Herman Johannes Krag and Erik Jørgensen, as the main firearm of its armed forces.
- 1918 – The German fighter pilot known as "The Red Baron", the most successful flying ace of World War I with 80 confirmed air combat victories, was shot down and killed near Vaux-sur-Somme in France.
- 1967 – Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos overthrew the government of Prime Minister Panagiotis Kanellopoulos in a coup d'état, establishing the Regime of the Colonels in Greece.
- 1970 – In response to a long-running dispute over wheat quotas, the Principality of Hutt River proclaimed their secession from Western Australia, but to this day has never been formally acknowledged by the Commonwealth of Australia or any other international entity.
More events: April 20 – April 21 – April 22
- 1500 – Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral (pictured) and his crew became the first Europeans to sight Brazil when they spotted Monte Pascoal.
- 1889 – Over 50,000 people rushed to claim a piece of the available two million acres (8,000 km²) in the Unassigned Lands, the present-day U.S. state of Oklahoma. Within hours, both Oklahoma City and Guthrie had established cities of around 10,000 people.
- 1915 – The Germans released chlorine gas as a chemical weapon in the Second Battle of Ypres, killing over 5,000 soldiers within ten minutes by asphyxiation in the first large-scale successful use of poison gas in World War I.
- 1930 – France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States signed the London Naval Treaty, regulating submarine warfare and limiting military ship building.
- 1945 – About 600 prisoners of the Jasenovac concentration camp in the Independent State of Croatia revolted, but only 80 managed to escape while the other 520 were killed by the Croatian Ustaše regime.
- 1993 – The first version of Mosaic, created by computer programmers Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was released, becoming the first popular World Wide Web browser and Gopher client.
More events: April 21 – April 22 – April 23
April 23: 150th birthday of physicist Max Planck; Administrative Professionals' Day in Canada and the United States (2008); World Book and Copyright Day; Children's Day in Turkey; St George's Day in various countries
- 1661 – Charles II was crowned King of England, Ireland, and Scotland at Westminster Abbey.
- 1827 – Irish mathematician and physicist William Rowan Hamilton (pictured) presented his Theory of Systems of Rays.
- 1920 – The Grand National Assembly of Turkey, the Turkish unicameral parliament, was founded in Ankara in the midst of the Turkish War of Independence.
- 1923 – Gdynia was inaugurated as a Polish seaport on the coast of Gdańsk Bay, a southwestern bay of the Baltic Sea.
- 1961 – Dressed in his 1940s-vintage general's uniform, President Charles de Gaulle delivered a televised speech calling on the military personnel and civilians of France to oppose the Algiers putsch, a coup d'état attempt against him.
- 1968 – Students protesting the Vietnam War at Columbia University in New York City took over administration buildings and shut down the university.
More events: April 22 – April 23 – April 24
April 24: Great Thursday in Eastern Christianity (2008); Republic Day in the Gambia; Genocide Remembrance Day in Armenia
- 1800 – The Library of Congress (pictured), today the de facto national library of the United States, was established as part of an act of Congress providing for the transfer of the nation's capital from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.
- 1877 – Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire, starting the Russo-Turkish War.
- 1915 – The Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire began with the arrest and deportation of hundreds of prominent Armenians in Constantinople.
- 1967 – The Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 1 crashed in Siberia during its return to Earth, killing cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, the first in-flight fatality in the history of spaceflight.
- 1990 – The Hubble Space Telescope was launched by the Space Shuttle Discovery in mission STS-31.
More events: April 23 – April 24 – April 25
April 25: Great Friday (Eastern Christianity, 2008); Arbor Day in the United States (2008); ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand; Liberation Day in Italy; Red Hat Society Day
- 1719 – Robinson Crusoe, a novel by English author Daniel Defoe (pictured) about a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Venezuela, was first published.
- 1792 – The guillotine was first used to carry out capital punishment in France, with crowds marvelling at the machine's speed and precision.
- 1898 – Spanish-American War: The United States retroactively declared war on Spain, stating that a state of war between the two countries had already existed for the past couple of days.
- 1953 – Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid by molecular biologists James Watson and Francis Crick was first published in the scientific journal Nature, describing the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA.
- 1983 – Cold War: Replying to her letter in which she expressed her fears about the tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, Soviet leader Yuri Andropov invited American schoolgirl Samantha Smith to visit Moscow, Leningrad and the Artek Young Pioneer camp.
More events: April 24 – April 25 – April 26
April 26: Holy and Great Saturday (Eastern Christianity, 2008)
- 1478 – In a conspiracy to replace the Medici family as rulers of the Florentine Republic, the Pazzi family attacked Lorenzo de' Medici (pictured) and killed his brother Giuliano during High Mass at the Florence Duomo.
- 1937 – Spanish Civil War: The Bombing of Guernica by the Condor Legion of the German Luftwaffe resulted in a devastating firestorm.
- 1964 – Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania.
- 1986 – The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near Chernobyl, Ukrainian SSR suffered a steam explosion, resulting in a fire and a nuclear meltdown.
- 2002 – Expelled student Robert Steinhäuser murdered 16 people and wounded 7 others before committing suicide in the Erfurt school shooting in Erfurt, Germany.
More events: April 25 – April 26 – April 27
April 27: Easter in Eastern Christianity (2008); Independence Day in Togo and Sierra Leone; Freedom Day in South Africa
- 1296 – In the first battle of the First War of Scottish Independence, the English defeated the Scots near Dunbar, Scotland.
- 1565 – Conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi and 500 armed soldiers arrived at Cebu and established the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines.
- 1865 – An explosion destroyed the steamboat Sultana (pictured) on the Mississippi River, killing 1,700 passengers.
- 1909 – Abdul Hamid II, the last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire to rule with absolute power, was overthrown by Mehmed V.
- 1967 – The Expo 67 World's Fair opened in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, with over 50 million visitors and 62 nations participating.
- 1992 – Betty Boothroyd became the first female Speaker of the British House of Commons.
- 1993 – Members of the Zambia national football team were killed in a plane crash off Libreville, Gabon en route to Dakar, Senegal to play a 1994 FIFA World Cup qualifying match against the Senegal national team.
More events: April 26 – April 27 – April 28
April 28: Easter Monday (Eastern Christianity, 2008); Festival of Matsu in Southeast Asia (2008); International Workers' Memorial Day
- 1192 – Third Crusade: Conrad of Montferrat, the elected King of Jerusalem, was fatally stabbed by members of the Hashshashin.
- 1611 – The University of Santo Tomas in Manila, one of the oldest existing universities in Asia and one of the world's largest Catholic universities in terms of enrollment, was founded.
- 1789 – Fletcher Christian led a mutiny aboard the Royal Navy ship HMAV Bounty against its commander William Bligh (pictured).
- 1923 – London's Wembley Stadium, then known as Empire Stadium, was opened to the public for the first time and held the 1923 FA Cup Final between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United football clubs.
- 1952 – The Treaty of San Francisco entered into force, ending the occupation of Japan by the former Allied Powers of World War II.
- 1978 – Mohammed Daoud Khan, the first President of Afghanistan, was overthrown and assassinated in a coup d'état by pro-communist supporters.
- 2001 – Dennis Tito became the world's first fee-paying space tourist, riding the Russian Soyuz TM-32 spacecraft to the International Space Station.
More events: April 27 – April 28 – April 29
April 29: Shōwa Day in Japan; International Dance Day
- 1770 – British explorer James Cook and the crew of HM Bark Endeavour made their first landfall on Australia on the coast of Botany Bay in present-day Sydney.
- 1882 – German inventor Ernst Werner von Siemens (pictured) began operating his Elektromote, the world's first trolleybus, in a Berlin suburb.
- 1916 – World War I: Khalil Pasha of the Ottoman Army accepted the surrender of Major-General Charles Townshend and the British Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force, ending the Siege of Kut.
- 1968 – The controversial musical Hair, a product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, opened at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway, with its songs becoming anthems of the anti-Vietnam War movement.
- 1992 – The acquittal of policemen who had beaten motorist Rodney King sparked civil unrest in Los Angeles that lasted for six days and killed over 50 people.
More events: April 28 – April 29 – April 30
April 30: Queen's Day in the Netherlands; Walpurgis Night in various European countries; Reunification Day in Vietnam
- 313 – Roman Emperor Licinius unified the eastern half of the empire under his rule.
- 1789 – George Washington (pictured) took the oath as the first President of the United States of America at Federal Hall in New York City.
- 1945 – World War II: As Allied forces were closing in on Berlin, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in the Führerbunker after being married for one day.
- 1975 – North Vietnamese troops captured Saigon, ending the Vietnam War with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam.
- 1993 – CERN announced that the World Wide Web would be free to everyone.
More events: April 29 – April 30 – May 1
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
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[edit] Selected anniversaries for May
May 1: Ascension Thursday (Western Christianity, 2008); Yom HaShoah in Israel (2008); May Day; International Workers' Day; Beltane in Ireland and Scotland
- 1707 – The Kingdoms of England and Scotland merged to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, a single kingdom encompassing the entire island of Great Britain with a single parliament and government based in Westminster.
- 1840 – The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland first issued the Penny Black (pictured), the first official adhesive postage stamp.
- 1893 – The World's Columbian Exposition, a World's Fair to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World, opened in Chicago.
- 1898 – The American Asiatic Squadron under Commodore George Dewey defeated the Spanish Pacific Squadron under Admiral Patricio Montojo at the Battle of Manila Bay, the first engagement of the Spanish-American War.
- 1956 – A doctor in Japan reported an "epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system", marking the official discovery of Minamata disease.
More events: April 30 – May 1 – May 2
May 2: Teachers' Day in Iran; Flag Day in Poland
- 1670 – A Royal Charter granted the Hudson's Bay Company a monopoly in the fur trade in Rupert's Land.
- 1808 – Beginning of the Peninsular War: The people of Madrid rebelled against French occupation of the city.
- 1829 – Captain Charles Fremantle of the Royal Navy established the Swan River Colony, the first British settlement on the west coast of Australia.
- 1945 – World War II: General Helmuth Weidling (pictured), commander of the German troops in Berlin, surrendered the city to Soviet forces led by General Georgy Zhukov, ending the Battle of Berlin.
- 1982 – HMS Conqueror launched three torpedoes and sank ARA General Belgrano during the Falklands War.
- 1986 – Henri Toivonen died while leading the Tour de Corse rally, resulting in FISA, the sport governing body for motor racing events, banning the powerful and popular Group B rally cars for the following season.
More events: May 1 – May 2 – May 3
May 3: Constitution Day in Poland and Japan, World Press Freedom Day
- 1791 – The Polish Constitution of May 3, one of the earliest codified national constitutions in the world, was adopted by the Sejm.
- 1808 – Finnish War: Sweden lost the fortress of Suomenlinna to Russia.
- 1815 – Austrian troops led by Frederick Bianchi, Duke of Casalanza (pictured) defeated the forces under King Joachim Murat of Naples at the Battle of Tolentino, the decisive battle of the Neapolitan War.
- 1945 – World War II: German ocean liner Cap Arcona, left to float defencelessly in the Bay of Lübeck with thousands of prisoners from various concentration camps on board, was attacked and sunk by RAF Typhoons.
- 1947 – A new Constitution of Japan went into effect, providing for a parliamentary system of government, guaranteeing certain fundamental rights, and relegating the Japanese monarchy to a purely ceremonial role.
More events: May 2 – May 3 – May 4
May 4: Remembrance of the Dead in the Netherlands; Greenery Day in Japan
- 1493 – Pope Alexander VI issued the papal bull Inter caetera, establishing a Line of Demarcation dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal.
- 1855 – American adventurer William Walker (pictured) and a group of mercenaries sailed from San Francisco to conquer Nicaragua.
- 1886 – An unknown assailant threw a bomb into a crowd of police, turning a peaceful labor rally in Chicago into the Haymarket massacre, resulting in the deaths of seven police officers and an unknown number of civilians.
- 1942 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy engaged Allied naval forces at the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first fleet action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other, and the first naval battle in history in which neither side's ships sighted or fired directly upon the other.
- 1979 – Margaret Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- 1990 – The Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR declared the restoration of independence of Latvia, stating that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940 were illegal.
More events: May 3 – May 4 – May 5
May 5: Cinco de Mayo; Liberation Day in Denmark, Ethiopia, and the Netherlands; Children's Day in Japan and South Korea
- 1789 – The Estates-General convened in Versailles to discuss a financial crisis in France, triggering a series of events that led to the French Revolution.
- 1891 – New York City's Carnegie Hall, built by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, officially opened with a concert conducted by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
- 1949 – Ten European countries signed the Treaty of London, creating the Council of Europe, today one of the oldest international organisations working for European integration.
- 1950 – Prince Bhumibol Adulyadej was crowned in Bangkok as King Rama IX of Thailand, currently the world's longest-serving head of state.
- 1961 – Project Mercury: Aboard the American spacecraft Freedom 7, astronaut Alan Shepard (pictured) made a sub-orbital flight, becoming the second person to travel into outer space after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
More events: May 4 – May 5 – May 6
May 6: St George's Day in Bulgaria; Đurđevdan in Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina; Yuri's Day in Russia
- 1682 – King Louis XIV of France moved the French royal court and the seat of government from Paris to the Château de Versailles in Versailles.
- 1863 – American Civil War: The Army of Northern Virginia, led by Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, scored a decisive Confederate victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville near Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia.
- 1937 – The German zeppelin Hindenburg caught fire (pictured) and was destroyed while trying to land at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey, killing over 30 people on board.
- 1954 – At Oxford's Iffley Road Track, English athlete Roger Bannister became the first person to run the mile in under four minutes.
- 1994 – The Channel Tunnel, a 50.5-kilometre (31.4 mi) undersea rail tunnel beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover connecting Folkestone, Kent, England to Coquelles, France, officially opened.
More events: May 5 – May 6 – May 7
May 7: Yom Hazikaron in Israel (2008); Radio Day in Russia and Bulgaria
- 1272 – The first session of the Second Council of Lyon was held to discuss, among others, the pledge by Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos to end the Great Schism and reunite the Eastern church with the West.
- 1763 – Chief Pontiac (pictured) of the Ottawa Native American tribe led an attempt to seize Fort Detroit and drive out the British settlers, beginning Pontiac's Rebellion.
- 1895 – Alexander Stepanovich Popov presented his radio receiver, refined as a lightning detector, to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society.
- 1915 – World War I: The German submarine Unterseeboot 20 torpedoed and sank the ocean liner RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 on board.
- 1920 – Soviet Russia recognized the independence of the Democratic Republic of Georgia by signing the Treaty of Moscow, only to invade the country six months later.
More events: May 6 – May 7 – May 8
May 8: Yom Ha'atzmaut in Israel (2008); Victory in Europe Day; World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day
- 1429 – Siege of Orléans: French troops led by Joan of Arc lifted the English siege and turned the tide of the Hundred Years' War.
- 1541 – The expedition led by Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River.
- 1794 – French chemist and economist Antoine Lavoisier, a former royal tax collector with the Ferme Générale, was tried, convicted, and guillotined on the same day during the Reign of Terror.
- 1886 – In Atlanta, Georgia, American pharmacist John Pemberton first sold his carbonated beverage Coca-Cola as a patent medicine, claiming that it cured a number of diseases.
- 1945 – Most armed forces under German control ceased active operations by 23:01 hours CET at the end of World War II in Europe, in accordance with the capitulation documents signed by General Alfred Jodl (pictured) on behalf of Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz the day before.
More events: May 7 – May 8 – May 9
May 9: Victory Day in various Eastern European countries; Europe Day in the European Union
- 1671 – Irish-born Colonel Thomas Blood (pictured) was caught trying to steal the English Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.
- 1901 – The first Parliament of Australia opened in the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne.
- 1945 – End of World War II in Europe: The signing of a second German Instrument of Surrender by General Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, specifying the military surrender of all German forces to the high commands of the Soviet Army and Allied Expeditionary Force, was announced.
- 1950 – French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman presented the Schuman Declaration, a proposal to place France's and West Germany's coal and steel industries under joint management, triggering a series of events that eventually led to the founding of the European Union.
- 1950 – Speculative fiction author L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health was first published, describing his self-improvement techniques known as Dianetics.
More events: May 8 – May 9 – May 10
May 10: World Fair Trade Day (2008); Mother's Day in various countries; Constitution Day in the Federated States of Micronesia
- 1503 – Christopher Columbus and his crew became the first Europeans to visit the Cayman Islands, naming them Las Tortugas after the numerous sea turtles there.
- 1857 – The Sepoy Rebellion broke out in colonial India, threatening the rule of the British East India Company.
- 1869 – The First Transcontinental Railroad of North America was completed with the golden spike ceremony in Promontory Summit, Utah.
- 1924 – J. Edgar Hoover (pictured) became the first director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
- 1940 – British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned and formally recommended Winston Churchill as his successor.
More events: May 9 – May 10 – May 11
May 11: Pentecost in Western Christianity (2008); Mother's Day in several countries (2008)
- 1745 – War of the Austrian Succession: French forces defeated the Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian "Pragmatic Army" at the Battle of Fontenoy in the Austrian Netherlands in present day Belgium.
- 1792 – Merchant sea-captain Robert Gray (pictured) first entered the Columbia River, the largest river flowing into the Pacific Ocean from North America.
- 1812 – British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was assassinated by John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons.
- 1867 – The major powers in Europe signed the Second Treaty of London to solve the Luxembourg Crisis between France and Prussia over the political status of Luxembourg.
- 1918 – The Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus was established, with Tapa Tchermoeff as the first prime minister.
- 1949 – Siam was officially renamed Thailand, a name unofficially in use since it was first coined by Prime Minister and dictator Plaek Pibulsonggram in 1939.
More events: May 10 – May 11 – May 12
May 12: Whit Monday (Western Christianity, 2008); Buddha's Birthday in Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea (2008); International Nurses Day
- 1551 – The National University of San Marcos, the oldest university in the Americas, was founded in Lima, Peru.
- 1885 – North-West Rebellion: Louis Riel (pictured) and the Métis rebels were decisively defeated by Canadian forces under Major-General Frederick Middleton in Batoche, Saskatchewan.
- 1926 – A general strike by British trade unions "in defence of [coal] miners' wages and hours" ended after nine days.
- 1941 – German engineer Konrad Zuse presented the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin.
- 1958 – Canada and the United States signed a formal agreement establishing the North American Air Defense Command to provide aerospace warning and defense for North America.
More events: May 11 – May 12 – May 13
May 13: Rotuma Day in Fiji
- 1619 – Dutch statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt was executed in The Hague after having been accused of treason.
- 1846 – The United States declared war on Mexico after a series of disputes in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas, starting the Mexican–American War.
- 1848 – Maamme, the national anthem of Finland written by German composer Fredrik Pacius and Finnish poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, was performed for the first time.
- 1888 – Isabel the Redeemer (pictured) signed the Lei Áurea into law, formally abolishing slavery in Brazil.
- 1912 – The Royal Flying Corps (later the Royal Air Force) was established in the United Kingdom.
- 1917 – Our Lady of Fatima: Ten-year-old Lúcia Santos and her siblings Francisco and Jacinta Marto reportedly began experiencing a Marian apparition near Fátima, Portugal.
- 1969 – Chinese-Malay race riots began in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, leaving at least 190 people dead, and leading the government to declare a state of emergency and suspend Parliament until 1971.
More events: May 12 – May 13 – May 14
May 14: Feast day of Saint Matthias and Saint Mochuda (Roman Catholic Church)
- 1264 – Second Barons' War: King Henry III was captured at the Battle of Lewes in Sussex, making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England.
- 1607 – An expedition led by Edward Maria Wingfield, Christopher Newport, and John Smith established the Jamestown Settlement in Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America.
- 1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition led by explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (pictured) left Camp Dubois near present-day Hartford, Illinois and began the first American overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back.
- 1943 – World War II: The Australian Hospital Ship Centaur was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Queensland, killing 268 people aboard.
- 1948 – David Ben-Gurion publicly read the Israeli Declaration of Independence at the present-day Independence Hall in Tel Aviv, officially establishing a new Jewish state in parts of the former British Mandate of Palestine.
More events: May 13 – May 14 – May 15
May 15: Independence Day in Paraguay (1811); Teachers' Day in Mexico and South Korea; Nakba Day in Palestinian communities
- 1602 – English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold became the first European to discover Cape Cod.
- 1836 – English astronomer Francis Baily first observed "Baily's beads", a phenomenon during a solar eclipse in which the rugged lunar limb topography allows beads of sunlight to shine through (example pictured).
- 1932 – Japanese Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated in the May 15 incident, an attempted coup d'état by radical elements of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
- 1957 – The United Kingdom tested its first hydrogen bomb over Malden Island in Operation Grapple.
- 1990 – Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet was sold at auction in Christie's New York office for a total of US$82.5 million, at the time the world's most expensive painting.
More events: May 14 – May 15 – May 16
May 16: Teacher's Day in Malaysia
- 1204 – Fourth Crusade: Count Baldwin IX of Flanders was crowned the first Latin Emperor in Constantinople.
- 1811 – Peninsular War: An allied force of British, Spanish, and Portuguese troops clashed with the French at the Battle of Albuera south of Badajoz, Spain.
- 1866 – Root beer (pictured) was first prepared commercially by American pharmacist Charles Elmer Hires.
- 1877 – President Patrice de Mac-Mahon dismissed Jules Simon and installed Albert, Duc de Broglie as Prime Minister, triggering a political crisis in the French Third Republic.
- 1929 – The first Academy Awards were handed out at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles.
- 1966 – Chinese leader Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution officially as a campaign to rid China of its liberal bourgeoisie elements and to continue revolutionary class struggle.
More events: May 15 – May 16 – May 17
May 17: Armed Forces Day in the United States (2008); Constitution Day in Norway; Galician Literature Day in Galicia, Spain
- 1590 – Anne of Denmark (pictured) was crowned Queen Consort of Scotland in the abbey church at Holyrood Palace.
- 1865 – The International Telecommunication Union, an international organization that standardizes and regulates international radio and telecommunications, was founded as the International Telegraph Union in Paris.
- 1900 – Second Boer War: The Siege of Mafeking in South Africa was lifted after 217 days, a decisive victory for the British against the Boers.
- 1943 – World War II: Royal Air Force Dam Busters successfully deployed bouncing bombs on German dams in Operation Chastise.
- 1954 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, outlawing racial segregation in public schools because "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal".
More events: May 16 – May 17 – May 18
May 18: Trinity Sunday (Western Christianity, 2008); International Museum Day
- 1268 – Baibars and his Mamluk forces captured Antioch, capital of the crusader state, the Principality of Antioch.
- 1848 – During the aftermath of the March Revolution in the German Confederation, the Frankfurt Parliament opened in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt am Main.
- 1896 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case Plessy v. Ferguson, upholding the legality of racial segregation in public transportation under the "Separate but equal" doctrine.
- 1958 – The F-104 Starfighter, a supersonic interceptor aircraft, set a world speed record of 1,404.19 miles per hour (2,259.82 km/h).
- 1980 – The stratovolcano Mount St. Helens erupted (pictured), killing 57 people in southern Washington State, reducing hundreds of square miles to wasteland, and causing over a billion U.S. dollars in damage.
More events: May 17 – May 18 – May 19
May 19: Pesach Sheni (Judaism, 2008); Victoria Day in Canada (2008); Vesak (Buddhism, 2008); Youth and Sports Day in Turkey
- 1536 – Anne Boleyn (pictured), the second wife and queen consort of Henry VIII of England, was beheaded at the Tower of London for adultery, incest, and high treason.
- 1643 – Thirty Years' War: The French led by Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé scored a decisive victory against the Spanish in Rocroi, France.
- 1649 – The Rump Parliament passed an act to formally establish the Commonwealth of England.
- 1802 – Napoléon Bonaparte, First Consul of the French Republic, established the Légion d'honneur order as a reward to commend civilians and soldiers.
- 1919 – Mustafa Kemal Atatürk traveled to Samsun to establish the Turkish National Movement to resist the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, marking the start of the Turkish War of Independence.
- 1922 – The Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union, a mass pioneer movement for children of age 10–15, was founded.
More events: May 18 – May 19 – May 20
May 20: National Day in Cameroon; Independence Day in East Timor
- 325 – The First Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical council of the Christian Church, was formally opened in present-day Iznik, Turkey to resolve disagreements in the Church of Alexandria over the nature of Jesus in relationship to God the Father.
- 1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama (pictured) arrived at Calicut, India, opening up trade with the Far East directly by sea.
- 1570 – The first modern atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by cartographer Abraham Ortelius, was issued.
- 1873 – Clothing manufacturer Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davis were granted a patent for using copper rivets to strengthen the pockets of denim overalls, paving the way for their business Levi Strauss & Co. to start manufacturing their first line of blue jeans.
- 2002 – East Timor became the first new sovereign state of the twenty-first century after Indonesia relinquished control of the territory.
More events: May 19 – May 20 – May 21
- 1758 – French and Indian War: Ten-year-old Mary Campbell was taken captive from her Pennsylvania home by members of the Native American group Lenape, presumably becoming the first white child to travel to the Connecticut Western Reserve.
- 1894 – The Manchester Ship Canal (pictured), linking Greater Manchester in North West England to the Irish Sea, officially opened, becoming the largest navigation canal in the world at the time.
- 1904 – The Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the international sport governing body of association football, was founded in Paris.
- 1927 – Aboard the Spirit of St. Louis, American aviator Charles Lindbergh completed the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight, flying from Roosevelt Field near New York City to Le Bourget Airport near Paris.
- 1998 – Indonesian President Suharto resigned following the collapse of support for his three-decade-long reign.
More events: May 20 – May 21 – May 22
May 22: Corpus Christi (Catholicism, 2008); World Biodiversity Day
- 1455 – Forces led by Richard, Duke of York and Richard, Earl of Warwick captured Lancastrian King Henry VI of England, beginning the Wars of the Roses with a Yorkist victory in the First Battle of St Albans.
- 1809 – War of the Fifth Coalition: Austrian forces under Archduke Charles (pictured) prevented Napoleon I and his French troops from crossing the Danube near Vienna at the Battle of Aspern-Essling.
- 1915 – Five trains were involved in a crash near Gretna Green, Scotland, killing 227 people and injuring 246 in the Quintinshill rail crash.
- 1964 – During a speech at the University of Michigan, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson presented the goals of his Great Society domestic social reforms to eliminate poverty and racial injustice.
- 1990 – The Yemen Arab Republic and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen merged to become the Republic of Yemen.
More events: May 21 – May 22 – May 23
May 23: Lag Ba'omer (Judaism, 2008)
- 1430 – Hundred Years' War: Joan of Arc was captured at the Siege of Compiègne.
- 1498 – Girolamo Savonarola (pictured) of Florence was executed for heresy, uttering prophecies, sedition, and other crimes.
- 1533 – The marriage of Henry VIII of England and his first wife Catherine of Aragon was annulled.
- 1568 – The Dutch Revolt broke out when rebels led by Louis of Nassau invaded Friesland at the Battle of Heiligerlee.
- 1873 – The North West Mounted Police, the forerunner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, was established to bring law and order to and assert Canadian sovereignty over the Northwest Territories.
- 1934 – American criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were ambushed and killed by police on a desolate road near their Bienville Parish, Louisiana hideout outside the Town of Gibsland.
More events: May 22 – May 23 – May 24
May 24: Independence Day in Eritrea (1993); Aldersgate Day (Methodism); Saints Cyril and Methodius Day in Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia
- 1626 – Director-General of New Netherland Peter Minuit bought Manhattan from Native Americans in exchange for trade goods valued at 60 guilders.
- 1738 – At a Moravian Church meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, John Wesley (pictured) experienced a spiritual rebirth, leading him to launch the Methodist movement.
- 1822 – Ecuadorian War of Independence: Troops led by Antonio José de Sucre secured the independence of Quito from Spain at the Battle of Pichincha.
- 1883 – New York City's Brooklyn Bridge, at the time the longest suspension bridge in the world, was opened.
- 1988 – Section 28 of the United Kingdom Local Government Act of 1988, an amendment stating that a local authority cannot intentionally promote homosexuality, was enacted, generating so much controversy that it was eventually repealed fifteen years later.
More events: May 23 – May 24 – May 25
May 25: Independence Day in Jordan (1946); Liberation Day in Lebanon (2000); African Liberation Day in various African countries
- 1521 – The Diet of Worms declared Protestant Reformer Martin Luther an outlaw and a heretic, banning his literature, and requiring his arrest.
- 1946 – Abdullah bin Husayn (pictured), Emir of the Emirate of Transjordan, was proclaimed King of the renamed "Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan".
- 1961 – During a speech to a Joint Session of the United States Congress, U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced his support for the Apollo space program, with "the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth".
- 1977 – Star Wars, a science fantasy film written and directed by George Lucas, was released, becoming one of the most successful films of all time.
- 2000 – Israel withdrew its army from most of Lebanese territory, 22 years after its first invasion in 1978.
More events: May 24 – May 25 – May 26
May 26: Memorial Day in the United States (2008); Independence Day in Guyana and Georgia; Mother's Day in Poland; National Sorry Day in Australia
- 1828 – Kaspar Hauser (pictured), a foundling with suspected ties to the Royal House of Baden, first appeared in the streets of Nuremberg, Germany.
- 1896 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average, representing twelve stocks from various American industries, was first published by journalist Charles Dow as a stock market index.
- 1918 – The Democratic Republic of Georgia was proclaimed following the breakup of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic.
- 1972 – U.S. President Richard Nixon and Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in Moscow, concluding the first round of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.
- 1986 – The European Community adopted the Flag of Europe, a flag previously adopted by the Council of Europe in 1955.
More events: May 25 – May 26 – May 27
May 27: Children's Day in Nigeria
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- 1153 – Malcolm IV became King of Scotland at the age of twelve.
- 1703 – Russian Tsar Peter I founded Saint Petersburg after reconquering the Ingrian land from Sweden during the Great Northern War.
- 1860 – Expedition of the Thousand: Giuseppe Garibaldi (pictured) and his Redshirts launched their attack on Palermo, capital of the Two Sicilies.
- 1923 – French racing drivers André Lagache and René Léonard won the first running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans near Le Mans, Sarthe, France.
- 1937 – The Golden Gate Bridge, at the time the world's longest suspension bridge span, connecting the City of San Francisco to Marin County, California, opened.
- 1942 – Operation Anthropoid: Czech resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Prague ambushed and mortally wounded Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of Reich Security Main Office and the Protector of Bohemia and Moravia.
More events: May 26 – May 27 – May 28
May 28: Republic Day in Armenia and Azerbaijan (both 1918)
- 1588 – Anglo-Spanish War: The Spanish Armada (a galleass pictured), with 130 ships and over 30,000 men, set sail from Lisbon for the English Channel to engage English naval forces.
- 1644 – English Civil War: Royalist troops allegedly slaughtered up to 1,600 people during their storm and capture of the Town of Bolton.
- 1918 – The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, one of the first democratic republics in the Muslim world, was proclaimed in Ganja by the Azerbaijani National Council following the breakup of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic.
- 1961 – The British newspaper The Observer published English lawyer Peter Benenson's article The Forgotten Prisoners, starting a letter-writing campaign that grew and became the human rights organization Amnesty International.
- 1998 – Under its nuclear development programme, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission carried out five underground nuclear tests in the Chagai Hills in the Chagai District of the Balochistan province.
More events: May 27 – May 28 – May 29
- 363 – Roman Emperor Julian defeated Sassanid Emperor Shapur II outside the walls of the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon, but was unable to take the city.
- 1167 – A 1,600-man force of the Holy Roman Empire led by Christian of Buch and Rainald of Dassel defeated a 10,000-man Papal States army.
- 1848 – Wisconsin became the 30th U.S. state admitted to the Union.
- 1913 – The Rite of Spring, a ballet with music by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (pictured), was first performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris.
- 1953 – New Zealand explorer Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
- 1999 – Olusegun Obasanjo took office as President of Nigeria, the first elected and civilian head of state in Nigeria after 16 years of military rule.
More events: May 28 – May 29 – May 30
May 30: Indian Arrival Day in Trinidad and Tobago; Lod Massacre Remembrance Day in Puerto Rico
- 1431 – Hundred Years' War: Joan of Arc (pictured) was burned at the stake in Rouen, France after being convicted of heresy in a politically motivated trial.
- 1536 – Henry VIII of England married Jane Seymour, a lady-in-waiting to his first two queens consort.
- 1913 – The Treaty of London was signed to deal with territorial adjustments arising out of the conclusion of the First Balkan War, declaring, among other things, an independent Albania.
- 1972 – Members of the Japanese Red Army carried out the Lod Airport massacre in Tel Aviv, Israel on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, killing over 20 people and injuring almost 80 others.
- 1989 – Goddess of Democracy, a ten meter (33 ft) high statue made mostly of polystyrene foam and papier-mâché, was erected by student protestors in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.
More events: May 29 – May 30 – May 31
May 31: World No Tobacco Day; Feast of the Visitation in Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism
- 1223 – Mongol invasions: Mongol forces defeated a combined army of Kiev, Galich, and the Cumans on the banks of the Kalchik River in present-day Ukraine.
- 1669 – Citing poor eyesight, English naval administrator and Member of Parliament Samuel Pepys (pictured) recorded his last entry in his diary, one of the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period.
- 1889 – The South Fork Dam near Johnstown, Pennsylvania, USA, failed, unleashing a torrent of 18.1 million cubic meters (4.8 billion gallons) of water that killed over 2,200 people.
- 1910 – The previously separate colonies of the Cape, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange Free State united to form the Union of South Africa, exactly 51 years before it would become the Republic of South Africa.
- 1974 – Syria and Israel signed a disengagement agreement to resolve the 20-day Yom Kippur War.
More events: May 30 – May 31 – June 1
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
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[edit] Selected anniversaries for June
June 1: International Children's Day; Madaraka Day in Kenya
- 1779 – Benedict Arnold (pictured), a general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, was court-martialed for malfeasance.
- 1831 – British naval officer and explorer James Clark Ross successfully led the first expedition to reach the North Magnetic Pole.
- 1868 – Long Walk of the Navajo: The United States signed the Treaty of Bosque Redondo allowing the Navajos to return to their lands in Arizona and New Mexico.
- 1943 – Eight German Junkers Ju 88s shot down British Overseas Airways Corporation Flight 777 over the Bay of Biscay off the coast of Spain and France, killing actor Leslie Howard and several other notable passengers.
- 2001 – Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal killed King Birendra and several members of the Shah royal family in a shooting spree at the Narayanhity Royal Palace in Kathmandu.
More events: May 31 – June 1 – June 2
June 2: Jerusalem Day in Israel (2008); Queen's Official Birthday in New Zealand (2008)
- 455 – Following the death of Western Roman Emperor Valentinian III, the Vandals led by King Gaiseric sacked Rome, looting treasure from the city and taking Empress Licinia Eudoxia and her daughters hostage.
- 1848 – As part of the Pan-Slavism movement, the Prague Slavic Congress began in Prague, one of the few times that voices from all Slav populations of Europe were heard in one place.
- 1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.
- 1995 – United States Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady (pictured) was shot down while patrolling the NATO no-fly zone over Bosnia in an F-16.
- 2003 – The Mars Express space probe, the first planetary mission of the European Space Agency, was launched.
More events: June 1 – June 2 – June 3
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- 1621 – The Dutch West India Company received a charter for a trade monopoly in the West Indies by the Dutch Republic.
- 1888 – American writer Ernest Thayer's baseball poem "Casey at the Bat" was first published in the San Francisco Examiner.
- 1937 – Months after he abdicated the British throne, Edward, The Duke of Windsor married American socialite Wallis Simpson (pictured) in a private ceremony near Tours, France, a wedding opposed by the Church of England because Simpson was a divorcée with a living ex-spouse.
- 1992 – The High Court of Australia delivered its decision in the landmark case Mabo v Queensland, recognising the land rights of the Aborigines.
- 2006 – Montenegro declared its independence, ending the union of Serbia and Montenegro.
More events: June 2 – June 3 – June 4
June 4: Independence Day in Tonga (1970)
- 1037 – Henry III became Holy Roman Emperor following the death of his father, Conrad II.
- 1615 – Forces under the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu took Osaka Castle in Japan.
- 1792 – Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver claimed Puget Sound in the Pacific Northwest for Great Britain.
- 1939 – The German ocean liner SS St. Louis, carrying 963 Jewish refugees seeking asylum from Nazi persecution, was denied permission to land in the United States, after already having been turned away from Cuba.
- 1942 – The Battle of Midway (pictured), a major battle in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, began with a massive Imperial Japanese strike on Midway Atoll.
More events: June 3 – June 4 – June 5
June 5: Ascension Thursday in Eastern Christianity (2008); World Environment Day; Father's Day and Constitution Day in Denmark
- 1305 – Raymond Bertrand de Got became Pope Clement V, succeeding Pope Benedict XI who died one year earlier.
- 1798 – In the Battle of New Ross, British forces prevented the United Irishmen from spreading the Irish Rebellion into Munster.
- 1849 – A new constitution was introduced in Denmark, establishing a constitutional monarchy and the Rigsdag, a bicameral parliament consisting of the Landsting and the Folketing.
- 1967 – The Six-Day War began with an Israeli Air Force preemptive strike that destroyed about 450 total aircraft of the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian Air Forces on the ground.
- 1968 – Palestinian immigrant Sirhan Sirhan mortally shot U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy (pictured) inside the kitchen pantry of The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, an event that has spawned a variety of conspiracy theories.
More events: June 4 – June 5 – June 6
June 6: National holiday of Sweden observed
- 1523 – Gustav Vasa became King of Sweden, marking the end of the Kalmar Union.
- 1683 – Oxford University's Ashmolean Museum, the world's first university museum, opened.
- 1933 – The first ever drive-in theater opened in Pennsauken, New Jersey, United States.
- 1944 – World War II: The Invasion of Normandy, the largest amphibious military operation in history, began with Allied troops landing on the beaches of Normandy in France (pictured).
- 1982 – A war in Lebanon began when Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon to root out members of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
- 2005 – The U.S. Supreme Court delivered its landmark legal decision in Gonzales v. Raich, allowing the U.S. Congress to ban medical marijuana even in states that approve its use.
More events: June 5 – June 6 – June 7
- 1099 – Members of the First Crusade reached Jerusalem and began a five-week siege of the city against the Fatimids.
- 1494 – Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Tordesillas, dividing the newly discovered lands of the Americas and Africa between the two countries.
- 1776 – Virginia statesman Richard Henry Lee presented the Lee Resolution to the Second Continental Congress, declaring the Thirteen Colonies to be independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain.
- 1948 – Rather than sign the Ninth-of-May Constitution making his nation a Communist state, Edvard Beneš (pictured) chose to resign as President of Czechoslovakia.
- 1981 – The Israeli Air Force attacked and disabled the Osirak nuclear reactor, assuming it was producing plutonium to further an Iraqi nuclear weapons program.
More events: June 6 – June 7 – June 8
June 8: Dragon Boat Festival (2008); World Ocean Day
- 1783 – Iceland's Laki craters (pictured) began an eight-month eruption, triggering major famine and massive fluorine poisoning.
- 1887 – German-American statistician Herman Hollerith received a patent for his punch card calculator.
- 1949 – Nineteen Eighty-Four, a dystopian political novel by English writer George Orwell about life in the fictional totalitarian government of Oceania, was first published.
- 1950 – Thomas Blamey became Australia's first and currently only Field Marshal.
- 1995 – Danish-Greenlandic programmer Rasmus Lerdorf released the first public version of the scripting language PHP for producing dynamic web pages.
- 2004 – Ethiopian distance runner Kenenisa Bekele broke the world record for outdoor 10,000 m in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
More events: June 7 – June 8 – June 9
June 9: Shavuot (Judaism, 2008); St. Colmcille's Day in Ireland
- 68 – Roman Emperor Nero (bust pictured) committed suicide after he was deposed by the Senate.
- 1310 – Italian artist Duccio's Maestà with Twenty Angels and Nineteen Saints, a seminal artwork of the early Italian Renaissance, was unveiled and installed in Siena Cathedral in Siena, Italy.
- 1772 – In an act of defiance against the Navigation Acts, American patriots led by Abraham Whipple attacked and burned the British schooner HMS Gaspée.
- 1856 – Mormon pioneers began leaving Iowa City, Iowa and headed west for Salt Lake City, Utah, carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.
- 1928 – Australian aviator Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew landed their Southern Cross aircraft in Brisbane, completing the first ever trans-Pacific flight from the United States mainland to Australia.
More events: June 8 – June 9 – June 10
June 10: Portugal Day (Portugal's National Day and the date of Luís de Camões' death (de Camões pictured))
- 1190 – The Third Crusade: Frederick I Barbarossa drowned in the Saleph River in Anatolia.
- 1719 – Jacobite risings: British forces defeated an alliance of Jacobites and Spaniards at the Battle of Glen Shiel in the Scottish Highlands.
- 1829 – In rowing, Oxford defeated Cambridge in the first Boat Race held on the Thames in London.
- 1838 – More than twenty-five Australian Aborigines were massacred near Inverell, New South Wales.
- 1935 – American physician Bob Smith had his last alcoholic drink, marking the traditional founding date of Alcoholics Anonymous.
More events: June 9 – June 10 – June 11
June 11: Kamehameha Day in Hawaii
- 1770 – English explorer James Cook ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef (pictured).
- 1892 – The Salvation Army's Limelight Department, one of the world's earliest film studios, was officially established in Melbourne, Australia.
- 1937 – Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and several senior officers of the Red Army were convicted in the Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization, a secret trial during the Great Purge in the Soviet Union.
- 1963 – Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burned himself to death in Saigon to protest the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam's Ngô Đình Diệm administration.
- 1963 – The University of Alabama was desegregated as Governor of Alabama George Wallace stepped aside after a stand in the schoolhouse door.
More events: June 10 – June 11 – June 12
June 12: Independence Day in the Philippines; Russia Day in the Russian Federation; Dia dos Namorados in Brazil
- 1864 – Union General Ulysses S. Grant pulled his troops out of the Battle of Cold Harbor in Hanover County, Virginia, ending one of the bloodiest, most lopsided battles in the American Civil War.
- 1889 – In one of the worst rail disasters in Europe, runaway passenger carriages collided with a following train near Armagh, present-day Northern Ireland, killing 88 people and injuring 170 others.
- 1942 – On her thirteenth birthday, Anne Frank began keeping her diary during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
- 1967 – The U.S. Supreme Court delivered its decision in the landmark civil rights case Loving v. Virginia, striking down laws restricting interracial marriage in the United States.
- 1979 – Pilot Bryan Allen flew the human-powered aircraft Gossamer Albatross (pictured) across the English Channel to win the Kremer prize.
More events: June 11 – June 12 – June 13
- 1525 – Martin Luther married Katharina von Bora (pictured), against the celibacy discipline decreed by the Roman Catholic Church on priests.
- 1886 – King Ludwig II of Bavaria was founded dead in Lake Starnberg near Munich under mysterious circumstances.
- 1898 – The Yukon Territory was formed in Canada, with Dawson chosen as its capital.
- 1966 – The Miranda v. Arizona landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court established the Miranda warning, requiring law enforcement officials to advise a suspect in custody of his rights to remain silent and to obtain an attorney.
- 1971 – The New York Times began to publish the Pentagon Papers, a 7,000-page top-secret United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political and military involvement in the Vietnam War.
More events: June 12 – June 13 – June 14
June 14: Liberation Day in the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; Flag Day in the United States
- 1777 – The Second Continental Congress adopted the stars and stripes design for the flag of the United States.
- 1807 – In the last major battle in the War of the Fourth Coalition, the French decisively defeated the Russians at the Battle of Friedland near present-day Pravdinsk, Russia.
- 1822 – Charles Babbage (pictured) proposed a difference engine in a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society.
- 1846 – Settlers in the Town of Sonoma began a rebellion against Mexico, proclaiming the California Republic.
- 1982 – Argentine forces surrendered to the British, ending the Falklands War.
- 1985 – A group with alleged links to Hezbollah hijacked TWA Flight 847 shortly after take-off from Athens.
More events: June 13 – June 14 – June 15
June 15: Pentecost in Eastern Christianity (2008); Father's Day in several countries (2008)
- 1215 – King John of England (pictured) put his seal to Magna Carta.
- 1667 – Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys administered the first fully-documented human blood transfusion, giving the blood of a sheep to a 15-year old boy.
- 1978 – King Hussein of Jordan married American Lisa Halaby, who takes the name Queen Noor.
- 1996 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a bomb in the commercial centre of Manchester, England, injuring over 200 people and causing widespread damage to buildings.
- 2001 – Leaders of the People's Republic of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
More events: June 14 – June 15 – June 16
June 16: Whit Monday in Eastern Christianity (2008); Bloomsday in Dublin, Ireland; Youth Day in South Africa
- 1745 – King George's War: British colonial forces led by William Pepperrell captured the French stronghold at Fortress Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island after a six-week siege.
- 1846 – Pius IX (pictured) was elected pope, beginning the longest reign of all popes (not counting the Apostle St. Peter).
- 1963 – Aboard Vostok 6, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space.
- 1976 – Apartheid in South Africa: Police in Soweto opened fire on schoolchildren protesting against the imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in township schools, triggering a series of nationwide demonstrations, strikes, riots and violence.
- 1999 – Thabo Mbeki was inaugurated President of South Africa.
More events: June 15 – June 16 – June 17
June 17: Icelandic National Day
- 1462 – Vlad III Dracula of Wallachia (pictured) attacked an Ottoman camp at night in an attempt to assassinate Mehmed II.
- 1775 – American Revolutionary War: British forces took Bunker Hill outside of Boston.
- 1789 – French Revolution: The Third Estate of France declared itself the National Assembly.
- 1953 – In Berlin, the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany and the Volkspolizei violently suppressed an uprising against the East German government.
- 1972 – Watergate scandal: Five men were arrested for stealing from the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex.
More events: June 16 – June 17 – June 18
- 1815 – Napoléon Bonaparte fought and lost his final battle, the Battle of Waterloo.
- 1858 – Charles Darwin received a manuscript by Alfred Russel Wallace on evolution, which prompted him to publish his theory.
- 1940 – World War II: Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French Forces, made an appeal to the French people following the fall of France to Nazi Germany, rallying them to support the Resistance.
- 1979 – The United States and the Soviet Union signed the SALT II treaty, placing specific limits on each side's stock of nuclear weapons.
- 1983 – Space Shuttle Astronaut Sally Ride (pictured) becomes the first American woman in space for STS-7.
More events: June 17 – June 18 – June 19
June 19: Juneteenth in some parts of the United States
- 1306 – Wars of Scottish Independence: The Earl of Pembroke's English army defeated Robert the Bruce's Scottish army at the Battle of Methven.
- 1867 – Maximilian I of the Second Mexican Empire (pictured) was executed by firing squad in Querétaro.
- 1953 – Americans Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed as spies who passed U.S. nuclear weapons secrets to the Soviet Union.
- 1961 – Kuwait declared independence from the United Kingdom.
- 1970 – The Patent Cooperation Treaty, an international law treaty, was signed, providing a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions.
More events: June 18 – June 19 – June 20
June 20: June Solstice (23:59 UTC, 2008); Midsummer festivities begin (Northern Hemisphere, 2008); Winter solstice festivals (Southern Hemisphere, 2008); World Refugee Day; Flag Day in Argentina; West Virginia Day in the U.S. state of West Virginia
- 451 – The Battle of Chalons against Attila the Hun is the last major battle of the Western Roman Empire.
- 1685 – Monmouth Rebellion: The Duke of Monmouth declared himself King of England at Bridgwater.
- 1789 – 577 deputies of the French National Assembly took the Tennis Court Oath, starting the French Revolution.
- 1837 – Queen Victoria (pictured) succeeded to the British throne.
- 1973 – Snipers fired into a crowd of Peronists near the Ezeiza Airport in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing at least 13 people and injuring 365 others.
More events: June 19 – June 20 – June 21
- 1813 – Peninsular War: In the Battle of Vitoria, the Marquess of Wellington's combined British, Portuguese, and Spanish allied army defeated the French near Vitoria, Spain.
- 1864 – New Zealand land wars: The Tauranga Campaign ended.
- 1973 – The U.S. Supreme Court delivered its decision in the landmark case Miller v. California, establishing the "Miller test" for determining what is obscene material.
- 1985 – Greenland officially adopted its own flag, adding support to its independence movement from Denmark.
- 2004 – SpaceShipOne (pictured) completed the first privately funded human spaceflight.
More events: June 20 – June 21 – June 22
- 168 BC – Third Macedonian War: Roman forces defeated Macedonian King Perseus at the Battle of Pydna.
- 1854 – The British Parliament abolished feudalism and the seigneurial system in British North America.
- 1893 – The Royal Navy battleship HMS Camperdown accidentally collided with and sank the British Mediterranean Fleet flagship HMS Victoria, taking 358 crew members with her.
- 1941 – World War II: As Nazi Germany began to invade the Soviet Union, the Lithuanian underground government started an uprising to liberate Lithuania from Soviet occupation.
- 1986 – Argentine footballer Diego Maradona (pictured) scored both the Hand of God goal and the Goal of the Century against England during the quarter-final match of the FIFA World Cup in Mexico City.
More events: June 21 – June 22 – June 23
June 23: Jaaniõhtu in Estonia; Jāņi in Latvia; Saint Jonas' Festival in Lithuania; Grand Duke's Official Birthday in Luxembourg
- 1757 – Seven Years' War: British forces under Robert Clive defeated troops under Siraj ud-Daulah at the Battle of Plassey, allowing the British East India Company to annex Bengal.
- 1858 – Edgardo Mortara, a six-year-old Jewish boy, was seized by Papal authorities and taken to be raised as a Roman Catholic.
- 1887 – The Parliament of Canada passed the Rocky Mountains Park Act, creating Banff National Park (pictured) as Canada's first national park.
- 1894 – Led by French historian Pierre de Coubertin, an international congress at the Sorbonne in Paris founded the International Olympic Committee to reinstate the Ancient Olympic Games.
- 1991 – Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog in the United States and Europe, starting a franchise that has sold more than 45 million copies of the video game and its sequels.
More events: June 22 – June 23 – June 24
June 24: Battle of Carabobo Day in Venezuela (1821); Midsummer Day in Northern Europe; Fête nationale du Québec (Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day) in Quebec, Canada
- 1314 – Scotland regained independence as forces led by Robert the Bruce defeated Edward II of England in the Battle of Bannockburn (pictured).
- 1894 – Italian anarchist Sante Geronimo Caserio assassinated Marie François Sadi Carnot, President of the French Third Republic, after Carnot delivered a speech at a public banquet in Lyon, France.
- 1947 – First widely-reported post-World War II sighting of UFOs: American businessman and pilot Kenneth Arnold saw nine luminous disks in the form of saucers flying above the U.S. state of Washington near Mount Rainier.
- 1948 – The Soviet Union blocked access to the American, British, and French sectors of Berlin, cutting off all rail and road routes going into Soviet-controlled territory in Germany.
More events: June 23 – June 24 – June 25
June 25: Statehood Day in Croatia and Slovenia
- 1530 – The Augsburg Confession, the primary confession of faith of the Lutheran Church, was presented to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg.
- 1876 – Indian Wars in North America: United States Army Colonel George Armstrong Custer (pictured) was killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
- 1950 – The Korean War between North and South Korea began with the North Koreans launching a pre-dawn raid south over the 38th parallel.
- 1967 – Over 400 million people in over 30 countries watched Our World, the first live, international, satellite television production.
- 1993 – Kim Campbell was chosen as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party and became the first female Prime Minister of Canada.
More events: June 24 – June 25 – June 26
June 26: Flag Day in Romania; Sunthorn Phu Day in Thailand
- 363 – Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate was killed during the retreat from his campaign against the Sassanid Empire.
- 1409 – In trying to end the Western Schism, where Gregory XII in Rome and Benedict XIII in Avignon simultaneously claimed to be the true pope, the Council of Pisa instead ended up electing a third one, Alexander V.
- 1541 – Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro was assassinated in Lima by supporters of his rival Diego de Almagro's son.
- 1945 – At a conference in San Francisco, delegates from 50 nations signed a charter establishing the United Nations.
- 1976 – The CN Tower (pictured), the tallest freestanding structure on land, was opened to the public in Toronto.
More events: June 25 – June 26 – June 27
- 678 – Saint Agatho began his reign as Pope.
- 1358 – Republic of Ragusa founded.
- 1898 – Joshua Slocum completed the first solo circumnavigation of the globe sailing on his refitted sloop-rigged fishing boat Spray, a distance of more than 46,000 miles (74,000 km).
- 1905 – The crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin (pictured) began a mutiny against their oppressive officers.
- 1967 – The world's first electronic automated teller machine was installed in Enfield Town, London.
- 1991 – Yugoslavia invaded Slovenia, two days after the latter's declaration of independence from the former, starting the Ten-Day War.
More events: June 26 – June 27 – June 28
- 1389 - Ottoman wars in Europe: Turks under Murad I defeated Lazar Hrebeljanović and a coalition of Serb lords at the Battle of Kosovo.
- 1880 – Australian bank robber and bushranger Ned Kelly was captured in Glenrowan, Victoria after surviving a gun battle with police.
- 1914 – Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, sparking the outbreak of World War I.
- 1919 – The Treaty of Versailles was signed, ending World War I.
- 1956 – Workers in Poznań, Poland held massive protests demanding the lowering of food prices, rising of wages and revoking some recent law changes that worsened working conditions, but were violently repressed the following day.
- 1969 – In response to a police raid at the Stonewall Inn (pictured) in New York City, groups of gay and transgender people began to riot against New York City Police officers, a watershed event for the worldwide gay rights movement.
More events: June 27 – June 28 – June 29
June 29: Holy Day of Obligation of Saints Peter and Paul (Roman Catholicism)
- 1184 – Sverre was crowned King of Norway.
- 1613 – The original Globe Theatre in London burned to the ground after a cannon employed for special effects misfired during a performance of Henry VIII and ignited the theatre's roof.
- 1874 – Greek politician Charilaos Trikoupis published a manifesto in the Athens daily Kairoi entitled "Who's to blame?", laying out his complaints against King George.
- 1922 – France granted 1 km² (100 hectares) at Vimy Ridge (pictured) to Canada in perpetuity in recognition of Canada's efforts during the Battle of Vimy Ridge in World War I.
- 1995 – The Sampoong Department Store collapsed in the Seocho-gu district of Seoul, South Korea, killing 501 and injuring 937.
- 2006 – The U.S. Supreme Court delivered its decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, ruling that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay violated both U.S. and international law.
More events: June 28 – June 29 – June 30
June 30: Independence Day in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1960)
- 1864 – U.S. National Parks: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln granted Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias to California for "public use, resort, and recreation".
- 1894 – London's Tower Bridge, a combined bascule and suspension bridge, opened.
- 1905 – Albert Einstein (pictured) published the article "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" and introduced the theory of special relativity.
- 1908 – The Tunguska impact event occurred in Siberia, felling an estimated 80 million trees.
- 1971 – The Soyuz 11 spacecraft depressurised during reentry, killing cosmonauts Vladislav Volkov, Georgiy Dobrovolskiy and Viktor Patsayev.
- 1997 – During an internationally televised ceremony at 16:00 UTC (00:00, July 1 HKT), the United Kingdom officially transferred sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.
More events: June 29 – June 30 – July 1
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
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[edit] Selected anniversaries for July
- 1520 – La Noche Triste: Spanish Conquistadors under Hernán Cortés (pictured) barely succeeded in escaping from the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.
- 1569 – The Union of Lublin was signed, merging the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into a single state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
- 1867 – The British North America Act came into effect, uniting the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia into the Canadian Confederation.
- 1916 – World War I: The first day of the Battle of the Somme became the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army, with 57,470 casualties of which 19,240 were killed or died of wounds.
- 1991 – The Warsaw Pact was officially dissolved at a meeting in Prague.
More events: June 30 – July 1 – July 2
- 1644 – The Battle of Marston Moor, one of the decisive encounters of the English Civil War, was fought near York.
- 1839 – 53 African slaves mutinied on the slave ship La Amistad off the coast of Cuba.
- 1900 – First Zeppelin flight (pictured) occurred over Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.
- 1937 – Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight.
- 1976 – North and South Vietnam united under communist rule to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
- 1997 – The Thai baht rapidly lost half of its value, marking the beginning of the 1997 East Asian financial crisis.
More events: July 1 – July 2 – July 3
July 3: Independence Day in Belarus
- 987 – Hugh Capet was crowned King of France, becoming the first monarch of the Capetian dynasty, which ruled France continuously until overthrown during the French Revolution in 1792.
- 1608 – Quebec City, considered to be the first European-built city in non-Spanish North America, was founded by Samuel de Champlain.
- 1778 – American Revolutionary War: Loyalists and Iroquois killed or tortured over 300 Patriots at the Wyoming Valley battle and massacre.
- 1863 – Pickett's Charge, a disastrous Confederate infantry assault against Union Army positions, occurred during the final and bloodiest day of fighting in the Battle of Gettysburg, marking a turning point in the American Civil War.
- 1866 – Prussian forces defeated the Austrian army at the Battle of Königgrätz, the decisive battle in the Austro-Prussian War.
- 1938 – The LNER Mallard (pictured) broke the world speed record for a steam railway locomotive, reaching a speed of 203 km/h (126 mph).
More events: July 2 – July 3 – July 4
July 4: Aphelion (08:00 UTC, 2008); Independence Day in the United States; Filipino-American Friendship Day in the Philippines
- 993 – Pope John XV became the first pope to canonize a saint, Ulrich of Augsburg.
- 1776 – The Continental Congress of the Thirteen Colonies in British North America adopted a Declaration of Independence.
- 1862 – In a rowing boat travelling on the River Thames from Oxford to Godstow, Lewis Carroll told Alice Liddell and her sisters a story that would eventually form the basis for his children's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (illustration of Alice pictured), first published exactly three years later.
- 1939 – Baseball player Lou Gehrig, having recently been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, officially announced his retirement at a ceremony at New York City's Yankee Stadium.
- 1941 – German AB-Aktion operation in Poland: After capturing Lwów, the Nazis executed approximately 45 professors of the University of Lwów.
More events: July 3 – July 4 – July 5
July 5: Independence Day in Venezuela (1811), Algeria (1962) and Cape Verde (1975); Saints Cyril and Methodius Day in the Czech Republic and Slovakia; Tynwald Day on the Isle of Man
- 1687 – Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton (pictured) was first published, describing his laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation.
- 1937 - The Hormel Foods Corporation introduced Spam, the canned precooked meat product that would eventually enter into pop culture, folklore, and urban legend.
- 1954 – Elvis Presley began making his first commercial recordings at Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, USA.
- 1977 – General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq overthrew Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan in a military coup d'état.
- 2004 – Indonesia held its first direct presidential elections in its history; Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono would later be elected president during the second round of the elections on September 20.
More events: July 4 – July 5 – July 6
July 6: Independence Day in Malawi (1964) and in Comoros (1975); Statehood Day in Lithuania (1253); Jan Hus Day in the Czech Republic; the festival of San Fermín begins in Pamplona, Spain
- 1415 – Jan Hus (pictured), founder of the Christian Hussite reform movement, was burned at the stake for committing heresy.
- 1885 – French chemist Louis Pasteur successfully tested his vaccine against rabies on nine-year-old Joseph Meister after he was bitten by an infected dog.
- 1887 – King Kalākaua of Hawai'i was forced to sign the Bayonet Constitution, stripping the Hawaiian monarchy of much of its authority as well as disfranchising all Asians, most native Hawaiians, and the poor.
- 1957 – John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for the first time at the Woolton Garden Fête held at St. Peter's Church. The former was performing with his skiffle group called The Quarrymen. Both became acquainted and Paul joined the band in October, 1957.
- 1966 – Hastings Banda became the first president of Malawi, exactly two years after the country was granted independence from the United Kingdom.
More events: July 5 – July 6 – July 7
July 7: Independence Day in the Solomon Islands (1978); Tanabata in Japan; Ivan Kupala Day in Russia and Ukraine; World YouTube Day
- 1798 – The Quasi-War, an undeclared war fought entirely at sea, began after the United States rescinded their treaties with France.
- 1807 – Tsar Alexander I of Russia and Napoleon I of France signed the first agreement of the Treaties of Tilsit, ending the War of the Fourth Coalition.
- 1846 – American forces led by Commodore John D. Sloat (pictured) occupied Monterey and Yerba Buena, beginning the annexation of California.
- 1937 – In the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, a battle marking the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Empire of Japan's Imperial Japanese Army defeated the Republic of China's National Revolutionary Army on Beijing's Marco Polo Bridge.
- 1985 – At the age of 17, tennis player Boris Becker defeated Kevin Curren to become the first German, the first unseeded player, and the youngest-ever to win the men's singles title at Wimbledon.
More events: July 6 – July 7 – July 8
- 1709 – Great Northern War: At Poltava, Ukraine, Peter I of Russia defeated Charles XII of Sweden in the Battle of Poltava, effectively ending Sweden's role as a major power in Europe.
- 1859 – Charles XV became King of Sweden and Norway following the death of his father Oscar I.
- 1889 – The first issue of The Wall Street Journal, an influential international daily newspaper, was published.
- 1947 – Various news agencies reported the capture of a "flying saucer" by United States Air Force personnel from the Roswell Army Air Field in Roswell, New Mexico.
- 2004 – After a 19-month trial, U.S. Marine Corps Major Michael Brown was convicted by a court in Naha, Okinawa for an attempted indecent assault on a Filipina bartender.
More events: July 7 – July 8 – July 9
July 9: Independence Day in Argentina (1816)
- 1357 – The foundation stone of Charles Bridge (pictured) in Prague was laid by Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV.
- 1816 – The Congress of Tucumán declared the independence of Argentina, then known as the United Provinces of the River Plate, from Spain.
- 1922 – Johnny Weissmuller swam the 100-meter freestyle in 58.6 seconds, breaking a world swimming record and the "minute barrier."
- 1955 – The Russell-Einstein Manifesto was issued in the midst of the Cold War, calling for a conference where scientists would "appraise the perils that have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction."
- 2002 – The African Union was launched in Durban, South Africa, with President of South Africa Thabo Mbeki as its first chairman.
More events: July 8 – July 9 – July 10
July 10: Independence Day in the Bahamas (1973); Silence Day
- 1584 – William the Silent (pictured), the Prince of Orange, was assassinated at his home in Delft, Holland by Balthasar Gérard.
- 1796 – German mathematician and scientist Carl Friedrich Gauss discovered that every positive integer is representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers, writing in his diary his famous words, "Heureka! num= Δ + Δ + Δ."
- 1925 – Indian guru Meher Baba began his silence of 44 years until his death in 1969.
- 1962 – Telstar, the world's first active, direct relay communications satellite, was launched by NASA aboard a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral.
- 1985 – French intelligence agents bombed and sank the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior, while docked in a port of Auckland, New Zealand, to prevent her from interfering in a nuclear test in Moruroa.
More events: July 9 – July 10 – July 11
July 11: Naadam in Mongolia begins
- 1302 – Flemish infantry successfully halted a French invasion near Kortrijk in the Battle of the Golden Spurs.
- 1789 – French Revolution: Jacques Necker was dismissed as Director-General of Finances and ordered to leave France at once.
- 1804 – U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton (pictured) during a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey.
- 1957 – Prince Karīm al-Hussaynī succeeded Sultan Mahommed Shah as the Aga Khan, becoming the 49th Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims.
- 1995 – Bosnian Genocide: Bosnian Serb forces under Ratko Mladić began the Srebrenica massacre in Potočari, Srebrenica, eventually killing an estimated total of 8,000 Bosniaks.
More events: July 10 – July 11 – July 12
July 12: The Twelfth, commemoration of the Battle of the Boyne (1690) in Northern Ireland
- 1543 – King Henry VIII of England married Catherine Parr (pictured), his sixth and last wife, at Hampton Court Palace.
- 1580 – Ostrog Bible, the first Bible in Old Church Slavonic, was printed in Ostroh, Ukraine by Ivan Fyodorov.
- 1806 – Sixteen German imperial states left the Holy Roman Empire and formed the Confederation of the Rhine.
- 1862 – The U.S. Army Medal of Honor was first authorized by the U.S. Congress.
- 1975 – São Tomé and Príncipe declared independence from Portugal.
- 1979 – The Gilbert Islands gained independence and became known as Kiribati.
More events: July 11 – July 12 – July 13
July 13: National Day of Commemoration in Ireland (2008); Traditional date of the Bon Festival in Japan
- 1772 – HMS Resolution set sail from Plymouth, England, under the command of Captain James Cook.
- 1793 – Jean-Paul Marat (pictured), a leader in the French Revolution, was murdered in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday. The death was later portrayed in the painting The Death of Marat.
- 1863 – Three days of rioting began in New York City by opponents of new laws passed by the United States Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War.
- 1878 – The major powers in Europe redrew the map of the Balkans in the Treaty of Berlin.
- 1985 – Live Aid benefit concerts, organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia, were held at Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia.
More events: July 12 – July 13 – July 14
July 14: Bastille Day in France
- 1789 – French Revolution: Parisians stormed the Bastille (pictured), freeing its inmates and taking the prison's large quantities of arms and ammunition.
- 1798 – The Sedition Act became United States law, making it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the U.S. government.
- 1933 – Gleichschaltung: All political parties in Germany were outlawed, except the National Socialist German Workers Party.
- 1958 – King Faisal II, the last king of Iraq, was overthrown by a military coup d'état led by Abd al-Karim Qasim.
- 1965 – The NASA spacecraft Mariner 4 flew past Mars, collecting the first close-up pictures of another planet.
More events: July 13 – July 14 – July 15
- 1410 – The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania defeated the Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights in the Battle of Grunwald, the decisive engagement of the Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War.
- 1685 – James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, was executed for his role in the Monmouth Rebellion, an attempt to overthrow the King James II of England.
- 1799 – French soldiers uncovered the Rosetta Stone (pictured) in the Egyptian port city of Rashid.
- 1823 – A fire destroyed the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. The church would later be restored by 1840.
- 1974 – Greek-sponsored nationalists overthrew Archbishop Makarios, President of Cyprus, in a coup d'état and replaced him with Nikos Sampson.
More events: July 14 – July 15 – July 16
- 622 – The epoch of the Islamic calendar occurred, marking the year that Muhammad began his Hijra from Mecca to Medina.
- 1769 – Spanish friar Junípero Serra founded Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first Franciscan mission in the Alta California region of New Spain.
- 1945 – Manhattan Project: "Trinity", the first nuclear test explosion, was detonated near Alamogordo, New Mexico, United States. (pictured)
- 1979 – Saddam Hussein replaced the resigning Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as President of Iraq, after having gradually usurped power from his cousin.
- 1994 – The planet Jupiter was hit by fragments of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet, causing a fireball which reached a peak temperature of about 24,000 K.
More events: July 15 – July 16 – July 17
July 17: Birthday of Ali in Iran (2008); Yama-boko Junkō in Kyoto, Japan; Constitution Day in South Korea
- 1762 – Peter III was killed at Ropsha, a few days after he was deposed as Emperor of Russia and replaced by his wife Catherine II.
- 1815 – Napoleonic Wars: Napoléon made his formal surrender to British forces on board the HMS Bellerophon off the port of Rochefort, France, ending the Hundred Days.
- 1936 – Nationalist rebels in Spain attempted a coup d'état against the Second Spanish Republic, commencing the Spanish Civil War.
- 1945 – Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Harry S. Truman met at the Potsdam Conference to decide how to administer post-World War II Germany.
- 1955 – Walt Disney's first theme park Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California.
- 1998 – Biologists reported in the scientific journal Science how they sequenced the genome of Treponema pallidum, the bacterium that causes syphilis.
More events: July 16 – July 17 – July 18
- 64 – The Great Fire of Rome started among the shops around the Circus Maximus selling flammable goods, eventually destroying four of fourteen Roman districts and severely damaging seven others.
- 1863 – American Civil War: Led by Union Army Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (pictured), the first formal African American military unit, spearheaded an assault on Fort Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina.
- 1982 – Guatemalan military forces and their paramilitary allies slaughtered over 250 Mayan campesinos in the village of Plan de Sánchez, Baja Verapaz department.
- 1995 – During the fifteenth stage of the 1995 Tour de France, Italian cyclist Fabio Casartelli suffered a fatal crash on the descent of the Col de Portet d'Aspet.
- 1996 – Paris-bound TWA Flight 800 exploded at 00:31 UTC (20:31, July 17 EDT) off the coast of Long Island, New York, killing all 230 on board.
More events: July 17 – July 18 – July 19
- 711 – Muslim conquests: Moorish Umayyad invaders led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad defeated Roderic and the Visigoths at the Battle of Guadalete.
- 1553 – Lady Jane Grey was replaced by Mary I of England (pictured) as Queen of England after holding that title for just nine days.
- 1848 – The two-day Women's Rights Convention, the first women's rights and feminist convention held in the United States, opened in Seneca Falls, New York.
- 1870 – A dispute over who would become the next Spanish monarch following Isabella II's abdication two years prior during the Glorious Revolution led France to declare war on Prussia.
- 1947 – Burmese nationalist Aung San and six members of his newly-formed cabinet were assassinated during a cabinet meeting.
More events: July 18 – July 19 – July 20
July 20: Independence Day in Colombia (1810); Friends' Day in Argentina and other Latin American countries
- 1402 – Forces under Timur defeated the Ottomans in the Battle of Ankara and captured Sultan Bayezid I.
- 1656 – Led by King Charles X Gustav, the armies of Sweden and Brandenburg defeated the forces of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth at the Battle of Warsaw.
- 1866 – Third Italian War of Independence: The Austrian Navy led by Wilhelm von Tegetthoff defeated a much larger Italian fleet in the Battle of Lissa.
- 1940 – Billboard magazine published its first "Music Popularity Chart".
- 1944 – Adolf Hitler survived an assassination attempt by German Resistance member Claus von Stauffenberg, who hid a bomb inside a briefcase during a conference at the Wolfsschanze military headquarters in East Prussia.
- 1969 – The Apollo 11 lunar module landed on the Sea of Tranquillity, where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (pictured) would become the first men to walk on the moon six-and-a-half hours later.
More events: July 19 – July 20 – July 21
July 21: Marine Day in Japan (2008); National holiday of Belgium; Racial Harmony Day in Singapore
- 356 BC – The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was destroyed in an act of arson by a man named Herostratus.
- 1831 – In Brussels, Leopold I (pictured) was inaugurated as the first King of the Belgians.
- 1861 – In the First Battle of Bull Run, the first major battle in the American Civil War, the Confederate Army under Joseph E. Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard routed Union Army troops under Irvin McDowell.
- 1925 – Creation-evolution controversy: High school biology teacher John T. Scopes was found guilty of violating Tennessee's Butler Act by teaching evolution in class.
- 1954 – First Indochina War: The Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone was established at the Geneva Conference, partitioning Vietnam along the 17th parallel into North Vietnam led by Ho Chi Minh and South Vietnam under Emperor Bao Dai.
More events: July 20 – July 21 – July 22
July 22: Pi Approximation Day; Feast day of Mary Magdalene
- 1099 – First Crusade: Godfrey of Bouillon was elected the first Protector of the Holy Sepulchre in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
- 1793 – Two days after becoming the first Euro-American to complete a transcontinental crossing north of Mexico, Scottish-Canadian explorer Alexander MacKenzie reached the westernmost point of his journey and inscribed his name on a rock using a reddish paint made of vermilion and rendered bear fat.
- 1812 – Peninsular War: Near Salamanca, Spain, an Anglo-Portuguese force led by Arthur Wellesley (pictured) inflicted a severe defeat on Marshal Auguste Marmont and his French troops in the Battle of Salamanca.
- 1933 – Wiley Post became the first pilot to fly a fixed-wing aircraft solo around the world.
- 1946 – An Irgun bomb destroyed the headquarters of the British Mandate of Palestine at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing about 90 people and injuring 45 others.
- 2003 – Coalition forces attacked a compound in Mosul, Iraq, killing two of Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay, the "aces of hearts and clubs" on the U.S. list of most-wanted Iraqis after the invasion of Iraq.
More events: July 21 – July 22 – July 23
July 23: Revolution Day in Egypt
- 1881 – The International Federation of Gymnastics, the world's oldest international sport federation, was founded in Liège, Belgium.
- 1952 – Egyptian Army officers in the Free Officers Movement led by Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser staged a military coup that forced King Farouk of Egypt to abdicate.
- 1970 – Qaboos overthrew his father Said bin Taimur to become Sultan of Oman.
- 1986 – Sarah Ferguson married Prince Andrew, Duke of York at Westminster Abbey, joining the British Royal Family as the Duchess of York.
- 1995 – Hale-Bopp, one of the most widely observed comets of the twentieth century, was discovered by two independent observers, Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp, at a very large distance from the Sun.
- 2001 – Megawati Sukarnoputri (pictured), daughter of independence leader Sukarno, became the first female president of Indonesia after the People's Consultative Assembly removed Abdurrahman Wahid.
More events: July 22 – July 23 – July 24
July 24: Pioneer Day in Utah; Simón Bolívar Day in Ecuador and Venezuela
- 1411 – Forces of Donald of Islay, Lord of the Isles and chief of Clan Macdonald, fought an army commanded by Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar at the Battle of Harlaw near Inverurie in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
- 1847 – After 17 months of travel, Brigham Young led the first group of Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley of Utah, at the time a part of Mexico.
- 1911 – In the Peruvian Andes, American explorer Hiram Bingham re-discovered Machu Picchu (pictured), then thought to be the "Lost City of the Incas".
- 1943 – World War II: RAF Bomber Command started Operation Gomorrah, the strategic bombing of Hamburg, Germany that spanned over several days and eventually killed at least 50,000 and left over a million others homeless.
- 2001 – Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Tsar of Bulgaria when he was a child, was sworn in as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, becoming the first monarch in history to regain political power through democratic election to a different office.
More events: July 23 – July 24 – July 25
July 25: Commonwealth Constitution Day in Puerto Rico; Galicia Day in Galicia, Spain; Feast day of Saint James the Great
- 306 – Constantine I was proclaimed Roman Emperor by his troops after the death of Constantius Chlorus.
- 1536 – Spanish conquistador Sebastián de Belalcázar founded Santiago de Cali in present-day western Colombia while on his search for the mythical city of El Dorado.
- 1792 – French Revolutionary Wars: Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick issued the Brunswick Manifesto to the population of Paris, promising vengeance if King Louis XVI and other members of the French Royal Family were harmed.
- 1909 – French aviator Louis Blériot (pictured) made the first crossing of the English Channel in a heavier-than-air flying machine, flying from Les Barraques near Calais in France to Dover, England.
- 1978 – Two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists were killed by police at Cerro Maravilla in Villalba, Puerto Rico, sparking a series of political controversies where the police officers were eventually found guilty of murder and several high-ranking local government officials were accused of covering-up the incident.
- 2000 – Air France Concorde Flight 4590, en route from Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, crashed in Gonesse, France, killing all 100 passengers and nine crew members, as well as four people on the ground.
More events: July 24 – July 25 – July 26
July 26: Independence Day in Liberia (1847) and Maldives (1965)
- 811 –Bulgarian forces led by Krum defeated a Byzantine invasion in the Battle of Pliska, killed Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros I and severely wounded his son and co-emperor Staurakios.
- 1139 – After a victory over the Almoravid Moors in the Battle of Ourique, Afonso the Conqueror was proclaimed the first king of an independent Portugal.
- 1822 – José de San Martín met with Simón Bolívar in Guayaquil to plan for the future of Peru and South America in general.
- 1882 – Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal (pictured) premiered at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, Germany.
- 1953 – Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl led a group of approximately 160 rebels in an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks, thus beginning the Cuban Revolution.
More events: July 25 – July 26 – July 27
July 27: Parents' Day in the United States (2008); José Celso Barbosa Day in Puerto Rico
- 1214 – Philip II of France decisively won the Battle of Bouvines and took undisputed control of the territories of Anjou, Brittany, Maine, Normandy and the Touraine.
- 1865 – A group of Welsh settlers arrived at Chubut Valley in Argentina's Patagonia region.
- 1949 – The de Havilland Comet, the world's first jet airliner, made its maiden flight.
- 1953 – Korean War: A cease-fire was signed, creating a demilitarized zone approximately 4 km (2.5 miles) wide running across the Korean Peninsula between North and South Korea. (Joint Security Area pictured)
- 1996 – Centennial Olympic Park bombing: A pipe bomb exploded during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, killing two and injuring 111.
More events: July 26 – July 27 – July 28
July 28: Independence Day in Peru (1821)
- 1794 – French Revolution: Reign of Terror leader Maximilien Robespierre (pictured) was guillotined one day after the National Convention ordered his arrest.
- 1809 – Peninsular War: Sir Arthur Wellesley's Anglo-Spanish army earned a pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Talavera against French forces under Joseph Bonaparte.
- 1914 – Austria-Hungary declared war after rejecting Serbia's conditional acceptance of only part of the July Ultimatum following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, starting World War I.
- 1976 – The Tangshan earthquake, measuring between 7.5 and 8.2 on the Richter magnitude scale, flattened Tangshan, China, killing about 242,419 people and injuring 164,851 others.
- 1990 – Alberto Fujimori, the first person of Japanese descent elected as an executive head of state of a Latin American nation, took office as President of Peru.
- 1996 – The remains of the prehistoric Kennewick Man were discovered on a bank of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington, USA.
More events: July 27 – July 28 – July 29
July 29: Ólavsøka in the Faroe Islands; National Anthem Day in Romania
- 1030 – King Olaf II (pictured) fought and died in the Battle of Stiklestad, trying to regain his Norwegian throne from the Danes.
- 1588 - Anglo-Spanish War: English naval forces under command of Lord Charles Howard and Sir Francis Drake defeated the Spanish Armada off the coast of Gravelines, France.
- 1947 – ENIAC, the world's first general-purpose electronic digital computer, was turned on in its new home at the Ballistic Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, remaining in continuous operation until October 2, 1955.
- 1957 – The International Atomic Energy Agency was established, promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
- 1981 – A worldwide television audience of over 700 million people watched Diana Spencer marry Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales at St Paul's Cathedral in London.
More events: July 28 – July 29 – July 30
July 30: Independence Day in Vanuatu (1980)
- 1756 – Architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli presented the Catherine Palace (pictured), a Rococo palace in Tsarskoye Selo, to Empress Elizabeth of Russia.
- 1864 – American Civil War: Union forces failed to break Confederate lines in the Battle of the Crater by exploding a large bomb under their trenches.
- 1930 – Uruguay defeated Argentina, 4 to 2, in front of their home crowd at Estadio Centenario in Montevideo to win the first Football World Cup.
- 1945 – World War II: The USS Indianapolis, a heavy cruiser of the United States Navy, was sunk by the Japanese submarine I-58, killing over 800 seamen.
- 2003 – The last old-style Beetle, the economy car produced by the German automaker Volkswagen, rolled off the assembly line in Puebla, Mexico.
- 2006 – Lebanon War: The Israeli Air Force attacked a three-story building near the South Lebanese village of Qana, killing at least 28 civilians, including 16 children.
More events: July 29 – July 30 – July 31
July 31: Ka Hae Hawai‘i Day in Hawai'i; Feast day of Saint Ignatius of Loyola
- 1667 – The Second Anglo-Dutch War between England and the United Provinces ended with the signing of the Treaty of Breda in the Dutch city of Breda.
- 1703 – English writer Daniel Defoe was placed in a pillory for seditious libel after publishing a pamphlet politically satirising the High church Tories.
- 1777 – The Second Continental Congress passed a resolution allowing French nobleman Marquis de Lafayette to enter the American revolutionary forces as a Major General.
- 1917 – World War I: The Battle of Passchendaele began near the town of Ypres in West Flanders, Belgium, with the Allied Powers aiming to push through the German lines and capture their submarine bases along the Belgian coast.
- 1941 – The Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi military leader Hermann Göring ordered SS general Reinhard Heydrich to develop "a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution to the Jewish question".
- 1971 – Apollo program: The first Lunar Rover (pictured) was used during the Apollo 15 mission to the moon.
More events: July 30 – July 31 – August 1
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
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[edit] Selected anniversaries for August
August 1: Emancipation Day in Trinidad and Tobago; Imbolc in the Southern Hemisphere; Swiss National Day in Switzerland
- 1774 – British scientist Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen gas, corroborating the prior discovery of this element by German-Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
- 1831 – A new London Bridge (pictured), designed by engineer John Rennie, opened. It stood over London's River Thames until American entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch bought it in 1968 and subsequently moved it to Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
- 1927 – In the Nanchang Uprising, the first major engagement in the Chinese Civil War, Communist forces seized control over the entire city of Nanchang from the Kuomintang.
- 1944 – World War II: The Polish Home Army began the Warsaw Uprising in Warsaw against the Nazi occupation of Poland.
- 1981 – The American cable television network MTV made its debut with the music video for the song "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles.
More events: July 31 – August 1 – August 2
- 216 BC – Second Punic War: Carthaginian forces led by Hannibal (bust pictured) defeated a numerically superior Roman army at the Battle of Cannae near the town of Cannae in Apulia in southeast Italy.
- 1870 – Tower Subway, the world's first underground railway, opened beneath the River Thames in London.
- 1903 – The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire carried out the Ilinden Uprising.
- 1934 – Gleichschaltung: Chancellor Adolf Hitler became Führer, making him both the head of state and the head of government of Nazi Germany.
- 1990 – Iraq invaded Kuwait, overrunning the Kuwaiti military within two days, and eventually sparking the outbreak of the Gulf War seven months later.
More events: August 1 – August 2 – August 3
August 3: Independence Day in Niger (1960); Flag Day in Venezuela
- 435 – Nestorius, the originator of Nestorianism, was exiled by Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II to a monastery in Egypt.
- 1916 – Irish nationalist Sir Roger Casement was hanged at London's Pentonville Prison for treason for his role in the Easter Rising, a rebellion to win Irish independence from Britain.
- 1923 – Calvin Coolidge (pictured) was inaugurated as the 30th President of the United States, succeeding Warren G. Harding who suffered a fatal heart attack one day earlier.
- 1948 – Before the House Un-American Activities Committee of the United States House of Representatives, former spy turned government informer Whittaker Chambers accused U.S. State Department official Alger Hiss of being a communist and a Soviet spy.
- 1958 – The nuclear-powered submarine USS Nautilus made the world's first submerged voyage across the North Pole.
- 2005 – President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya of Mauritania was overthrown in a military coup while he was attending the funeral of King Fahd in Saudi Arabia.
More events: August 2 – August 3 – August 4
August 4: Civic Holiday in most areas of Canada (2008); Emancipation Day in various Caribbean countries (2008)
- 1578 – King Sebastian I (pictured) disappeared at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir near Ksar-el-Kebir, Morocco, leading to a dynastic crisis in Portugal.
- 1704 – War of the Spanish Succession: A combined Anglo–Dutch fleet under the command of George Rooke and allied with Archduke Charles captured Gibraltar from Spain.
- 1790 – A newly passed tariff act in the United States established the Revenue Cutter Service, an armed maritime law enforcement service that was the forerunner of the United States Coast Guard.
- 1892 – The father and stepmother of spinster Lizzie Borden were found murdered in Fall River, Massachusetts, USA, an incident that became a cause célèbre and entered into pop culture and folklore.
- 1964 – Gulf of Tonkin Incident: The second of two U.S. Navy destroyers was reportedly attacked by North Vietnamese forces in the Gulf of Tonkin, sparking the U.S. Congress to pass a resolution giving U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorization for the use of military force in Southeast Asia.
More events: August 3 – August 4 – August 5
August 5: Independence Day in Burkina Faso (1960); Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day in Croatia
- 642 – King Penda of Mercia defeated and killed King Oswald of Northumbria in the Battle of Maserfield.
- 1100 – Henry I was crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey.
- 1858 – American businessman and financier Cyrus West Field (pictured) and colleagues completed the first transatlantic telegraph cable, crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Foilhommerum, Valentia Island, Ireland to Heart's Content, Newfoundland.
- 1962 – American actress and model Marilyn Monroe was found dead in the bedroom of her Brentwood, Los Angeles home. Although it was officially ruled as an overdose of sleeping pills in a "probable suicide", her death has been the subject of murder conspiracy theories since then.
- 2003 – A suicide bomber detonated a car bomb outside the lobby of the JW Marriott Hotel in Setiabudi, South Jakarta, Indonesia, killing twelve people and injuring 150.
More events: August 4 – August 5 – August 6
August 6: Feast of the Transfiguration in Christianity; Independence Day in Bolivia (1825) and Jamaica (1962)
- 1806 – The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved after the last emperor Francis II was forced to abdicate.
- 1890 – At Auburn Prison in the USA, William Kemmler became the first person to be executed in an electric chair.
- 1945 – World War II: the U.S. Army Air Force dropped an atomic bomb named Little Boy (pictured) on Hiroshima, Japan, killing an estimated 80,000 people.
- 1966 – Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan became emir and ruler of Abu Dhabi, succeeding his brother Shaikh Shakhbut Bin-Sultan Al Nahyan who was deposed in a bloodless coup d'état.
- 1991 – British computer programmer Tim Berners-Lee suggested a system of interlinked, hypertext documents accessible via the Internet, to be called a "World Wide Web".
More events: August 5 – August 6 – August 7
August 7: Qi Xi in the Chinese lunar calendar (2008); Independence Day in Côte d'Ivoire
- 1679 – Le Griffon, a brigantine by René-Robert de LaSalle, became the first sailing ship to navigate the Great Lakes.
- 1782 – The Badge of Military Merit (pictured), the original Purple Heart, was established as a military decoration in the Continental Army.
- 1947 – An expedition led by Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Pacific Ocean in 101 days on his raft, Kon-Tiki.
- 1965 – Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman of the Federation of Malaysia demanded that Singapore withdraw from the federation, choosing to "sever ties with a State Government that showed no measure of loyalty to its Central Government."
- 1998 – The bombing of U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, killed over 200 people and injured over 4,500.
More events: August 6 – August 7 – August 8
August 8: Father's Day in Taiwan
- 1786 – Michel-Gabriel Paccard and Jacques Balmat became the first people to climb Mont Blanc in the Alps, one of the highest mountains in Europe.
- 1870 – Liberal radicals in Ploieşti, Romania revolted against Romanian Domnitor Carol I, only to be arrested the next day.
- 1876 – Thomas Edison received a patent for his mimeograph machine, a printing machine that was one of the forerunners to the photocopier.
- 1938 – The Holocaust: Construction of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, one of the largest labour camp complexes in German-occupied Europe, began.
- 1967 – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand founded the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
- 1991 – The Warsaw radio mast (pictured), the tallest structure ever built at 646.38 m (2,121 ft), collapsed due to an error in exchanging the guys on the highest stock of the mast.
More events: August 7 – August 8 – August 9
August 9: Tisha B'Av begins at sunset (Judaism, 2008); National Day for Singapore; National Women's Day in South Africa
- 378 – A large Roman army led by Emperor Valens was destroyed by the Goths in the Battle of Adrianople.
- 1173 – The construction of a campanile, which would eventually become the Leaning Tower of Pisa, began.
- 1945 – World War II: USAAF bomber Bockscar dropped an atomic bomb named Fat Man, devastating Nagasaki, Japan (pictured).
- 1969 – Followers of cult leader Charles Manson brutally murdered pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others in her Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles home.
- 1974 – The Watergate scandal: Richard Nixon became the first (and to date only) President of the United States to resign from office.
More events: August 8 – August 9 – August 10
August 10: Independence Day in Ecuador; International Biodiesel Day
- 1792 – French Revolution: Insurrectionists in Paris stormed the Tuileries Palace (pictured), effectively ending the French monarchy until it was restored in 1814.
- 1809 – History of Ecuador: After nearly three centuries of Spanish rule, the first cry for independence was heard in Quito.
- 1846 – The Smithsonian Institution was chartered by the United States Congress.
- 1920 – Representatives of Sultan Mehmed VI signed the Treaty of Sèvres, recognizing the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I.
- 1990 – The Magellan space probe reached Venus, fifteen months after its launch.
More events: August 9 – August 10 – August 11
August 11: Independence Day in Chad (1960)
- 1492 – Roderic Borja was elected pope and became known as Pope Alexander VI.
- 1786 – Captain Francis Light founded the British colony of Penang, renaming it Prince of Wales Island in honour of the heir to the British throne.
- 1828 – William Corder was hanged at Bury St Edmunds, England for murdering Maria Marten at the Red Barn.
- 1919 – The Weimar Republic adopted its constitution.
- 1952 – King Talal of Jordan abdicated due to health reasons and was succeeded by his eldest son Hussein.
- 1987 – Alan Greenspan (pictured) became Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve.
More events: August 10 – August 11 – August 12
August 12: Mother's Day in Thailand; International Youth Day
- 1099 – The First Crusade concluded with the Battle of Ascalon and Fatimid forces under Al-Afdal Shahanshah retreating to Egypt.
- 1121 – Forces led by David the Builder decisively won the Battle of Didgori, driving Ilghazi and the Seljuk Turks out of Georgia.
- 1953 – History of nuclear weapons: The first Soviet thermonuclear bomb, Joe 4, was detonated at Semipalatinsk, Kazakh SSR.
- 1985 – Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashed in Gunma Prefecture, Japan, killing 520 of 524 on board in the world's worst single-aircraft aviation disaster.
- 1990 – American paleontologist Sue Hendrickson found the most complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus (pictured) near Faith, South Dakota, USA.
More events: August 11 – August 12 – August 13
August 13: Independence Day for the Central African Republic (1960)
- 1704 – Led by the Duke of Marlborough (pictured), the combined forces of England, the Holy Roman Empire, and the United Provinces defeated France and Bavaria in the Battle of Blenheim, one of the turning points of the War of the Spanish Succession.
- 1913 – Harry Brearley developed stainless steel.
- 1961 – Construction of the Berlin Wall, a long barrier separating West Berlin from East Berlin and the surrounding territory of East Germany, began.
- 2004 – Black Friday: The Maldivian National Security Service cracked down on a peaceful protest in Malé, the capital of the Maldives, causing Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom to declare a state of emergency in Malé and nearby islands.
More events: August 12 – August 13 – August 14
August 14: Independence Day for Pakistan (1947)
- 1385 – Forces under João I defeated the Castilians in the Battle of Aljubarrota, ending the 1383–1385 Crisis in Portugal.
- 1842 – Seminole Indians were forced from Florida to Oklahoma, ending the Second Seminole War.
- 1941 – After a secret meeting aboard warships in a secure anchorage near Argentia, Newfoundland, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (pictured) issued the Atlantic Charter, establishing a vision for a post-World War II world despite the fact that the United States had yet to enter the war.
- 1994 – Leftist revolutionary and mercenary Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, known as Carlos the Jackal, was handed over to French agents by his own bodyguards.
- 2005 – Helios Airways Flight 522 crashed into a mountain north of Marathon and Varnava, Greece, killing all 121 on board.
More events: August 13 – August 14 – August 15
August 15: Ghost Festival in the Chinese calendar (2008); Victory over Japan Day; Independence Day in North Korea & South Korea (1945), India (1947), and Congo (1960); Flooding of the Nile in Egypt
- 778 – A Frankish army led by Roland was defeated in the Battle of Roncevaux Pass, a tale retold in the Old French epic poem The Song of Roland.
- 1248 – The foundation stone of the Cologne Cathedral, built to house the relics of the Three Wise Men, was laid. Construction eventually completed in 1880.
- 1534 – Ignatius of Loyola (pictured) and six others at Montmartre near Paris took the vows that led to the establishment of the Society of Jesus.
- 1914 – The Panama Canal opened to traffic, providing a short-cut from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
- 1945 – The surrender of Japan during World War II: The Gyokuon-hōsō was broadcast in Japan, announcing the unconditional surrender of the Japanese army and naval forces.
- 1947 – The British Raj was partitioned into two sovereign states: the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan.
More events: August 14 – August 15 – August 16
August 16: Raksha Bandhan (Hinduism, 2008); Tu B'Av (Judaism, 2008); Children's Day in Paraguay
- 1777 – American Revolutionary War: The New Hampshire Militia led by John Stark (pictured) routed British and German troops under Friedrich Baum in the Battle of Bennington.
- 1819 – Cavalry charged into a crowd, turning a public meeting in Manchester, England into the Peterloo Massacre.
- 1896 – A group led by Skookum Jim Mason discovered gold near Dawson City, Yukon, Canada, setting off the Klondike Gold Rush.
- 1977 – Elvis Presley, "The King of Rock and Roll", was found dead on the floor of his bathroom. Although it was officially ruled as a fatal heart attack, many people have claimed to have seen Elvis alive since then.
- 1987 – Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashed after takeoff in Detroit, Michigan, USA, killing all of the crew and passengers except one.
More events: August 15 – August 16 – August 17
August 17: Independence Day in Indonesia (1945) and Gabon (1960)
- 1862 – The Lakotas, an ethnic group of the Sioux Native Americans, attacked settlements along the Minnesota River, sparking the Dakota War of 1862 against the United States.
- 1914 – World War I: Ignoring orders to retreat, Hermann von François (pictured) led a successful counterattack defending East Prussia in the Battle of Stalluponen and scored the first German victory in the Eastern Front.
- 1915 – Jewish American Leo Frank was lynched by a mob of prominent citizens in Marietta, Georgia for the alleged murder of a 13-year-old girl, turning the spotlight on antisemitism in the United States.
- 1962 – East German border guards shot and killed Peter Fechter as he attempted to cross the Berlin Wall into West Berlin.
- 1978 – Double Eagle II became the first hot air balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean, landing in Miserey near Paris six days after leaving Presque Isle, Maine.
More events: August 16 – August 17 – August 18
- 293 BC – The oldest known Roman temple to Venus was founded, starting the institution of Vinalia Rustica.
- 1572 – French Wars of Religion: Marguerite de Valois (pictured) was married to Huguenot King Henry of Navarre, in a supposed attempt to reconcile Protestants and Catholics in France.
- 1590 – John White, the governor of the Colony of Roanoke, returned from a supply trip to England and found his settlement deserted.
- 1868 – Pierre Janssen discovered helium while analyzing the chromosphere during a total eclipse of the sun. This was the first element detected in space before being found on Earth.
- 1941 – The T-4 Euthanasia Program in Nazi Germany was temporarily halted due to public resistance.
- 1966 – Vietnam War: A company of the Royal Australian Regiment fought a much larger North Vietnamese unit in the Battle of Long Tan.
More events: August 17 – August 18 – August 19
August 19: Afghan Independence Day; National Aviation Day in the United States
- 1942 – World War II: Allied forces unsuccessfully raided the German-occupied port of Dieppe, France in the Dieppe Raid, suffering over 3,000 casualties.
- 1953 – The government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq was overthrown in a coup d'état and was replaced by Fazlollah Zahedi.
- 1960 – Russian space dogs Belka and Strelka (pictured) began to orbit the Earth aboard the Korabl-Sputnik-2 spacecraft.
- 1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev was announced as "ill and had been relieved of his state post as President" in a failed Soviet coup attempt.
- 2003 – A car bomb destroyed the United Nations headquarters at Baghdad's Canal Hotel, killing Brazilian diplomat Sérgio Vieira de Mello and 21 others.
More events: August 18 – August 19 – August 20
August 20: St. Stephen's Day in Hungary
- 917 – Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars: Bulgarians led by Tsar Simeon I (seal pictured) drove the Byzantines out of Thrace with a decisive victory in the Battle of Anchialus.
- 1794 – American troops defeated the Western Confederacy, a Native American alliance, at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, the decisive battle of the Northwest Indian War.
- 1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition, exploring the Louisiana Purchase, suffered its only death when Sergeant Charles Floyd died, apparently from acute appendicitis.
- 1991 – Estonia regained its independence in the Singing Revolution, breaking away from the Soviet Union.
More events: August 19 – August 20 – August 21
August 21: Ninoy Aquino Day in the Philippines
- 1772 – A bloodless coup d'état led by Gustav III was completed with the adoption of a new Swedish Constitution.
- 1831 – Nat Turner led a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia, USA, but it was suppressed about 48 hours later.
- 1911 – Mona Lisa (pictured), an oil painting by Leonardo da Vinci, was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris. It was recovered two years later.
- 1963 – The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces loyal to Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother of President Ngo Dinh Diem, raided and vandalised Buddhist pagodas across the country, arresting thousands and leaving an estimated hundreds dead.
- 1968 – The "Prague Spring", a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia, abruptly ended after 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks successfully invaded the country, killing 72 Czechoslovaks and arresting their leader Alexander Dubček.
- 1976 – Operation "Paul Bunyan" was carried out in response to the Axe Murder Incident, almost triggering a second full-scale Korean War over cutting down a 100 ft (30 m) poplar tree in the Joint Security Area of the Korean Demilitarized Zone.
More events: August 20 – August 21 – August 22
- 1485 – Lancastrian forces under Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond defeated Yorkist forces under Richard III of England at the Battle of Bosworth Field, decisively ending the Wars of the Roses.
- 1791 – A slave rebellion erupted in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, starting the Haitian Revolution.
- 1864 – The Red Cross movement led by Henry Dunant (pictured) officially began when twelve European nations signed the First Geneva Convention, establishing the International Committee of the Red Cross.
- 1910 – Korea was annexed by Japan with the signing of the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty, beginning a period of Japanese rule of Korea that lasted until the end of World War II.
- 1922 – Irish Civil War: Irish National Army commander-in-chief Michael Collins was assassinated in an ambush while en route through County Cork at the village of Béal na mBláth.
More events: August 21 – August 22 – August 23
- 1305 – After a show trial, William Wallace (pictured), leader of the Scottish resistance against England during the Wars of Scottish Independence, was executed in Smithfield Market, London.
- 1839 – As it prepared for war against China's Qing Dynasty, an ensuing conflict that became known as the First Opium War, Britain captured the southeast Asia port of Hong Kong.
- 1927 – After a controversial trial, and despite worldwide protests, Italian-born American anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti were executed via electrocution in Massachusetts for the charge of murder and theft.
- 1939 – World War II: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a 10-year, mutual non-aggression treaty that was eventually broken when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union two years later.
- 1989 – Baltic Way: Approximately two million people joined their hands to form an over 600 km (373 mi) long human chain across the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Soviet republics during the Singing Revolution.
More events: August 22 – August 23 – August 24
August 24: Independence Day in Ukraine (1991)
- 79 – The volcano Mount Vesuvius (pictured) east of Naples, Italy erupted, burying the towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae; and at least 1,500 people with volcanic ash.
- 1572 – The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, a wave of Catholic mob violence against the Huguenots, began, lasting for several months and resulting in an estimated tens of thousands deaths across France.
- 1942 – World War II: The United States aircraft carrier Saratoga sunk the Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons near Santa Isabel, Solomon Islands, helping to lead to an Allied powers victory.
- 2006 – The International Astronomical Union redefined the term "planet", reclassifying Pluto as a dwarf planet.
More events: August 23 – August 24 – August 25
August 25: Heroes' Day in the Philippines (2008); Independence Day in Uruguay
- 1537 – The Honourable Artillery Company, currently the oldest surviving regiment in the British Army, was formed by Royal Charter from King Henry VIII.
- 1609 – Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (pictured) demonstrated his first telescope, a device that became known as a terrestrial or spyglass refracting telescope, to Venetian lawmakers.
- 1875 – Matthew Webb became the first person to swim across the English Channel, traveling from Dover, England to Calais, France in less than 22 hours.
- 1920 – Polish forces under Józef Piłsudski successfully forced the Russians to withdraw from Warsaw at the Battle of Warsaw, the decisive battle of the Polish-Soviet War.
- 1945 – About ten days after World War II ended with Japan announcing its surrender, armed supporters of the Communist Party of China killed Baptist missionary John Birch, regarded by a portion of the American right as the first victim of the Cold War.
More events: August 24 – August 25 – August 26
- 1071 – Byzantine-Seljuk wars: Seljuk Turks led by Alp Arslan captured Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV at the Battle of Manzikert (pictured).
- 1346 – Hundred Years' War: English forces established the military supremacy of the English longbow over the French combination of crossbow and armoured knights at the Battle of Crécy.
- 1748 – The first Lutheran denomination in North America, the Pennsylvania Ministerium, was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
- 1789 – French Revolution: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, defining a set of individual and collective rights of the people, was approved by the National Constituent Assembly at Versailles.
- 1968 – The U.S. Democratic Party's National Convention began at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, sparking four days of peaceful–to–violent clashes between anti–Vietnam War protesters and police.
More events: August 25 – August 26 – August 27
August 27: Independence Day for Moldova (1991)
- 1776 – British forces led by William Howe defeated the Continental Army under George Washington at the Battle of Long Island in Brooklyn, New York, the largest battle of the American Revolutionary War.
- 1883 – Four enormous explosions from the volcanic eruption of Krakatoa (pictured) generated disastrous tsunamis that destroyed many settlements on Java and Sumatra in Indonesia.
- 1896 – The Anglo-Zanzibar War set the record for the shortest war in recorded history when Zanzibar surrendered less than an hour after the conflict broke out with British forces destroying the Beit al Hukum palace.
- 1928 – Over sixty nations signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, renouncing war as an instrument of foreign policy.
- 1939 – Flown by German test pilot Erich Warsitz, experimental jetplane Heinkel He 178 became the world's first aircraft to fly under turbojet power.
More events: August 26 – August 27 – August 28
August 28: Krishna Janmashtami (Hinduism, 2008)
- 1565 – Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded St. Augustine in Spanish Florida, the oldest continually occupied European settlement in the continental United States.
- 1640 – Bishops' Wars: Scottish Covenanter forces led by Alexander Leslie defeated Charles I's English army at the Battle of Newburn near Newburn, England.
- 1845 – The first issue of the popular-science magazine Scientific American was published, currently the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States.
- 1850 – German composer Richard Wagner's romantic opera Lohengrin, featuring the Bridal Chorus, was first performed under the direction of Hungarian composer Franz Liszt in Weimar, Germany.
- 1963 – Martin Luther King, Jr. (pictured) delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., describing his desire for a future where blacks and whites would coexist harmoniously as equals.
More events: August 27 – August 28 – August 29
August 29: Feast day for the Beheading of St. John the Baptist (Christianity)
- 1533 – Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire: Conquistador Francisco Pizarro executed Inca Emperor Atahualpa in Cajamarca.
- 1756 – As neighboring countries began conspiring against him, Frederick II of Prussia (pictured) launched a preemptive invasion of Saxony, starting the Seven Years' War.
- 1907 – The Quebec Bridge, currently the longest cantilever bridge span in the world at 549 m (1800 ft) connecting Quebec City and Lévis, Quebec, Canada across the St. Lawrence River, collapsed during construction, killing 75 workers.
- 1944 – World War II: Slovak troops turned against the pro-Nazi government of Jozef Tiso and the German Wehrmacht, starting the two-month long Slovak National Uprising.
- 2005 – Storm surges of Hurricane Katrina caused multiple breaches in levees around New Orleans, flooding about 80 percent of the city and many neighboring areas for weeks.
More events: August 28 – August 29 – August 30
August 30: St. Rose of Lima's Day in Peru; Victory Day in Turkey
- 1813 – Napoleonic Wars: French General Dominique Vandamme and thousands of his soldiers were captured in the Battle of Kulm by forces of the Sixth Coalition under Field Marshal Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly (pictured).
- 1835 – European settlers landing on the north banks of the Yarra River in Southern Australia founded the city of Melbourne.
- 1862 – American Civil War: James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson led their Confederate troops to a decisive victory against Major General John Pope's Union Army at the Second Battle of Bull Run in Prince William County, Virginia.
- 1918 – Fanny Kaplan shot and wounded Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, helping to spark the Red Terror in the Soviet Union, a repression against Socialist-Revolutionary Party members and other political opponents.
- 1999 – The people of East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia in a United Nations-supervised referendum.
More events: August 29 – August 30 – August 31
August 31: Ramadan begins at sunset (Islam, 2008); Independence Day in Malaysia (1957), Trinidad and Tobago (1962) and Kyrgyzstan (1991)
- 1876 – Abdul Hamid II (pictured) became Sultan of the Ottoman Empire when his brother Murad V was deposed.
- 1888 – Mary Ann Nichols' body was found on the ground in front of a gated stable entrance in Buck's Row, London, allegedly the first victim of the unidentified serial killer known as Jack the Ripper.
- 1986 – After a collision with a freighter, the Soviet ocean liner Admiral Nakhimov sank in the Tsemes Bay area of the Black Sea within 7 minutes, killing over 400 on board.
- 1992 – The one-party Marxist rule in the Republic of the Congo officially ended when Pascal Lissouba was inaugurated as its president after a multi-party election.
- 1997 – Princess Diana, her companion Dodi Fayed, and their driver Henri Paul were killed in a high speed car accident in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris.
More events: August 30 – August 31 – September 1
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
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[edit] Selected anniversaries for September
September 1: First day of Ramadan (Islam, 2008); Labor Day in the United States and Labour Day in Canada (2008); Start of the Liturgical year in the Eastern Orthodox Church; Constitution Day in Slovakia; Independence Day in Uzbekistan
- 1763 – Age of Enlightenment: Catherine II of Russia endorsed educator Ivan Betskoy's plans for the Moscow Orphanage (pictured), an ambitious, state-run, experimental Russian Enlightenment project to educate orphans into ideal citizens.
- 1804 – German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding discovered Juno, one of the largest main belt asteroids, naming it after the Roman goddess.
- 1923 – The Great Kanto earthquake, measuring between about 7.9 and 8.4 on the Richter magnitude scale, struck the Kanto region of Japan, devastating Tokyo and Yokohama, and killing over an estimated 100,000 people.
- 1939 – Germany launched the Polish Campaign and attacked Poland at Wieluń and Westerplatte, starting World War II in Europe.
- 1983 – Soviet jet interceptors shot down the civilian airliner Korean Air Lines Flight 007 near Sakhalin island in the North Pacific, killing all 246 passengers and 23 crew on board.
More events: August 31 – September 1 – September 2
September 2: National Day for Vietnam (1945)
- 31 BC – Final War of the Roman Republic: Troops supporting Octavian defeated the forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the naval Battle of Actium on the Ionian Sea near Actium in Greece.
- 1666 – Great Fire of London: A large fire began in London's Pudding Lane and burned the city for three days, destroying St Paul's Cathedral and the homes of 70,000 of the city's 80,000 inhabitants.
- 1870 – Franco-Prussian War: Prussian forces captured Napoleon III of France at the Battle of Sedan in Sedan, France; the Second French Empire collapsed within days.
- 1898 – Mahdist War: Forces led by Horatio Kitchener (pictured) defeated Sudanese tribesmen at the Battle of Omdurman in Omdurman, Khartoum, Sudan, establishing British dominance in northeastern Africa.
- 1945 – On the deck of the United States Navy battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, representatives from the Empire of Japan and several Allied Powers signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, formally ending World War II.
More events: September 1 – September 2 – September 3
September 3: Ganesh Chaturthi (Hinduism, 2008); Independence Day in Qatar; Flag Day in Australia; Armed Forces Day in Taiwan
- 301 – San Marino, one of the smallest nations in the world and the world's oldest republic still in existence, was founded by Saint Marinus.
- 1260 – Egyptian Mamluks defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in Palestine.
- 1783 – Great Britain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris, formally ending the American Revolutionary War.
- 1901 – The National Flag of Australia (pictured), a Blue Ensign defaced with the Commonwealth Star and the Southern Cross, flew for the first time atop the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne.
- 1976 – The NASA Viking 2 spacecraft landed on Mars and took the first close-up, color photos of the planet's surface.
- 1991 – The Hamlet chicken processing plant fire kills 25 people locked inside a burning chicken plant in North Carolina, USA.
More events: September 2 – September 3 – September 4
- 476 – Germanic leader Odoacer captured Ravenna and deposed Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire.
- 1260 – Wars of the Guelphs and Ghibellines: The Siena Ghibellines defeated the Florence Guelphs at the Battle of Montaperti outside of Siena in Italy.
- 1886 – After over 25 years of fighting against the United States Army and the armed forces of Mexico, Geronimo (pictured) of the Chiricahua Apache surrendered at Skeleton Canyon in Arizona.
- 1888 – American Inventor George Eastman registered the trademark "Kodak" after receiving a patent for his roll film camera.
- 1957 – Defying the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to prevent African American students from attending Little Rock's Central High School.
More events: September 3 – September 4 – September 5
September 5: Teachers' Day in India
- 1774 – In response to the British Parliament enacting the Intolerable Acts, representatives from twelve of Britain's North American colonies convened the First Continental Congress at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia.
- 1793 – French Revolution: The National Convention began "The Reign of Terror", a ten-month period of systematic repression and mass executions by guillotine of perceived enemies within the country.
- 1905 – Under the mediation of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, the Russo-Japanese War officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard near Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA.
- 1972 – Munich massacre: A Palestinian terrorist group called "Black September" took hostage eleven Israeli athletes and coaches at the Olympic Summer Games in Munich, West Germany; all of the hostages were killed less than 24 hours later.
- 1977 – NASA launched the robotic space probe Voyager 1 (pictured), currently the man-made object most distant from Earth.
More events: September 4 – September 5 – September 6
September 6: Independence Day in Swaziland (1968); Defence Day in Pakistan; Unification Day in Bulgaria
- 394 – Forces of the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius I defeated Eugenius, the usurper of the Western Roman Empire, at the Battle of the Frigidus near modern-day Vipava, Slovenia.
- 1522 – The Victoria returned to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain, with Basque explorer Juan Sebastián Elcano (pictured) and 17 other survivors of Ferdinand Magellan's 265-man expedition, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the globe.
- 1955 – Istanbul Pogrom: An overwhelming Turkish mob attacked ethnic Greeks in Istanbul, killing over 13 people, wounding over thirty others, and damaging over 5,000 Greek-owned homes and businesses.
- 1970 – Dawson's Field hijackings: Members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked four jet aircraft en route from Europe to New York City, landing two of them at Dawson's Field in Zerqa, Jordan, and one plane in Beirut, Lebanon. The fourth hijacking was successfully foiled.
- 2000 – The Millennium Summit, a meeting of world leaders to discuss the role of the United Nations in the turn of the twenty-first century, opened.
More events: September 5 – September 6 – September 7
September 7: Father's Day in Australia and New Zealand (2008); National Grandparents' Day in the United States (2008); Independence Day in Brazil
- 1191 – Third Crusade: Forces under Richard I of England defeated Ayyubid troops under Saladin at the Battle of Arsuf in Arsuf, present-day Israel.
- 1901 – With Peking occupied by foreign troops from the Eight-Nation Alliance, Qing China was forced to sign the Boxer Protocol, an unequal treaty ending the Boxer Rebellion.
- 1940 – World War II: The German Luftwaffe changed their strategy in the Battle of Britain and began bombing London and other British cities and towns for over 50 consecutive nights.
- 1977 – Panamanian de facto leader Omar Torrijos and U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, agreeing that the United States would transfer control of the Panama Canal to Panama at the end of the 20th century. The transfer eventually took place on December 31, 1999.
More events: September 6 – September 7 – September 8
September 8: Independence Day in the Republic of Macedonia (1991); Victory Day in Malta; National Day in Andorra; International Literacy Day
- 1331 – Stefan Uroš IV Dušan (pictured) of the House of Nemanjić was crowned King of Serbia.
- 1888 – The inaugural season of The Football League in England, the oldest professional league competition in world football (soccer), began with twelve member clubs.
- 1900 – The Great Galveston Hurricane, one of the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes with estimated winds of 135 miles per hour (215 km/h) at landfall, struck Galveston, Texas, USA, killing at least 6,000 people.
- 1941 – World War II: German forces began the Siege of Leningrad. Over 1 million of Leningrad's civilians died from starvation before the siege ended on January 27, 1944, becoming one of the most lethal battles in world history.
- 1974 – Watergate scandal: U.S. President Gerald Ford gave recently-resigned U.S. President Richard Nixon a full and unconditional, but controversial, pardon for any crimes he committed while in office.
More events: September 7 – September 8 – September 9
September 9: Republic Day in North Korea (1948); Independence Day in Tajikistan (1991)
- 1513 – War of the League of Cambrai: King James IV of Scotland (pictured) was killed at the Battle of Flodden Field in Northumberland while leading an invasion of England.
- 1850 – As part of the Compromise of 1850, California was admitted into the United States as a free state instead of a slave state where slavery was legal.
- 1971 – Prisoners rioted and seized control of the Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York, USA, taking thirty-three guards hostage. The uprising ended four days later after state police and guards raided the prison, leaving almost 40 hostages and inmates dead from the ensuing gunfire.
- 2001 – Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance, was assassinated in Afghanistan.
- 2004 – A car bomb exploded outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, killing at least nine people and injuring over 150 others.
More events: September 8 – September 9 – September 10
September 10: National Day in Gibraltar (1967)
- 1813 – War of 1812: An American fleet led by Oliver Hazard Perry scored a decisive victory over Great Britain’s Royal Navy at the Battle of Lake Erie in Lake Erie near Put-in-Bay, Ohio.
- 1897 – A peaceful labor demonstration made up of mostly Polish and Slovak anthracite coal miners in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, USA, was fired upon by a sheriff's posse comitatus in the Lattimer Massacre.
- 1898 – In an act of "propaganda of the deed", Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni fatally stabbed Empress Elisabeth of Austria (pictured) in Geneva, Switzerland.
- 1977 – Murderer Hamida Djandoubi became the last person to be guillotined in France, the official method of execution in that country. France would later abolish the death penalty in 1981.
- 1990 – Pope John Paul II consecrated the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, Côte d'Ivoire, one of the largest churches in the world.
More events: September 9 – September 10 – September 11
September 11: New Year's Day in the Coptic and the Ethiopian calendars; National Day of Catalonia; Teacher's Day in parts of Latin America
- 1297 – First War of Scottish Independence: The Scots defeated English troops at the Battle of Stirling Bridge on the River Forth near Stirling.
- 1857 – At Mountain Meadows, Utah Territory, USA, a local brigade of the Mormon militia led a massacre of about 120 California-bound pioneers from Arkansas.
- 1961 – The World Wide Fund for Nature, the world's largest independent conservation organisation, was founded in Morges, Switzerland.
- 1973 – A coup d'état in Chile led by General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the government of President Salvador Allende and established an anti-communist military dictatorship.
- 2001 - September 11 attacks: Three passenger airliners were hijacked to destroy the World Trade Center in New York City (pictured) and part of The Pentagon near Washington, D.C.; a fourth aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania. In total, almost 3,000 people were killed.
More events: September 10 – September 11 – September 12
September 12: National Day in Cape Verde
- 1683 – Great Turkish War: Polish troops led by John III Sobieski (pictured) joined forces with a Habsburg army to defeat the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vienna.
- 1848 – Switzerland became a federal state with the adoption of a new constitution.
- 1933 – Hungarian-American physicist Leó Szilárd conceived of the idea of the nuclear chain reaction while waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, London.
- 1974 – Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, considered to be the religious symbol for God incarnate among the Rastafari movement, was deposed in a coup d'état by the Derg, a military junta.
- 1992 – Abimael Guzmán, leader of the Peruvian Maoist guerrilla organization Shining Path, was captured in Lima.
More events: September 11 – September 12 – September 13
- 533 – Belisarius and his legions defeated Gelimer and the Vandals at the Battle of Ad Decimum near Carthage, and began the "Reconquest of the West" under Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I.
- 1814 – War of 1812: The bombardment of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner," which later became the national anthem of the United States.
- 1956 – IBM unveiled the 305 RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control), the first commercial computer that used magnetic disk storage.
- 1987 – Goiânia accident: A radioactive item was stolen from an abandoned hospital in Goiânia, Brazil, contaminating hundreds of people.
- 1993 – After rounds of secret negotiations in Norway, PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (pictured with U.S. President Bill Clinton) formally signed the Oslo Peace Accords.
More events: September 12 – September 13 – September 14
September 14: Mid-Autumn Festival in the Chinese lunar calendar (2008)
- 1752 – In adopting the Gregorian calendar under the terms of the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, the British Empire skipped eleven days (September 2 was followed directly by September 14).
- 1812 – The French invasion of Russia: Following the Battle of Borodino seven days earlier, Napoleon and his Grande Armée captured Moscow, only to find the city deserted and burning.
- 1901 – Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States eight days after William McKinley was fatally wounded by anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
- 1959 – The Soviet spacecraft Luna 2 (pictured) crashed onto and became the first man-made object to reach the Moon.
- 1960 – Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela founded the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to help unify and coordinate their petroleum policies.
More events: September 13 – September 14 – September 15
September 15: Respect for the Aged Day in Japan (2008); Independence Day for Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador; Battle of Britain Day in the United Kingdom
- 1831 – The John Bull (pictured), currently the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world, ran for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.
- 1835 – Aboard the second voyage of HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin reached the Galápagos Islands, where he further developed his theories of evolution.
- 1935 – Nazi Germany enacted the Nuremberg Laws, which deprived German Jews of citizenship, and adopted a new national flag emblazoned with a swastika.
- 1950 – American troops landed at Incheon, Korea in an amphibious assault, starting the Battle of Inchon, a decisive United Nations military forces victory during the Korean War.
- 1963 – A bomb planted by members of the Ku Klux Klan exploded in the 16th Street Baptist Church, an African American Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, USA, killing four children and injuring at least 22 others.
More events: September 14 – September 15 – September 16
September 16: Prinsjesdag in Netherlands (2008); Dieciséis de septiembre in Mexico; Malaysia Day in Malaysia; Independence Day in Papua New Guinea
- 1400 – Owain Glyndŵr was proclaimed Prince of Wales and instigated a revolt against the rule of Henry IV of England.
- 1810 – Miguel Hidalgo (statue pictured), the parish priest in Dolores, Guanajuato, delivered the Grito de Dolores to his congregation, instigating the Mexican War of Independence against Spain.
- 1963 – Malaya, Singapore, North Borneo (present-day Sabah), and Sarawak merged to form Malaysia.
- 1982 – A Lebanese militia under the direct command of Elie Hobeika carried out a massacre in the Palestinian refugee camp of Sabra and Shatila, killing at least 700 civilians.
- 1992 – The British pound was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism on Black Wednesday, and suffered a major devaluation.
More events: September 15 – September 16 – September 17
September 17: Constitution Day and Citizenship Day in the United States
- 1862 – American Civil War: Almost 23,000 total casualties were suffered at the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, where Confederate and Union troops fought to a tactical stalemate.
- 1894 – The Imperial Japanese Navy defeated the Beiyang Fleet of Qing China in the Battle of the Yalu River at the mouth of the Yalu River in Korea Bay, the largest naval engagement of the First Sino-Japanese War.
- 1939 – The Soviet Union joined Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland.
- 1978 – President Anwar Al Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel (pictured with U.S. President Jimmy Carter) signed the Camp David Accords after twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David.
- 2001 – The New York Stock Exchange opened for the first time since the September 11 attacks; the Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its biggest point drop in its history, closing down 684.81 points to 8920.70.
More events: September 16 – September 17 – September 18
September 18: National Day in Chile
- 96 – Following the assassination of Roman Emperor Domitian, the Roman Senate appointed Nerva, the first of the Five Good Emperors, to succeed him.
- 323 – Constantine the Great decisively defeated Licinius in the Battle of Chrysopolis, establishing Constantine's sole control over the Roman Empire, and ultimately leading to the conversion of the whole empire to Christianity.
- 1895 – Daniel David Palmer (pictured) gave the first chiropractic adjustment to deaf janitor Harvey Lillard, reportedly resulting in a restoration of the man's hearing.
- 1931 – The Mukden Incident: A section of the Japanese-built South Manchuria Railway was destroyed, providing an excuse for the Japanese to blame the act on Chinese dissidents, and thus giving a pretext for the Japanese occupation of Manchuria.
- 1961 – En route to negotiate a ceasefire between Katanga troops and United Nations forces, the plane carrying UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld crashed under mysterious circumstances near Ndola in Northern Rhodesia, killing him and 15 others on board.
More events: September 17 – September 18 – September 19
September 19: Independence Day in Saint Kitts and Nevis (1983); Armed Forces Day in Chile; International Talk Like a Pirate Day
- 1356 – Hundred Years' War: English forces led by Edward the Black Prince (pictured) decisively won the Battle of Poitiers and captured King Jean II of France.
- 1692 – Giles Corey, who had refused to enter a plea, was pressed to his death during the Salem witch trials.
- 1893 – New Zealand became the first country to introduce universal suffrage, following the women's suffrage movement led by Kate Sheppard.
- 1985 – A magnitude 8.1 earthquake devastated Mexico City, killing at least nine thousand people and leaving up to 100,000 homeless.
- 2006 – The Royal Thai Army overthrew the elected government of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra while he was in New York City for a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
More events: September 18 – September 19 – September 20
September 20: Oktoberfest begins in Munich (2008)
- 1378 – Papal Schism: Unhappy with Pope Urban VI (pictured), a group of cardinals started a rival papacy with the election of Antipope Clement VII, throwing the Roman Catholic Church into turmoil.
- 1854 – The Crimean War began with a Franco-British victory over Russian forces at the Battle of Alma near the River Alma in Crimea.
- 1870 – The Bersaglieri entered Rome, ending the temporal power of the Pope and completing the unification of Italy.
- 1906 – The ocean liner RMS Mauretania, the largest and fastest ship in the world at the time, was launched in Newcastle, England.
- 1946 – The first Cannes Film Festival opened. The Palme d'Or, then known as the Grand Prix du Festival, was shared by eleven films that year.
- 1973 – Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in straight sets before 30,492 spectators at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas in an internationally televised tennis match dubbed the "The Battle of the Sexes".
More events: September 19 – September 20 – September 21
September 21: International Day of Peace and Peace One Day; Independence Day in Malta (1964), Belize (1981) and Armenia (1991)
- 1745 – The Jacobite Risings: Jacobite troops led by Charles Edward Stuart defeated the Hanoverians at the Battle of Prestonpans in Prestonpans, East Lothian, Scotland.
- 1792 – French Revolution: The National Convention voted to abolish the monarchy, and proclaimed the First Republic.
- 1898 – The Hundred Days' Reform in China was abruptly terminated when Empress Dowager Cixi (pictured) forced the reform-minded Guangxu Emperor into seclusion and took over the government as regent.
- 1938 – The Great New England Hurricane made landfall on Long Island, New York, USA, killing at least 500 people and injuring about 700 others.
- 1942 – The prototype model of the B-29 Superfortress, a four-engine heavy bomber that became one of the largest aircraft to see service during World War II, flew for the first time.
More events: September 20 – September 21 – September 22
September 22: September Equinox (15:44 UTC, 2008); Independence Day in Bulgaria (1908) and Mali (1960); Car Free Day in Europe and Canada
- 1776 – Captain Nathan Hale, an American Revolutionary spy from the Continental Army, was hanged by British forces.
- 1792 – The epoch of the French Republican Calendar, marking the first day of the newly proclaimed French First Republic.
- 1823 – According to his own record of his early life, Latter Day Saint movement founder Joseph Smith, Jr. stated that he was directed by God through the Angel Moroni to the place where the Golden plates were stored.
- 1862 – Slavery in the United States: President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring the freedom of all slaves in Confederate territory by January 1, 1863.
- 1869 – Das Rheingold, the first of four operas in Der Ring des Nibelungen by German composer Richard Wagner (pictured), was first performed in Munich.
- 1965 – The United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution calling for an unconditional ceasefire in the Indo-Pakistani War. The conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir ended the following day.
More events: September 21 – September 22 – September 23
- 1459 – Yorkist forces led by Richard Neville defeated Lancastrian troops at the Battle of Blore Heath in Staffordshire, England, the first major battle of the Wars of the Roses.
- 1803 – Maratha troops were beaten by British forces at the Battle of Assaye, one of the decisive battles of the Second Anglo-Maratha War.
- 1845 – American bookseller Alexander Cartwright founded the New York Knickerbockers, one of the first organized baseball teams, as well as formalizing a set of rules that became the basis for the rules of the modern game.
- 1846 – Using mathematical predictions by French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier, German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle became the first person to observe the planet Neptune (pictured).
More events: September 22 – September 23 – September 24
September 24: Independence Day in Guinea-Bissau (1973); Republic Day in Trinidad and Tobago (1976); Heritage Day in South Africa
- 622 – Muhammad and his followers completed their Hijra from Mecca to Medina to escape religious persecution.
- 1789 – The First United States Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789, establishing the U.S. federal judiciary and setting the number of Supreme Court Justices.
- 1841 – The Sultan of Brunei granted Sarawak to British adventurer James Brooke.
- 1903 – Alfred Deakin became the second Prime Minister of Australia, succeeding Edmund Barton who left office to become a founding justice of the High Court of Australia.
- 1988 – Canadian Ben Johnson finished the 100 m sprint at the Seoul Olympics in a world record time of 9.79 seconds (pictured), ahead of rivals Carl Lewis and Linford Christie, but was later disqualified for doping.
More events: September 23 – September 24 – September 25
- 1066 – Harold Godwinson of England defeated Harald Hardråde of Norway in Yorkshire at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, marking the end of Viking invasion of England.
- 1396 – Ottoman wars in Europe: Ottoman forces under Bayezid I (pictured) defeated a Christian alliance led by Sigismund of Hungary in the Battle of Nicopolis near present-day Nikopol, Bulgaria.
- 1513 – Conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa, upon a peak in present-day Darién, Panama, became the first European known to have seen the Pacific Ocean from the New World, naming it Mar del Sur, or South Sea, a few days later.
- 1962 – The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria was formally proclaimed. Ferhat Abbas was elected President of the provisional government, with Ahmed Ben Bella as Prime Minister.
- 1996 – The last Magdalene Asylum, an institution to rehabilitate so-called "fallen" women, in Ireland was closed.
More events: September 24 – September 25 – September 26
September 26: International Day of Quds (Iran, 2008); Dominion Day in New Zealand; European Day of Languages
- 1580 – The Golden Hind sailed into Plymouth, England, as Francis Drake completed his circumnavigation of the globe.
- 1687 – The Parthenon in Athens (pictured) was partially destroyed during an armed conflict between the Venetians under Francesco Morosini and Ottoman forces.
- 1907 – Newfoundland and New Zealand became dominions within the British Empire.
- 1957 – West Side Story, a musical based loosely on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet that was written by Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, and produced and directed by Jerome Robbins, made its debut on Broadway.
- 1983 – Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov of the Soviet Union averted a possible worldwide nuclear war by deliberately certifying what otherwise appeared to be an impending attack by the United States as a false alarm.
More events: September 25 – September 26 – September 27
September 27: Meskel in Ethiopia and Eritrea; World Tourism Day
- 1540 – Pope Paul III issued the papal bull Regimini militantis, approving the formation of the Society of Jesus, a Christian religious order of the Roman Catholic Church, by St. Ignatius of Loyola.
- 1825 – Locomotion No. 1 (pictured) hauled the first train on opening day of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the first railway to use steam locomotives and carry passengers.
- 1905 – The physics journal Annalen der Physik published Albert Einstein's paper "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?", introducing the equation E=mc².
- 1937 – The Bali Tiger, a small subspecies of tiger found solely on the small Indonesian island of Bali, was officially declared extinct.
- 1988 – Led by pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi, the National League for Democracy, a political party, was founded in Burma.
More events: September 26 – September 27 – September 28
September 28: St. Wenceslas Day in the Czech Republic; Teacher's Day in Taiwan
- 48 BC – Pompey the Great was assassinated on orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt after landing in Egypt following a decisive defeat by Julius Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalus.
- 1066 – William the Conqueror and his fleet of around 600 ships landed at Pevensey, Sussex, beginning the Norman conquest of England.
- 1542 – Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, the first European to travel along the coast of California, landed on what is now the City of San Diego.
- 1972 – Paul Henderson scored the game-winning goal against Vladislav Tretiak, securing a Canadian victory in the Summit Series over the Soviet ice hockey team.
- 1994 – The ferry MS Estonia (pictured) sank while commuting between Tallinn, Estonia, and Stockholm, Sweden, claiming 852 lives in one of the worst maritime accidents in the Baltic Sea.
More events: September 27 – September 28 – September 29
September 29: Rosh Hashanah begins at sunset (Judaism, 2008); Michaelmas
- 1364 – English forces defeated the French at the Battle of Auray in the French town of Auray, the decisive confrontation of the Breton War of Succession, a part of the Hundred Years' War
- 1829 – British Home Secretary Robert Peel (pictured) founded the Metropolitan Police of Greater London, also known as the Met.
- 1938 – Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier signed the Munich Agreement, stipulating that Czechoslovakia must cede the Sudetenland to Germany.
- 1941 – German Nazis aided by their collaborators began the Babi Yar massacre in Kiev, Ukraine, killing over 30,000 Jewish civilians in two days and thousands more in the months that followed.
- 1954 – Twelve countries signed a convention establishing the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), currently the world's largest particle physics laboratory.
More events: September 28 – September 29 – September 30
September 30: First day of Rosh Hashanah (Judaism, 2008); Independence Day in Botswana
- 1399 – The Duke of Lancaster deposed Richard II to become Henry IV of England, merging the Duchy of Lancaster with the crown.
- 1791 – The Magic Flute, the last opera composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, premiered at Theater an der Wien in Vienna, Austria.
- 1939 – World War II: General Władysław Sikorski (pictured) became Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile.
- 1966 – Seretse Khama became the first President of Botswana when the Bechuanaland Protectorate gained independence from the United Kingdom.
- 1980 – Xerox, Intel and Digital Equipment Corporation published the first Ethernet specifications, currently the most widespread wired local area network (LAN) technology.
More events: September 29 – September 30 – October 1
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
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[edit] Selected anniversaries for October
October 1: National Day in the People's Republic of China (1949); Independence Day in Cyprus and Nigeria (both 1960), Tuvalu (1978) and Palau (1994)
- 331 BC – Alexander the Great of Macedon defeated Darius III of Persia at the Battle of Gaugamela, and was subsequently crowned "King of Asia" in a ceremony in Arbela.
- 1890 – At the urging of preservationist John Muir, the United States Congress established Yosemite National Park in California.
- 1949 – Chinese Civil War: Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
- 1958 – NASA began operations, replacing the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).
- 1964 – Tōkaidō Shinkansen, the first Shinkansen line of high-speed railways in Japan, opened. (0 Series Shinkansen train pictured)
More events: September 30 – October 1 – October 2
October 2: Eid ul-Fitr begins at sunset (Islam, 2008); Independence Day in Guinea; Gandhi Jayanti in India; International Day of Non-Violence
- 1535 – French explorer Jacques Cartier sailed along the St. Lawrence River and reached an Iroquois fort on the island now known as Montreal.
- 1835 – Mexican dragoons dispatched to disarm settlers at Gonzales, Texas encountered stiff resistance from a Texian militia in the Battle of Gonzales, the first armed engagement of the Texas Revolution.
- 1928 – Saint Josemaría Escrivá (pictured) founded Opus Dei, a worldwide organization of lay members of the Roman Catholic Church.
- 1941 – World War II: Nazi German forces began Operation Typhoon, an all-out offensive against Moscow, starting the three-month long Battle of Moscow.
- 1992 – In response to a prison riot, military police stormed the Carandiru Penitentiary in São Paulo, Brazil, killing at least 100 prisoners.
More events: October 1 – October 2 – October 3
October 3: National Foundation Day in South Korea; German Unity Day
- 1283 – Dafydd ap Gruffydd the Prince of Wales, the last native ruler of Wales to resist English domination, was executed by drawing and quartering.
- 1918 – World War I: Following his armed forces' defeat to the Allied Powers, Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria abdicated in favor of his son Boris III.
- 1929 – King Alexander I renamed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and changed its subdivisions from the 33 oblasts to nine new banovinas.
- 1990 – German reunification (reunited country flag pictured): The five re-established German states (Bundesländer) of East Germany formally joined West Germany.
- 1993 – Soldiers from Malaysian, Pakistani and U.S. armed forces attempted to capture Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid in the Battle of Mogadishu.
More events: October 2 – October 3 – October 4
October 4: Independence Day in Lesotho (1966); Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi (Catholicism); World Animal Day
- 1830 – Belgian Revolution: A provisional government in Brussels declared the creation of the independent and neutral state of Belgium, in revolt against the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.
- 1910 – Manuel II, the last King of Portugal, fled to Gibraltar when a revolution erupted in Lisbon and his palace was shelled. The Portuguese First Republic was proclaimed the next day.
- 1957 – Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 1 (pictured), the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, was launched by an R-7 rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam, Kazakh SSR.
- 1985 – Software developer Richard Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation to support the free software movement.
- 1993 – Russian Constitutional Crisis: Tanks bombarded the White House in Moscow while demonstrators against President Boris Yeltsin rallied outside.
More events: October 3 – October 4 – October 5
October 5: Republic Day in Portugal (1910)
- 1877 – After battling the U.S. Army for more than three months, retreating over 1,000 miles across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana, and enduring a five-day siege, Chief Joseph (pictured) and his Nez Perce band finally surrendered.
- 1908 – Prince Ferdinand became the first Tsar of Bulgaria since the Ottoman invasion in the 14th century.
- 1930 – The British airship R101 crashed in France in route to India on its maiden voyage, killing 48 passengers and crew.
- 1970 – Members of the Front de Libération du Québec kidnapped British diplomat James Cross, sparking the October Crisis in Montreal, Canada.
- 1986 – British newspaper The Sunday Times published former nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu's story revealing details of Israel's nuclear capability.
More events: October 4 – October 5 – October 6
October 6: Labour Day in New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and South Australia (2008); German-American Day in the United States
- 105 BC – The Cimbri and the Teutons inflicted a major defeat on the Roman Republic in the Battle of Arausio.
- 1927 – The first successful feature sound film The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, was released.
- 1973 – Egyptian troops under President Anwar Sadat (pictured) crossed the Suez Canal and destroyed the fortified Israeli Bar Lev Line, starting the Yom Kippur War.
- 1976 – Premier Hua Guofeng ordered the arrest of the Gang of Four and their associates, putting an end to the Cultural Revolution in China.
- 1995 – In an article published by the scientific journal Nature, astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz reported the discovery of a planet orbiting 51 Pegasi as the first known extrasolar planet around a main-sequence star.
More events: October 5 – October 6 – October 7
October 7: Double Ninth Festival in the Chinese calendar (2008); Feast Day of St. Osyth
- 1571 – The Ottoman Empire was decisively defeated by the Christian West for the first time, as a multinational fleet led by Don John of Austria crushed the Turkish navy near the Gulf of Corinth in the Battle of Lepanto (painting by Paolo Veronese pictured).
- 1763 – Following Great Britain's acquisition of New France after the end of the Seven Years' War, King George III issued a Royal Proclamation closing most of this land to the colonists of the Thirteen Colonies.
- 1959 – Soviet spacecraft Luna 3 captured the first photographs of the far side of the Moon.
- 1985 – The Mediterranean ocean liner Achille Lauro was hijacked by Palestine Liberation Front terrorists while sailing from Alexandria to Port Said within Egypt.
- 2003 – California recall: Californians voted to recall Governor Gray Davis from office and elected Arnold Schwarzenegger from a list of 135 candidates.
More events: October 6 – October 7 – October 8
October 8: Yom Kippur begins at sunset (Judaism, 2008); Independence Day in Croatia
- 451 – The Council of Chalcedon, the fourth ecumenical council in Christianity, opened. It repudiated the Eutychian doctrine of monophysitism, and set forth the Chalcedonian Creed.
- 1600 – San Marino, the world's oldest constitutional republic, adopted its written constitution.
- 1871 – Two historic fires, the Great Chicago Fire (artist's rendering pictured) and Wisconsin's Peshtigo Fire, broke out in the U.S. Midwest.
- 1879 – The Chilean Navy defeated the Peruvian Navy in the Battle of Angamos, a decisive encounter during the War of the Pacific.
- 2005 – A major earthquake centred in Kashmir killed over 74,500 people and injured at least 106,000 others in Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan.
More events: October 7 – October 8 – October 9
October 9: Independence Day in Uganda (1962); Hangul Day in South Korea; Leif Erikson Day in the United States
- 1514 – Mary Tudor (pictured), sister of Henry VIII of England, became queen consort of France.
- 1831 – John Capodistria, the Greek head of state, was assassinated in Nafplion.
- 1919 – The Black Sox Scandal: The Cincinnati Reds won the World Series Major League Baseball championship, 5 games to 3, over "Shoeless Joe" Jackson and the Chicago White Sox, many of whom were later found to have lost intentionally.
- 1942 – World War II: American forces defeated the Japanese at the Third Battle of the Matanikau in Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, avenging the Japanese victory at the Second Battle of the Matanikau a couple of weeks earlier.
- 1962 – Uganda became independent from the United Kingdom, with Milton Obote as the first prime minister.
More events: October 8 – October 9 – October 10
October 10: National Day in Fiji (1970); Double Ten Day in the Republic of China
- 732 – Battle of Tours (pictured): Charles Martel and the Franks defeated a large Andalusian Muslim army led by Abd er Rahman near Tours and Poitiers, stopping the northward advance of Islam from the Iberian Peninsula.
- 1780 – The Great Hurricane of 1780: One of the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes on record struck the Caribbean, killing at least 22,000 people over the next several days.
- 1911 – The Xinhai Revolution began with the Wuchang Uprising, marking the beginning of the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in China.
- 1982 – St. Maximilian Kolbe, who had volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland, was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.
- 1987 – After two military coups in Fiji led by Sitiveni Rabuka, the military government revoked the constitution and declared the country a republic.
More events: October 9 – October 10 – October 11
October 11: National Coming Out Day and General Pulaski Memorial Day in the United States
- 1852 – The University of Sydney, Australia's oldest university, was inaugurated in Sydney two years after the New South Wales Legislative Council established it with the passage of the University of Sydney Act.
- 1865 – The Morant Bay rebellion, led by Paul Bogle and George William Gordon, began in Jamaica, but it eventually was brutally suppressed by Governor Edward John Eyre.
- 1942 – World War II: At the Battle of Cape Esperance on the northwest coast of Guadalcanal, American ships intercepted and defeated a Japanese fleet on their way to reinforce troops on the island.
- 1954 – Ho Chi Minh (pictured) and the Viet Minh took control of North Vietnam under the terms of the Geneva Accords which saw the end of the First Indochina War and French colonisation.
- 1962 – Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council, the first Roman Catholic ecumenical council in 92 years.
More events: October 10 – October 11 – October 12
October 12: Hispanic Day in Spain; Day of Indigenous Resistance in Venezuela; Our Lady Aparecida's Day and Children's Day in Brazil
- 1492 – Christopher Columbus made landfall in the Caribbean, believing he had reached East Asia.
- 1915 – A German firing squad executed British nurse Edith Cavell (pictured) for helping Allied soldiers to escape occupied Belgium.
- 1928 – An iron lung medical ventilator, designed by Philip Drinker and colleagues at Children's Hospital, Boston, was used for the first time in the treatment of polio victims.
- 1984 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army failed in its attempt to assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and most of her cabinet in the Brighton hotel bombing.
- 2002 – A series of bombs planted by Islamist militant group Jemaah Islamiyah exploded in Bali, Indonesia, killing 202 people and injuring a further 209.
More events: October 11 – October 12 – October 13
October 13: Sukkot begins at sunset (Judaism, 2008); Columbus Day in the United States (2008); Health and Sports Day in Japan (2008); Thanksgiving in Canada (2008)
- 54 – Claudius was fatally poisoned by his wife Agrippina the Younger, making her 16-year-old son Nero the next Roman Emperor.
- 1773 – French astronomer Charles Messier discovered the Whirlpool Galaxy (pictured), an interacting, grand-design spiral galaxy located at a distance of approximately 23 million light-years in the constellation Canes Venatici.
- 1843 – The Independent Order of B'nai B'rith, the oldest continually-operating Jewish service organization in the world, was founded in New York City.
- 1917 – An estimated 100,000 people in the Cova da Iria fields near Fátima, Portugal witnessed "The Miracle of the Sun".
- 1943 – World War II: With a new government led by General Pietro Badoglio, parts of Italy switched sides to the Allies and declared war on the Axis Powers.
More events: October 12 – October 13 – October 14
October 14: Teachers' Day in Poland
- 1773 – The first recorded ministry of education, the Commission of National Education, was formed in Poland.
- 1806 – Battle of Jena-Auerstedt: French forces under Napoleon secure a decisive victory over the Prussians, effectively eliminating Prussia from the War of the Fourth Coalition after only nineteen days of fighting.
- 1926 – The first book featuring English author A. A. Milne's fictional bear Winnie-the-Pooh was first published.
- 1947 - Flying at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13.7 km) in an experimental Bell X-1 rocket-powered aircraft, American test pilot Chuck Yeager (pictured) became the first person to break the sound barrier.
- 1981 – Hosni Mubarak was elected President of Egypt, one week after Anwar Sadat was assassinated.
More events: October 13 – October 14 – October 15
October 15: White Cane Safety Day in the United States
- 1582 – Spain, Portugal, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Italy became the first countries to replace the Julian calendar with the Gregorian calendar.
- 1917 – Dutch exotic dancer Mata Hari (pictured) was executed by a firing squad for spying for Germany.
- 1987 – The Great Storm of 1987 hit France and England, killing at least 23 people.
- 1989 – Playing for the Los Angeles Kings against his old team, the Edmonton Oilers, Canadian professional ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky broke Gordie Howe's National Hockey League record of 1,850 career points.
- 2003 – Chinese space program: Shenzhou 5, China's first manned space mission was launched, carrying astronaut Yang Liwei.
More events: October 14 – October 15 – October 16
- 456 – Magister militum Ricimer defeated Emperor Avitus at Piacenza and became master of the Western Roman Empire.
- 1813 – The Sixth Coalition attacked Napoleon and the First French Empire in the Battle of Leipzig, the largest conflict in the Napoleonic Wars with over 500,000 troops involved.
- 1843 – William Rowan Hamilton first wrote down the fundamental formula for quaternions, carving the equation into the side of Broom Bridge (pictured) in Cabra, Dublin, Ireland.
- 1940 – World War II: Nazi Governor-General Hans Frank established the Warsaw Ghetto, the largest Jewish ghetto in occupied Poland.
- 1978 – Karol Józef Wojtyła, a cardinal from Kraków, Poland, became Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian pope since the 16th century and the first ever from a Slavic country.
More events: October 15 – October 16 – October 17
October 17: International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
- 1346 – King David II of Scotland led an invasion of England during the Hundred Years' War, but was captured in the Battle of Neville's Cross.
- 1604 – Kepler's Star: German astronomer Johannes Kepler (pictured) observed an exceptionally bright star which had suddenly appeared in the constellation Ophiuchus.
- 1860 – The Open Championship, the oldest of the four major championships in men's golf, was first played at Prestwick Golf Club in Prestwick, South Ayrshire, Scotland.
- 1977 – German Autumn: Four days after it was hijacked, Lufthansa Flight 181 landed in Mogadishu, Somalia, where a team of German GSG 9 commandos rescued all remaining hostages on board.
More events: October 16 – October 17 – October 18
October 18: Alaska Day; Feast day of Saint Luke
- 1009 – The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church now within the walled Old City of Jerusalem, was destroyed by Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah.
- 1016 – Danish forces led by Canute the Great decisively defeated Edmund Ironside in the Battle of Ashingdon, gaining control over most of the Kingdom of England.
- 1851 – Moby-Dick, a novel by Herman Melville (pictured), was first published as The Whale.
- 1922 – The British Broadcasting Company was founded by a consortium to establish a network of radio transmitters to provide a national broadcasting service in the United Kingdom.
- 1954 – The first commercial transistor radio, the Regency TR-1 by Texas Instruments, was introduced in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.
More events: October 17 – October 18 – October 19
October 19: Constitution Day in Niue (1974); Mother Teresa Day in Albania
- 202 BC – Proconsul Scipio Africanus of the Roman Republic defeated Hannibal and the Carthaginians in the Battle of Zama, concluding the Second Punic War.
- 1469 – Ferdinand II of Aragon wedded Isabella of Castile (pictured), a marriage that paved the way to the unification of Aragon and Castile into a single country, Spain.
- 1781 – American Revolutionary War: British forces led by Lord Cornwallis officially surrendered to Franco-American forces under George Washington, ending the Siege of Yorktown.
- 1943 – Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, was first isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
- 1987 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 22.6% on Black Monday, the largest one-day percentage decline in stock market history.
More events: October 18 – October 19 – October 20
October 20: Shemini Atzeret begins at sunset (Judaism, 2008); Birth of the Báb, a holy day in the Bahá'í Faith
- 1740 – Maria Theresa (pictured) assumed the throne of the Habsburg Monarchy in Austria, following the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713.
- 1818 – The United Kingdom and the United States signed the Treaty of 1818, which settled the Canada – United States border on the 49th parallel for most of its length.
- 1827 – An allied British, French, and Russian naval force destroyed a combined Turkish and Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Navarino, a decisive moment in the Greek War of Independence.
- 1941 – World War II: German soldiers began a massacre of thousands of civilians in Kragujevac in Nazi-occupied Serbia.
- 1973 – Queen Elizabeth II, in her capacity as Queen of Australia, formally opened the Sydney Opera House on Bennelong Point in Sydney Harbour.
More events: October 19 – October 20 – October 21
October 21: Simchat Torah begins at sunset (Judaism, 2008); Overseas Chinese Day in Taiwan
- 1600 – Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated the leaders of rival Japanese clans at the Battle of Sekigahara in what is now Sekigahara, Gifu, clearing the path for him to form the Tokugawa shogunate.
- 1805 – Napoleonic Wars: The British Royal Navy led by Lord Nelson defeated Pierre-Charles Villeneuve and his combined French and Spanish navy at the Battle of Trafalgar off the coast of Spain's Cape Trafalgar.
- 1854 – Florence Nightingale (pictured) and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.
- 1858 – French composer Jacques Offenbach's operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, featuring the can-can, was first performed at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens in Paris.
- 1969 – Siad Barre became President after a military coup in Somalia.
More events: October 20 – October 21 – October 22
October 22: International Stuttering Awareness Day
- 1383 – King Ferdinand I of Portugal died without a male heir to the Portuguese throne, resulting in a period of civil war and anarchy.
- 1844 – Millerites, including future members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, were greatly disappointed that Jesus did not return as predicted by American preacher William Miller (pictured).
- 1924 – The educational non-profit organization Toastmasters International was founded at a YMCA in Santa Ana, California.
- 1934 – Pretty Boy Floyd, an American bank robber and alleged killer who was later romanticized by the media, was gunned down by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents near East Liverpool, Ohio.
- 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced on television that Soviet nuclear weapons had been discovered in Cuba and that he had ordered a naval "quarantine" of the island nation.
More events: October 21 – October 22 – October 23
October 23: National Day in Hungary (1956); Chulalongkorn Memorial Day in Thailand
- 1642 – The Battle of Edgehill, the first pitched battle of the First English Civil War between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians, was fought to an inconclusive result near Edge Hill and Kineton in southern Warwickshire.
- 1906 – Early flight: Alberto Santos-Dumont (pictured) flew the 14-bis aircraft for 60 metres (200 ft) at a height of two to three metres (10 ft).
- 1955 – Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem defeated Emperor Bao Dai in a fraudulent referendum supervised by his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu on the future of the monarchy in South Vietnam.
- 1956 – The Hungarian Revolution began as a peaceful student demonstration which attracted thousands as it marched through central Budapest to the Parliament building.
- 1983 – Lebanese Civil War: Suicide bombers destroyed two barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers of the international peacekeeping force.
More events: October 22 – October 23 – October 24
October 24: United Nations Day; Independence Day in Zambia (1964)
- 1260 – The Cathedral of Chartres in Chartres, France (pictured) was dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX.
- 1648 – The second treaty of the Peace of Westphalia, the Treaty of Münster, was signed, ending both the Thirty Years' War and the Dutch Revolt, and officially recognizing the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and Swiss Confederation as independent states.
- 1929 – The Great Depression: The New York Stock Exchange crashed on "Black Thursday", setting off a chain of bankruptcies and triggering a worldwide economic depression.
- 1945 – The UN Charter, the constitution of the United Nations, entered into force after being ratified by the Republic of China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and a majority of the other signatories.
- 1960 – A prototype of the Soviet R-16 intercontinental ballistic missile exploded on the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam, Kazakh SSR, killing at least 90 people.
More events: October 23 – October 24 – October 25
October 25: Republic Day in Kazakhstan (1990); Retrocession Day in Taiwan; Armed Forces Day in Romania
- 1147 – Reconquista: Forces under King Afonso I of Portugal captured Lisbon from the Moors after a four-month siege in what would be their only success during the Second Crusade.
- 1616 – The Dutch sailing ship Eendracht reached Shark Bay on the western coastline of Australia, as documented on the Hartog Plate etched by explorer Dirk Hartog.
- 1875 – The first performance of the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Tchaikovsky (pictured) is given in Boston, Massachusetts with Hans von Bülow as soloist.
- 1922 – The Third Dáil adopted the Constitution of the Irish Free State, based on the requirements of the Anglo-Irish Treaty establishing the first independent Irish state to be recognised by the British.
- 1971 – The UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 2758, replacing the Republic of China with the People's Republic of China as China's representative at the United Nations.
More events: October 24 – October 25 – October 26
October 26: National Day in Austria (1955); Angam Day in Nauru
- 1597 – Imjin War: About twelve Korean ships commanded by Admiral Yi Sun-sin defeated a large Japanese invasion fleet of at least 300 at the Battle of Myeongnyang in the Myeongnyang Strait.
- 1881 – The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral took place in Tombstone, Arizona, USA between the Wyatt Earp faction and Ike Clanton's gang.
- 1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Xie Jinyuan and his 'Lone Battalion' of Chinese soldiers began the Defense of Sihang Warehouse (pictured) against waves of Japanese attackers during the Battle of Shanghai.
- 1944 – World War II: In one of the largest naval battles in modern history, Allied forces defeated the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the seas surrounding the Philippine island of Leyte.
- 2001 – U.S. President George W. Bush signed the USA PATRIOT Act into law, significantly expanding the authority of U.S. law enforcement agencies in fighting terrorism in the United States and abroad.
More events: October 25 – October 26 – October 27
October 27: Labour Day in New Zealand (2008); Independence Day in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Turkmenistan
- 1553 – Condemned as a heretic for preaching nontrinitarianism and anti-infant baptism, Michael Servetus (pictured) was burned at the stake outside Geneva.
- 1904 – The New York City Subway, one of the most extensive public transportation systems in the world, opened its first underground segment, connecting New York City Hall with Harlem.
- 1958 – General Ayub Khan deposed Iskander Mirza in a bloodless coup d'état to become the second President of Pakistan, less than three weeks after Mirza had appointed him the enforcer of martial law.
- 1961 – NASA launched the first Saturn I rocket, the United States' first dedicated spacecraft designed specifically to launch loads into Earth orbit.
- 1971 – The Democratic Republic of the Congo was renamed Zaire after a Portuguese mispronunciation of the Kikongo word nzere or nzadi, which translates to "the river that swallows all rivers."
More events: October 26 – October 27 – October 28
October 28: Okhi Day in Greece
- 312 – Constantine the Great defeated Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in Rome, leading him to end the Tetrarchy and become the only ruler of the Roman Empire.
- 1886 – In New York Harbor, U.S. President Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty (pictured), a gift from France, to commemorate the centennial of the United States Declaration of Independence.
- 1940 – The Balkans Campaign in World War II: Italy invaded Greece after Greek prime minister Ioannis Metaxas rejected Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's ultimatum demanding the occupation of Greek territory.
- 1954 – The Kingdom of the Netherlands was re-founded as a federacy with the proclamation of the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
- 1965 – Nostra Aetate, the "Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions" of the Second Vatican Council, was promulgated by Pope Paul VI, absolving the Jews of the killing of Jesus, and calling for increased relations with all non-Christian religions.
More events: October 27 – October 28 – October 29
October 29: Republic Day in Turkey
- 1268 – Conradin, the last Duke of Swabia, was beheaded in Naples after failing to reclaim Sicily for the House of Hohenstaufen from Charles of Anjou.
- 1787 – The opera Don Giovanni, based on the legendary fictional libertine Don Juan and composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (pictured), premiered in the Estates Theatre in Prague.
- 1923 – Mustafa Kemal Atatürk became the first President of the Republic of Turkey, a new nation founded from remnants of the Ottoman Empire.
- 1956 – The Suez Crisis began with Israel invading the Sinai Peninsula and pushing Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal.
- 1998 – After more than three decades, 77-year old John Glenn returned to space aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-95, to study the effects of space flight on the elderly.
More events: October 28 – October 29 – October 30
October 30: Diwali in Hinduism, Sikhism and Jainism (2008)
- 1470 – Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, restored Henry VI (pictured) as the King of England during the Wars of the Roses.
- 1938 – The radio drama The War of the Worlds, based on the science fiction novella by English writer H. G. Wells, frightened many listeners in the United States into believing that an actual Martian invasion was in progress.
- 1960 – Surgeon and scientist Michael Woodruff performed the first successful kidney transplant in the United Kingdom at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
- 1961 – The Soviet hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba was detonated over Novaya Zemlya Island in the Arctic Sea as a test. With a yield of around 50 megatons, it was the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated to date.
- 1975 – Prince Juan Carlos became Spain's acting head of state, taking over for the country's ailing dictator General Francisco Franco.
More events: October 29 – October 30 – October 31
October 31: Halloween; Samhain; Reformation Day in Protestantism
- 1517 – According to traditional accounts, Martin Luther (pictured) nailed his 95 Theses onto the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany, marking the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
- 1863 – The New Zealand land wars resumed as British forces in New Zealand led by General Duncan Cameron began their Invasion of Waikato along the Waikato River.
- 1922 – Benito Mussolini became Prime Minister of Italy at the age of 39, establishing a coalition government composed of fascists, nationalists, and liberals during his first years in office.
- 1941 – Gutzon Borglum and 400 workers completed the colossal busts of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln at Mount Rushmore.
- 1984 – Indira Gandhi, India's first and to date only female prime minister, was assassinated by two of her own bodyguards after Operation Blue Star on the holy Sikh temple in Amritsar. Riots soon broke out in New Delhi and several other cities throughout the country.
More events: October 30 – October 31 – November 1
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
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[edit] Selected anniversaries for November
November 1: National Day in Algeria; Independence Day in Antigua and Barbuda (1981); All Saints' Day in Catholicism; World Vegan Day
- 1512 – Italian Renaissance painter Michelangelo finished repainting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (pictured) in fresco.
- 1520 – Portuguese maritime explorer Ferdinand Magellan led the first European expedition to navigate the Strait of Magellan, the passage immediately south of mainland South America, connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans.
- 1755 – A massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami destroyed Lisbon, and killed at least 60,000 people in Portugal and Morocco.
- 1928 – As part of the reforms implemented under the leadership of Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the current 29-letter Turkish alphabet, used for the Turkish language, was established, replacing the Ottoman Turkish alphabet.
- 1963 – The Arecibo Observatory, with the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, officially opened in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
More events: October 31 – November 1 – November 2
November 2: All Souls' Day in Western Christianity; Day of the Dead in Mexico
- 1795 – French Revolution: Under the terms of a new constitution that was ratified during the aftermath of the Reign of Terror and the subsequent Thermidorian Reaction, the Directory succeeded the National Convention as the executive government of France.
- 1917 – British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour (pictured) issued the Balfour Declaration, proclaiming British support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
- 1936 – BBC Television Service launched the world's first regular, public all-electronic television service with a high level of image resolution which became known as high-definition television.
- 1947 – American industrialist and aviator Howard Hughes flew Spruce Goose, the largest flying boat ever built, on its maiden flight from the coast of Long Beach, California, USA.
- 2000 – Expedition 1: American astronaut William Shepherd and Russian cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko became the first resident crew to arrive at the International Space Station.
More events: November 1 – November 2 – November 3
November 3: Independence Day in Panama (1903), Dominica (1978) and the Federated States of Micronesia (1986); Culture Day in Japan
- 1793 – French playwright, journalist and outspoken feminist Olympe de Gouges (pictured) was guillotined for her revolutionary ideas.
- 1838 – The Times of India, the world's largest circulated English language daily broadsheet newspaper, was founded as the The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce.
- 1848 – A new constitution drafted by Johan Rudolf Thorbecke was proclaimed, severely limiting the powers of the monarchy of the Netherlands.
- 1948 – The Chicago Tribune newspaper published the erroneous headline "Dewey Defeats Truman" shortly after incumbent U.S. President Harry S. Truman upset heavily favored Governor of New York Thomas Dewey in the U.S. presidential election.
- 1957 – The Soviet Union launched the Sputnik 2 spacecraft, carrying Laika the Russian space dog as the first living creature from Earth to enter orbit.
More events: November 2 – November 3 – November 4
November 4: Election Day in the United States (2008); Flag Day in Panama; Unity Day in Russia
- 1852 – Count Cavour (pictured) became prime minister of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, which soon expanded to become the Kingdom of Italy.
- 1869 – Nature, one of the oldest and most reputable general purpose scientific journals, was first published.
- 1890 – London's City & South London Railway, the first deep-level underground railway in the world, opened, running a distance of 5.1 km (3.2 mi) between the City of London and Stockwell.
- 1979 – Hundreds of Iranian students supporting Iran's post-revolutionary regime seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, beginning a 444-day hostage crisis.
- 1995 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was mortally wounded by Yigal Amir while at a peace rally at the Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv.
More events: November 3 – November 4 – November 5
November 5: Guy Fawkes Night in the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth countries
- 1605 – The Gunpowder Plot: Thomas Knyvet arrested explosives expert Guy Fawkes (pictured) and foiled Robert Catesby's plot to destroy the Houses of Parliament in London during the State Opening.
- 1688 – Glorious Revolution: Protestant Prince William of Orange landed at Brixham in Devon, on his way to depose his father-in-law King James II, the last Catholic monarch of England.
- 1838 – The collapse of the Federal Republic of Central America began with Nicaragua seceding from the union.
- 1872 – American Suffragette Susan B. Anthony voted in the U.S. presidential election for the first time in Rochester, New York. She was later fined US$100 for her participation, which she never paid, and the government never pursued her for nonpayment.
- 1917 – St. Tikhon of Moscow was elected Patriarch of Moscow and of the Russian Orthodox Church.
More events: November 4 – November 5 – November 6
November 6: Constitution Day in the Dominican Republic (1844) and Tajikistan (1994); Gustavus Adolphus Day in Sweden
- 1860 – Abraham Lincoln (pictured) became the first Republican Party candidate to win the U.S. presidential election.
- 1935 – Before the Institute of Radio Engineers in New York, American electrical engineer and inventor Edwin Howard Armstrong presented his study on using frequency modulation for radio broadcasting.
- 1962 – The United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 1761, condemning South Africa's apartheid policies.
- 1975 – Demonstrators in Morocco began the Green March to Spanish Sahara, calling for the "return of the Moroccan Sahara."
- 1999 – Although opinion polls had clearly suggested that the majority of the electorate favoured republicanism, the Australian republic referendum was defeated, keeping the British monarch as the country's head of state.
More events: November 5 – November 6 – November 7
- 1665 – The London Gazette, the oldest surviving English newspaper, was first published as the Oxford Gazette.
- 1811 – American forces led by Indiana Territory Governor William Henry Harrison defeated the forces of Shawnee leader Tecumseh's growing American Indian confederation at the Battle of Tippecanoe near present-day Battle Ground, Indiana.
- 1885 – Construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the first transcontinental railroad across Canada, concluded with financier and politician Sir Donald Smith driving in the "last spike" (pictured) in Craigellachie, British Columbia.
- 1917 – Vladimir Lenin led a Bolshevik insurrection against the Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky, starting the Bolshevik Revolution, the second phase of the overall Russian Revolution.
- 1987 – Zine El Abidine Ben Ali deposed and replaced Habib Bourguiba as President of Tunisia, declaring him medically unfit for the duties of the office.
More events: November 6 – November 7 – November 8
November 8: St. Demetrius' Day in Republika Srpska
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- 1519 – Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés entered Tenochtitlan where Aztec tlatoani Moctezuma II welcomed him with great pomp as would befit a returning god.
- 1520 – Stockholm Bloodbath: Following a successful invasion of Sweden by Danish forces under Christian II of Denmark, scores of Swedish leaders were executed despite Christian's promise of general amnesty.
- 1895 – German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (pictured) produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range that is known today as X-rays.
- 1923 – Adolf Hitler, Erich Ludendorff and other members of the Kampfbund started the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed attempt to seize power in Germany.
- 1987 – A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb exploded during a Remembrance Sunday ceremony in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, killing at least eleven people and injuring sixty-three others.
More events: November 7 – November 8 – November 9
November 9: Muhammad Iqbal's Day in Pakistan; Inventor's Day in Germany, Austria and Switzerland; Schicksalstag in Germany
- 1872 – The Great Boston Fire began, eventually destroying over 750 buildings and causing US$73.5 million in damages in Boston, Massachusetts.
- 1918 – German Emperor William II abdicated, Prince Maximilian of Baden (pictured) resigned as Chancellor, and Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed the Weimar Republic.
- 1953 – Cambodia gained independence from France and became a constitutional monarchy under King Norodom Sihanouk.
- 1967 – French comic book heroes Valérian and Laureline first appeared in the pages of Pilote magazine.
- 2005 – Suicide bombers attacked three hotels in Amman, Jordan, killing a total of about 60 people and injuring at least 115 others.
More events: November 8 – November 9 – November 10
- 1444 – The Ottoman Empire under Sultan Murad II defeated the Polish and Hungarian armies under Władysław III of Poland and John Hunyadi at the Battle of Varna near Varna, Bulgaria in the final battle of the Crusade of Varna.
- 1871 – "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" – Journalist and explorer Henry Morton Stanley located missing missionary and explorer David Livingstone (pictured) in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika in present-day Tanzania.
- 1928 – Hirohito was crowned the 124th Emperor of Japan.
- 1969 – The children's television series Sesame Street debuted on the National Educational Television network in the United States.
- 1995 – Playwright and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People were executed by the Nigerian military government.
More events: November 9 – November 10 – November 11
November 11: Independence Day in Poland (1918) and Angola (1975); St. Martin's Day in the Netherlands; Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth; Armistice Day in Europe; Veterans Day in the United States
- 1880 – Australian bank robber and bushranger Ned Kelly was hanged in Melbourne.
- 1889 – The U.S. territory of Washington officially became the 42nd U.S. state as the State of Washington.
- 1918 – Germany and the Allies signed an armistice treaty in a railway carriage in France's Compiègne Forest (delegations pictured), ending World War I on the Western Front.
- 1965 – Ian Smith, Premier of the British Crown Colony of Southern Rhodesia, issued the Unilateral Declaration of Independence, a move that the British government and the United Nations condemned as illegal.
- 1975 – The Australian constitutional crisis came to a head as Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was dismissed from office by Governor-General Sir John Kerr.
- 2004 – Mahmoud Abbas was elected Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization after Yasser Arafat died from an unknown illness.
More events: November 10 – November 11 – November 12
November 12: Birth of Bahá'u'lláh, a holy day in the Bahá'í Faith
- 1028 – Future Byzantine empress Zoe married Romanus Argyrus according to the wishes of the dying Constantine VIII.
- 1893 – Mortimer Durand, Foreign Secretary of British India, and Abdur Rahman Khan, Amir of Afghanistan, signed the Durand Line Agreement, establishing what is now the international border between Afghanistan and modern-day Pakistan.
- 1927 – Leon Trotsky (pictured) was expelled from the Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin in undisputed control of the Soviet Union.
- 1936 – The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, connecting San Francisco and Oakland, California across San Francisco Bay, opened to traffic.
- 1970 – The Oregon Highway Division attempted to destroy a rotting beached sperm whale near Florence, Oregon with explosives, leading to the exploding whale incident.
More events: November 11 – November 12 – November 13
- 1002 – St. Brice's Day massacre: King Ethelred II ordered the massacre of all Danes in England.
- 1642 – First English Civil War: The Royalist army engaged the much larger Parliamentarian army at the Battle of Turnham Green near Turnham Green, Middlesex.
- 1954 – Great Britain defeated France at the Parc des Princes in Paris to win the first Rugby League World Cup.
- 1970 – The Bhola tropical cyclone hit the densely populated Ganges Delta in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), killing an estimated 500,000 people.
- 1982 – The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Constitution Gardens in Washington, D.C. was dedicated.
- 1985 – The volcano Nevado del Ruiz (pictured) erupted, causing a volcanic mudslide that buried Armero, Colombia and killed approximately 23,000 people.
- 2000 – Joseph Estrada became the first President of the Philippines to be impeached after he was accused of taking a sum of 400 million pesos in bribes from illegal gambling sources.
More events: November 12 – November 13 – November 14
November 14: Children's Day in India; Day of the Colombian Woman in Colombia; World Diabetes Day
- 1228 – Frederick of Isenberg was executed for the murder of his cousin Engelbert of Berg, the Archbishop of Cologne.
- 1817 – Bolívar's War: Colombian seamstress Policarpa Salavarrieta (pictured) was executed by firing squad by the Spanish in Bogotá for working as a spy for the revolutionary forces in New Granada.
- 1889 – Nellie Bly, reporter for the New York World, departed on her successful attempt to travel Around the World in Eighty Days, eventually completing her journey in only seventy-two days.
- 1940 – World War II: Coventry Cathedral and much of the city centre of Coventry, England were destroyed by the German Luftwaffe during the Coventry Blitz.
- 1971 – NASA's Mariner 9 reached Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet.
- 1990 – Germany and Poland signed the German-Polish Border Treaty, confirming their border at the Oder-Neisse line, which was originally defined by the Potsdam Agreement in 1945.
- 2003 – Astronomers Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz discovered the trans-Neptunian object 90377 Sedna.
More events: November 13 – November 14 – November 15
November 15: Republic Day in Brazil (1889); Shichigosan in Japan
- 655 – Penda of Mercia was defeated by Oswiu of Northumbria at the Battle of the Winwaed in what is modern-day Yorkshire.
- 1889 – A military coup led by Field Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca overthrew Emperor Pedro II and declared Brazil a republic.
- 1920 – The first general assembly of the League of Nations was held in Geneva, Switzerland, with 42 founding members.
- 1971 – Intel released the 4004 4-bit central processing unit (pictured), the world's first commercially available microprocessor, capable of executing approximately 60,000 instructions per second.
- 1985 – Northern Ireland peace process: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and the Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, giving the Irish Government an advisory role in Northern Ireland's government.
- 1988 – The Soviet Buran spacecraft, a reusable vehicle built in response to NASA's Space Shuttle program, was launched, unmanned, on her first and only space flight.
More events: November 14 – November 15 – November 16
- 1384 – Though she was only a ten-year old girl, Jadwiga (pictured) was crowned "King of Poland".
- 1532 – Sapa Inca Atahualpa was captured by Conquistador Francisco Pizarro at the Battle of Cajamarca in Cajamarca, Peru.
- 1885 – After a five-day trial following the North-West Rebellion, Louis Riel, Canadian rebel leader of the Métis and "Father of Manitoba", was executed by hanging for high treason.
- 1979 – The first line of Bucharest Metro, the M1 Line, opened from Timpuri Noi to Semănătoarea in Bucharest, Romania.
- 2002 – The first case of the respiratory disease Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was recorded in Guangdong, China.
More events: November 15 – November 16 – November 17
November 17: International Students' Day
- 1558 – Elizabeth I (pictured) became Queen of England and Ireland, marking the start of the Elizabethan era.
- 1855 – Explorer David Livingstone became the first European to see Victoria Falls, one of the largest waterfalls in the world, on what is now the Zambia–Zimbabwe border.
- 1869 – The Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, was inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony.
- 1950 – Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, was enthroned as Tibet's head of state at the age of fifteen.
- 1969 – Cold War: Representatives from the Soviet Union and the United States met in Helsinki to begin SALT I negotiations aimed at limiting the number of strategic weapons on both sides.
- 1989 – A student demonstration in Prague was quelled by riot police, sparking the Velvet Revolution aimed at overthrowing the Czechoslovakian communist government.
- 1997 – Sixty-two people were killed by Islamic terrorists outside the Deir el-Bahri, one of Egypt's top tourist attractions, in Luxor.
More events: November 16 – November 17 – November 18
November 18: Independence Day in Latvia (1918); National Day in Oman (1940)
- 1307 – William Tell, a legendary marksman in Switzerland, is said to have successfully shot an apple on his son's head with a single bolt from his crossbow.
- 1626 – St. Peter's Basilica, one of four major basilicas of Rome, was consecrated on the anniversary of that of the previous church in 326.
- 1905 – Prince Carl of Denmark became Haakon VII (pictured), the first King of Norway after the personal union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved.
- 1928 – Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie, the first completely post-produced synchronized sound animated cartoon, was released.
- 1985 – Calvin and Hobbes, a comic strip by Bill Watterson featuring six-year old Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes, was first published.
- 1987 – An underground fire killed 31 people at London's busiest underground station at King's Cross St Pancras.
- 1991 – Croatian War of Independence: Republic of Serbian Krajina forces captured the Croatian city of Vukovar, ending an 87-day siege.
More events: November 17 – November 18 – November 19
November 19: Liberation Day in Mali
- 1493 – Christopher Columbus became the first European to land on Puerto Rico, an island he named San Juan Bautista after John the Baptist.
- 1816 – The University of Warsaw, currently the largest university in Poland, was established as The Royal University of Warsaw after Warsaw was separated from Kraków, the oldest and most influential Polish academic centre.
- 1863 – American Civil War: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address (Lincoln's "Hay Draft" pictured) at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It is one of the most quoted speeches in United States history.
- 1941 – World War II: The Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney and the German auxiliary cruiser HSK Kormoran destroyed each other off the coast of Western Australia in the Indian Ocean.
- 1969 – Playing for Santos against Vasco da Gama at Estádio do Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian football player Pelé scored his 1000th goal on a penalty kick.
- 1999 – Shenzhou 1, China's first unmanned test flight of the Shenzhou spacecraft, was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Alxa League, Inner Mongolia.
More events: November 18 – November 19 – November 20
November 20: Zumbi Day in Brazil; Revolution Day in Mexico; Teacher's Day in Vietnam
- 284 – Diocletian became Roman Emperor, eventually establishing reforms that brought an end to the Crisis of the Third Century.
- 1700 – Great Northern War: Swedish forces led by King Charles XII (pictured) defeated the Russian army of Tsar Peter the Great in the Battle of Narva.
- 1902 – While discussing how to promote the newspaper L'Auto during a lunch meeting in Paris, sports journalists Henri Desgrange and Géo Lefèvre came up with the idea of holding a cycling race that became known as the Tour de France.
- 1910 – Francisco I. Madero promulgated the San Luis Plan, starting a revolt against President Porfirio Díaz that marked the beginning of the Mexican Revolution.
- 1945 – The Nuremberg Trials against 24 leading Nazis involved in the Holocaust and various war crimes during World War II began in Nuremberg, Germany.
- 1998 – Zarya, the first module of the International Space Station, was launched on a Proton rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.
More events: November 19 – November 20 – November 21
- 1272 – Edward I (statue pictured) became King of England, succeeding his father Henry III who died five days earlier.
- 1783 – Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes made the first successful untethered flight by humans in a hot air balloon, which was constructed by the Montgolfier brothers.
- 1920 – Irish War of Independence: On Bloody Sunday in Dublin, the Irish Republican Army killed more than a dozen British intelligence officers known as the Cairo Gang, and the Auxiliaries of the Royal Irish Constabulary opened fire on players and spectators at a Gaelic football match in Croke Park.
- 1962 – The Sino-Indian War ended after the Chinese People's Liberation Army declared a unilateral ceasefire and withdrew to the prewar Line of Actual Control, returning all the territory they had captured during the conflict.
- 1977 – God Defend New Zealand became New Zealand's second national anthem, on equal standing with God Save the Queen, which had been the traditional one since 1840.
More events: November 20 – November 21 – November 22
November 22: Holodomor Remembrance Day in Ukraine (2008); Independence Day in Lebanon (1943)
- 1869 – The Cutty Sark, one of the last sailing clippers ever to be built, was launched at Dumbarton in Scotland.
- 1967 – The United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 242 in the aftermath of the Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.
- 1975 – Two days after the death of Francisco Franco, Juan Carlos was declared King of Spain according to the law of succession promulgated by Franco.
- 2004 – Orange Revolution: Massive protests started in cities across Ukraine, resulting from allegations that the Ukrainian presidential election between sitting Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and leader of the opposition coalition Viktor Yushchenko was rigged.
- 2005 – Angela Merkel (pictured) assumed office as the first female Chancellor of Germany.
More events: November 21 – November 22 – November 23
November 23: Labour Thanksgiving Day in Japan; St George's Day in Georgia
- 1644 – John Milton (pictured) published Areopagitica, arguing for the right to free speech and against publication censorship during the English Civil War.
- 1867 – The Manchester Martyrs were hanged in Manchester, England for their rescue of two Irish nationalists, who played important roles in the failed Fenian Rising, from jail.
- 1963 – The BBC television series Doctor Who premiered with William Hartnell in the titular role.
- 1971 – The People's Republic of China was given China's permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
- 1985 – Omar Rezaq and two others from the Abu Nidal terrorist group hijacked EgyptAir Flight 648 over the Mediterranean Sea.
- 2003 – Rose Revolution: Eduard Shevardnadze resigned as President of Georgia following weeks of mass protests over disputed election results.
More events: November 22 – November 23 – November 24
November 24: Teachers' Day in Turkey
- 1190 – Conrad of Montferrat became de jure King of Jerusalem after marrying Queen Isabella.
- 1642 – Dutch explorer Abel Tasman reached Tasmania. He named the island Anthoonij van Diemenslandt after Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies Anthony van Diemen.
- 1859 – On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by British naturalist Charles Darwin (pictured) was first published, and sold out its initial print run on the first day.
- 1922 – Irish Civil War: Author and Irish nationalist Robert Erskine Childers was executed by firing squad by the Irish Free State for illegally carrying a revolver.
- 1974 – The 3.2-million-year-old skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis, nicknamed "Lucy" after The Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", was discovered in the Afar Depression in Ethiopia.
More events: November 23 – November 24 – November 25
November 25: National Day in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1943); Independence Day in Suriname (1975)
- 1120 – William Adelin, the only legitimate son of King Henry I of England, drowned in the White Ship Disaster, leading to a succession crisis which would bring down the Norman monarchy of England.
- 1177 –The 16-year-old King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, already ravaged by leprosy, destroys a Muslim army led by Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard, saving the Crusader states from invasion.
- 1795 – Stanisław August Poniatowski (pictured), the last King of Poland, was forced to abdicate after the Third Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by Austria, Prussia, and Russia.
- 1970 – Japanese author Yukio Mishima committed the ritual suicide seppuku at the Japan Self-Defense Forces headquarters in Tokyo after an unsuccessful attempt to inspire the soldiers to stage a coup d'etat to restore the powers of the Japanese Emperor prior to the 1947 constitution.
- 1992 – Legislators in Czechoslovakia voted to dissolve their country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, effective January 1, 1993.
More events: November 24 – November 25 – November 26
- 1778 – An expedition led by James Cook reached Maui, the second largest of the Hawaiian Islands.
- 1842 – The University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, USA was founded by members of the Roman Catholic Congregation of Holy Cross.
- 1917 – The National Hockey League, the premier professional ice hockey league in the world, was formed at a meeting at the Windsor Hotel in Montreal, Canada.
- 1942 – World War II: Josip Broz Tito (pictured) and the Yugoslav Partisans convened the first meeting of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia at Bihać in northwestern Bosnia.
- 1950 – Battle of Chosin Reservoir: Chinese forces in North Korea launched a massive counterattack against South Korean and United States armed forces, ending any thought of a quick end to the Korean War.
More events: November 25 – November 26 – November 27
November 27: Thanksgiving in the United States (2008)
- 1095 – At the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade, declaring bellum sacrum against the Muslims who had occupied the Holy Land and were attacking the Eastern Roman Empire.
- 1895 – Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel signed his last will and testament, setting aside the bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after his death.
- 1926 - Restoration of Colonial Williamsburg (pictured) in the Historic Triangle on the Virginia Peninsula, United States began.
- 2001 – The Hubble Space Telescope detected sodium in the atmosphere of the extrasolar planet HD 209458b, the first planetary atmosphere outside our solar system to be measured.
- 2005 – French oral and maxillofacial surgeon Bernard Devauchelle performed the world's first partial face transplant on a living human, replacing Isabelle Dinoire's face after her Labrador dog mauled her.
More events: November 26 – November 27 – November 28
November 28: Independence Day in Albania (1912) and Mauritania (1960)
- 1443 – Rebelling against the Ottoman Empire, Skanderbeg and his forces liberated Kruja in Middle Albania and raised the Albanian flag.
- 1919 – Nancy Astor (pictured), the first woman to serve as a Member of Parliament in the British House of Commons, was elected in a by-election.
- 1920 – Kilmichael Ambush: Thirty-six local Irish Republican Army volunteers killed seventeen members of the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary, marking a turning point in the Irish War of Independence.
- 1979 – Air New Zealand Flight 901 crashed into Antarctica's Mount Erebus, killing all 257 people on board.
- 2000 – The Cassette Scandal: Ukrainian politician Oleksandr Moroz publicly accused President Leonid Kuchma of being involved in the abduction of journalist Georgiy R. Gongadze and numerous other crimes.
More events: November 27 – November 28 – November 29
November 29: Liberation Day in Albania
- 1854 – The Eureka Flag was flown for the first time during the Eureka Stockade rebellion in Australia.
- 1877 – Thomas Edison demonstrated the phonograph (pictured), his invention for recording and replaying sound, for the first time.
- 1890 – The Diet of Japan, Japan's bicameral legislature modelled after both the German Reichstag and the British Westminster system, first met after the Meiji Constitution went into effect.
- 1929 – American explorer Richard Evelyn Byrd and three others completed the first flight over the South Pole.
- 1947 – The United Nations General Assembly voted to approve the Partition Plan for Palestine, a plan to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict in the British Mandate of Palestine by separating the territory into Jewish and Arab states.
More events: November 28 – November 29 – November 30
November 30: Independence Day in Barbados (1966); Saint Andrew's Day in Scotland; Bonifacio Day in the Philippines; Cities for Life Day
- 1786 – Peter Leopold Joseph, Grand Duke of Tuscany, promulgated a penal reform that made his country the first sovereign state to abolish the death penalty.
- 1853 – Russian battleships led by Pavel Nakhimov destroyed an Ottoman fleet of frigates at the Battle of Sinop in Sinop, Turkey, precipitating the Crimean War.
- 1936 – The Crystal Palace (pictured), built for the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, was destroyed by fire.
- 1939 – The Winter War broke out as the Soviet Red Army invaded Finland and quickly advanced to the Mannerheim Line, an action judged as illegal by the League of Nations.
- 2005 – John Sentamu was enthroned as Archbishop of York, becoming the first member of an ethnic minority to serve as an archbishop in the Church of England.
More events: November 29 – November 30 – December 1
Selected anniversaries/On this day archive
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[edit] Selected anniversaries for December
December 1: Union Day in Romania (1918); World AIDS Day (awareness ribbon pictured)
- 1640 – John IV was declared King of Portugal, resulting in the Portuguese Restoration War with Spain.
- 1824 – The House of Representatives selected John Quincy Adams as the winner of the U.S. presidential election, after none of the candidates received a majority of the total electoral college votes, as dictated by the Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
- 1955 – African-American Civil Rights Movement: Seamstress Rosa Parks was arrested for violating the racial segregation laws of Montgomery, Alabama, after refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, precipitating the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
- 1959 – Twelve countries signed the Antarctic Treaty, the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War, banning military activity in Antarctica and setting the continent aside as a scientific preserve.
- 1990 – Channel Tunnel workers from the United Kingdom and France met 40 metres (131 ft) beneath the English Channel seabed.
More events: November 30 – December 1 – December 2
December 2: National Day in the United Arab Emirates (1971) and Laos (1975)
- 1805 – Napoleonic Wars: French forces led by Emperor Napoleon I decisively defeated a Russo-Austrian army commanded by Czar Alexander I in the Battle of Austerlitz.
- 1823 – U.S. President James Monroe (pictured) issued the Monroe Doctrine, a proclamation of opposition to European colonialism in the New World.
- 1942 – The Manhattan Project: Scientists led by Enrico Fermi initiated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in the experimental nuclear reactor Chicago Pile-1.
- 1956 – Cuban Revolution: The yacht Granma, carrying Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and 80 other members of the 26th of July Movement, reached the shores of Cuba.
- 1975 – The Pathet Lao overthrew the royalist government in Vientiane, forcing King Savang Vatthana to abdicate, and established the Lao People's Democratic Republic.
More events: December 1 – December 2 – December 3
- 1854 – At least 22 people were killed and 35 others were injured when rebelling miners at the Eureka Stockade clashed violently with the police and the military in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.
- 1904 – The Jovian moon Himalia was discovered by astronomer Charles Dillon Perrine at the Lick Observatory in San Jose, California, USA.
- 1967 – Cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.
- 1984 – Bhopal gas disaster: The accidental release of methyl isocyanate over Bhopal, India resulted in at least 20,000 total deaths and affected over 120,000 others in one of the world's worst industrial disasters.
- 1999 – NASA lost contact with the Mars Polar Lander (pictured) moments before it reached the atmosphere of Mars and disappeared.
More events: December 2 – December 3 – December 4
December 4: Navy Day in India
- 1639 – English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks made the first observation of a transit of Venus (2004 picture shown).
- 1676 – Scanian War: Forces led by Swedish Field Marshal Simon Grundel-Helmfelt defeated the invading army of Denmark–Norway under the command of King Christian V at the Battle of Lund in an area north of Lund, Sweden.
- 1791 – The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, was first published.
- 1991 – Pan American World Airways, which was the principal international airline of the United States and which was credited with many innovations, ended operations.
- 1992 – Operation Restore Hope: U.S. President George H. W. Bush ordered American troops into Somalia to help provide humanitarian aid and restore order after the dissolution of the country's central government during the ongoing Somali Civil War.
More events: December 3 – December 4 – December 5
December 5: Father's Day in Thailand; St Nicholas's Eve in various European countries
- 1492 – Christopher Columbus (pictured) became the first European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic).
- 1590 – Niccolò Sfondrati became Pope Gregory XIV, succeeding Pope Urban VII who died two months earlier.
- 1766 – In London, James Christie opened what is today the world's leading art business and fine arts auction house.
- 1933 – Prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States officially ended when the Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified.
- 1945 – Flight 19, a squadron of five Avenger TBM torpedo bombers of the U.S. Navy, disappeared in the area now known as the Bermuda Triangle.
More events: December 4 – December 5 – December 6
December 6: Independence Day in Finland (1917); Constitution Day in Spain
- 1768 – The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (title page pictured) was published.
- 1917 – Halifax Explosion: A ship in Halifax Harbour carrying trinitrotoluene (TNT) and picric acid caught fire after a collision with another ship and exploded, devastating Halifax, Canada.
- 1922 – The Irish Free State, the first independent Irish state to be recognised by the British government, came into existence, one year to the day after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
- 1956 – The Blood in the Water match: At the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the Hungarian water polo team defeat the USSR, 4–0, against the background of the Hungarian Revolution.
- 1957 – Project Vanguard: An attempt to launch the first American satellite failed with an explosion on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral.
- 1989 – The École Polytechnique massacre: Marc Lépine killed fourteen women and injured a further ten women and four men at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec.
More events: December 5 – December 6 – December 7
- 1724 – Tumult of Thorn (Toruń): Polish authorities executed the Mayor of Toruń, Royal Prussia and nine other Lutheran citizens following tensions between Protestants and Catholics.
- 1815 – Michel Ney, Marshal of France, was executed by a firing squad near Paris' Jardin du Luxembourg for supporting Napoleon Bonaparte.
- 1941 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy made its attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii (pictured).
- 1949 – Chinese Civil War: The government of the Republic of China relocated from Mainland China to Taipei on the island of Taiwan.
- 1988 – An earthquake with a moment magnitude of 7.2 struck the Spitak region of Armenia, then part of the Soviet Union, killing at least 50,000 people.
- 1995 – The Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34.
More events: December 6 – December 7 – December 8
December 8: Eid al-Adha begins (Islam, 2008); Constitution Day in Romania (1991); Feast of the Immaculate Conception in Roman Catholicism
- 1854 – In his Apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX (pictured) proclaimed the dogmatic definition of Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was born free of original sin.
- 1941 – World War II: Takashi Sakai and the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Hong Kong and quickly achieved air superiority by bombing Kai Tak Airport.
- 1941 – The Holocaust: The Chełmno extermination camp in Poland, the first Nazi extermination camp to use poison gas, began operations.
- 1980 – Mark David Chapman fatally shot former Beatle John Lennon outside the Dakota apartments in New York City, USA.
- 1991 – Leaders of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine met to dissolve the Soviet Union and establish the Commonwealth of Independent States.
- 2004 – Nathan Gale fatally shot former Pantera and at the time Damageplan guitarist Dimebag Darrell and three others at a Damageplan concert in Columbus, Ohio, USA
More events: December 7 – December 8 – December 9
December 9: Independence Day in Tanzania (1961); Army Day in Peru
- 1856 – Anglo-Persian War: Bushehr, a city on the southwestern coast of the Persian Gulf in present-day Iran, surrendered to occupying British forces.
- 1905 – Legislation on the separation of church and state in France was adopted, triggering civil disobedience by French Catholics.
- 1946 – The Doctors' Trial, the trial for crimes committed in Nazi human experimentation during World War II, began in Nuremberg, Germany.
- 1961 – Tanganyika gained independence from Britain (Tanganyika would become part of Tanzania three years later).
- 1979 – A World Health Organization commission of eminent scientists certified the global eradication of smallpox (pictured), making it the only human infectious disease to have been completely eradicated from nature.
More events: December 8 – December 9 – December 10
December 10: Constitution Day in Thailand (1932); Human Rights Day (1948)
- 1508 – The Papal States, France, Aragon and the Holy Roman Empire formed the League of Cambrai, an alliance against the Republic of Venice.
- 1868 – The first traffic lights were installed outside the Houses of Parliament in London, resembling railway signals with semaphore arms and red and green gas lamps for night use.
- 1901 – The first Nobel Prizes were awarded, on the anniversary of the 1896 death of their founder, Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel.
- 1936 – Edward VIII (pictured) signed his instrument of abdication, becoming the only British monarch to voluntarily relinquish the throne.
- 1948 – The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
More events: December 9 – December 10 – December 11
December 11: Republic Day in Burkina Faso (1958)
- 1282 – Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last independent Prince of Wales to rule in Wales, was killed in an ambush.
- 1602 – Geneva successfully repelled a late night attack by the combined forces of Duke Charles Emmanuel of Savoy and King Philip III of Spain (pictured), an event commemorated annually during the Fête de l'Escalade.
- 1931 – The British Parliament enacted the Statute of Westminster, giving the option of complete legislative independence to the Irish Free State, Newfoundland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.
- 1946 – The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) was established to provide emergency food and health care to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II.
- 1994 – First Chechen War: Russian forces entered into the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya to control the secessionist movement.
More events: December 10 – December 11 – December 12
December 12: Independence Day in Kenya (1963)
- 1531 – The Apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe: Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin saw a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary outside of modern-day Mexico City.
- 1897 – Belo Horizonte, the first planned city of Brazil, was inaugurated.
- 1901 – Guglielmo Marconi (pictured) received the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, from Poldhu Wireless Station in Cornwall, England to Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland.
- 1915 – President Yuan Shikai of the Republic of China reinstated the monarchy and declared himself Emperor.
- 1964 – Jomo Kenyatta became the first President of the Republic of Kenya.
More events: December 11 – December 12 – December 13
December 13: Republic Day in Malta (1974); Saint Lucy's Day
- 1545 – Counter-Reformation: The Council of Trent, an ecumenical council convoked by Pope Paul III in response to the growth of Protestantism, opened in Trento, Italy.
- 1642 – Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European explorer to reach New Zealand.
- 1769 – Dartmouth College (pictured) in present-day Hanover, New Hampshire, USA was established by a Royal Charter from British King George III and became the last university founded in the Thirteen Colonies before the American Revolution.
- 1862 – American Civil War: Union forces under Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside suffered severe casualties against entrenched Confederate defenders at the Battle of Fredericksburg in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
- 1981 – Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law in Poland, suspended Solidarity and imprisoned many union leaders.
More events: December 12 – December 13 – December 14
- 1896 – Glasgow Subway (pictured), the third oldest below-ground metro system in the world after the London Underground and the Budapest Metro, began operations in Glasgow, Scotland.
- 1911 – Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team became the first people to reach the South Pole.
- 1918 – The German Empire's defeat in World War I, and the stated fact that none of the Allies would ever accept a German-born prince as the King of Finland, led Frederick Charles to renounce the throne.
- 1962 – NASA's Mariner 2 became the world's first spacecraft to successfully fly by Venus.
- 1995 – The Dayton Agreement was signed in Paris, France to end the Bosnian War.
More events: December 13 – December 14 – December 15
- 1467 – Troops under Stephen III of Moldavia defeated the forces of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary at the Battle of Baia in Baia, present-day Romania.
- 1791 – The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution (pictured), collectively known as the United States Bill of Rights, were ratified.
- 1961 – Former Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death after being found guilty on fifteen criminal charges, including war crimes and crimes against humanity.
- 1964 – The six-month long Canadian Great Flag Debate ended when the Canadian House of Commons voted to replace the de facto national flag of Canada, the Canadian Red Ensign, with an official one, the current Maple Leaf Flag.
More events: December 14 – December 15 – December 16
December 16: National Day in Bahrain (1971); Victory Day in Bangladesh (1971); Independence Day in Kazakhstan (1991)
- 1653 – The Protectorate: Oliver Cromwell (pictured) became Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England.
- 1689 – The Parliament of England adopted the Bill of Rights, declaring that Englishmen possessed certain positive civil and political rights.
- 1850 – The Canterbury Pilgrims aboard Randolph and Charlotte-Jane arrived to settle Christchurch, New Zealand.
- 1944 – World War II: The Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany launched its final offensive in the western front, the Battle of the Bulge.
- 1971 – Pakistani forces in East Pakistan surrendered, ending the Indo-Pakistani War and the Bangladesh Liberation War.
More events: December 15 – December 16 – December 17
December 17: National Day in Bhutan (1907)
- 1862 – American Civil War: Union General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order No. 11, expelling Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky.
- 1903 – In Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, USA, Orville and Wilbur Wright aboard the Wright Flyer (pictured) conducted the first successful flight of a powered fixed-wing aircraft.
- 1944 – Malmedy massacre: Nazi German troops under Joachim Peiper killed unarmed prisoners of war, captured during the Battle of the Bulge, with machine guns near Malmedy, Belgium.
- 1970 – Soldiers fired at workers emerging from trains in Gdynia, Poland, beginning the government's brutal crackdown on mass anti-communist protests across the country.
- 1983 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonated a car bomb just outside Harrods Department Store in London, killing six people and injuring about 90 others.
More events: December 16 – December 17 – December 18
December 18: Republic Day in Niger (1958)
- 218 BC – Second Punic War: Hannibal (pictured) had his first great victory over the Roman Republic at the Battle of the Trebia.
- 1865 – Slavery in the United States was abolished when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted.
- 1892 – The first performance of Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's fairy tale-ballet The Nutcracker was held at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg.
- 1966 – Epimetheus, one of the moons of Saturn, was discovered, but was mistaken as Janus. It took 12 years to determine that they are two distinct objects sharing the same orbit.
- 1987 – Programmer Larry Wall released the first version of the programming language Perl via the comp.sources.misc newsgroup.
More events: December 17 – December 18 – December 19
- 1843 – A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, a novella about Ebenezer Scrooge, was first published.
- 1972 – NASA astronauts Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and Harrison Schmitt aboard Apollo 17 returned to Earth. No human has visited the Moon since.
- 1984 – The People's Republic of China and the United Kingdom signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, agreeing to the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong to China on July 1, 1997.
More events: December 18 – December 19 – December 20
- 1803 – As part of the Louisiana Purchase, New Orleans was transferred from France to the United States.
- 1917 – The Cheka, the first Soviet secret police, was founded. Felix Dzerzhinsky was appointed as its leader.
- 1951 – Experimental Breeder Reactor I near Arco, Idaho, USA became the world's first electricity-generating nuclear power plant when it produced sufficient electricity to illuminate four 200-watt light bulbs (pictured).
- 1995 – The NATO-led IFOR began peacekeeping in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- 1999 – Portugal transferred sovereignty of Macau to the People's Republic of China.
More events: December 19 – December 20 – December 21
December 21: December Solstice (12:04 UTC, 2008); Dongzhi, Yalda, Yule, and other winter solstice festivals (Northern Hemisphere, 2008); Midsummer festivities (Southern Hemisphere, 2008); Hanukkah begins at sunset (Judaism, 2008)
- 69 – Vespasian became the fourth Roman Emperor in the Year of the Four Emperors.
- 1844 – The Rochdale Pioneers, usually considered the first successful cooperative enterprise, opened their store in Rochdale, England, and formed the basis for the modern cooperative movement.
- 1937 – The animated feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, based on the fairy tale Snow White by the Brothers Grimm, premiered to a widely receptive audience.
- 1962 – Rondane National Park (pictured), Norway's first national park, was established.
- 1988 – Pan Am Flight 103: A terrorist bomb exploded and destroyed a Boeing 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270, including 11 on the ground.
More events: December 20 – December 21 – December 22
- 1808 – German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (pictured) premiered his Fifth Symphony, currently one of the most popular and well-known compositions in all of European classical music, at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.
- 1864 – American Civil War: Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea ended with the capture of Savannah, Georgia.
- 1885 – Itō Hirobumi, a samurai from Chōshū, became the first Prime Minister of Japan.
- 1989 – Romanian Revolution: After a week of bloody demonstrations, Ion Iliescu took over as President of Romania, ending the Communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceauşescu.
- 2001 – Burhanuddin Rabbani of the Northern Alliance handed over power in Afghanistan to the interim government headed by Hamid Karzai.
More events: December 21 – December 22 – December 23
December 23: Festivus; The Emperor's Birthday in Japan
- 962 – Byzantine-Arab Wars: Under the future Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Byzantine troops stormed the city of Aleppo, recovering the tattered tunic of John the Baptist.
- 1620 – Construction of the Plymouth Colony, an English colonial venture in what is today Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA, began two days after the first landing party arrived at the site.
- 1823 – A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, was first published (1912 book cover pictured). The poem was later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore.
- 1947 – The transistor, invented by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley, was first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.
- 1972 – The Nicaraguan capital of Managua was struck by a 6.5 magnitude earthquake, killing more than 10,000.
- 1986 – Piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, Voyager became the first aircraft to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, landing in California's Edwards Air Force Base after a nine-day trip.
More events: December 22 – December 23 – December 24
- 1777 – An expedition led by English explorer James Cook reached Christmas Island (pictured), the largest coral atoll in the world.
- 1814 – The Treaty of Ghent was signed in Ghent, present-day Belgium, ending the War of 1812 between the United Kingdom and the United States.
- 1865 – Six Confederate veterans of the American Civil War founded the Ku Klux Klan, which would later become a white supremacist group.
- 1906 – Canadian inventor Reginald Fessenden transmitted the first radio broadcast, which included his playing a song on the violin and reading a passage from the Bible.
- 1914 – British and German soldiers interrupted World War I to celebrate Christmas, beginning the Christmas truce.
- 1968 – The crew of the NASA spacecraft Apollo 8 became the first humans to orbit the Moon.
- 1974 – Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin, Australia, eventually destroying more than 70 percent of the city.
More events: December 23 – December 24 – December 25
December 25: Christmas in Western Christianity
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- 800 – Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor, a title that had been out of use in the West since the abdication of Romulus Augustus in 476.
- 1066 – William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey, completing the Norman Conquest, the last successful foreign conquest of England.
- 1776 – American Revolutionary War: George Washington and his army crossed the Delaware River to launch a surprise attack on Hessian mercenaries at the Battle of Trenton.
- 1947 – The Constitution of the Republic of China went into effect, amid the ongoing Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang and the Communists.
- 1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev (pictured) resigned as President of the Soviet Union.
More events: December 24 – December 25 – December 26
December 26: Boxing Day; Kwanzaa begins; St. Stephen's Day in Western Christianity
- 1606 – The first recorded performance of William Shakespeare's King Lear, based on the legend of King Lear of Britain, was held.
- 1790 – French Revolution: Louis XVI of France gave his Royal Assent to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, subordinating the Roman Catholic Church in France to the French government.
- 1898 – Physicists Pierre and Marie Curie announced the discovery of a new element, naming it radium.
- 1908 – Boxer Jack Johnson became the first African American Heavyweight Champion of the World after defeating Canadian Tommy Burns in Sydney.
- 2004 – An undersea earthquake in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia generated a series of devastating tsunamis that killed more than 225,000 people in eleven countries (a tsunami in Ao Nang, Thailand pictured).
More events: December 25 – December 26 – December 27
December 27: St. Stephen's Day in Eastern Christianity
- 1831 – Aboard HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin left Plymouth, England on what became an historic expedition to South America that made his name as a naturalist.
- 1918 – A public speech by famed Polish pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski (pictured) in Poznań sparked the Greater Poland Uprising against Germany and Prussia.
- 1945 – The international ratification of the Bretton Woods Agreement established the International Monetary Fund and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
- 1949 – Indonesian National Revolution: Queen Juliana of the Netherlands signed papers that relinquished sovereignty of most of the Dutch East Indies, officially recognising the independence of Indonesia.
- 1979 – Soviet war in Afghanistan: Soviet troops stormed Tajbeg Palace outside of Kabul and killed Afghan President Hafizullah Amin and his 300 elite guards.
More events: December 26 – December 27 – December 28
December 28: Proclamation Day in South Australia (1836); Day of the Holy Innocents in Western Christianity
- 1065 – London's Westminster Abbey, built by Edward the Confessor between 1045 and 1050, was consecrated.
- 1836 – At the Old Gum Tree (pictured in 2006) near present-day Adelaide, Royal Navy Rear–Admiral John Hindmarsh read a proclamation establishing the British province of South Australia.
- 1895 – History of film: Using their cinematograph in Paris, the Lumière brothers showed motion pictures to a paying audience for the first time.
- 1948 – The Douglas DC-3 airliner NC16002, en route from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Miami, Florida, USA, inexplicably disappeared in the area known as the Bermuda Triangle.
- 1999 – Saparmurat Niyazov, the first President of Turkmenistan, was proclaimed President for Life by the Assembly of Turkmenistan.
More events: December 27 – December 28 – December 29
December 29: Hanukkah ends at sunset (Judaism, 2008)
- 1170 – Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket was slain in his own cathedral by four knights of Henry II of England.
- 1860 – To counter the French Navy's La Gloire, the world's first ironclad warship, the British Royal Navy launched the world's first iron-hulled armoured battleship, HMS Warrior.
- 1911 – Sun Yat-sen (pictured) was elected as the provisional President of the Republic of China by representatives from provinces in Nanjing.
- 1937 – The Constitution of Ireland, the founding legal document of the state known today as the Republic of Ireland, came into force.
- 1993 – The Tian Tan Buddha, the world's tallest outdoor bronze statue of the seated Buddha, was completed.
More events: December 28 – December 29 – December 30
December 30: Rizal Day in the Philippines
- 1853 – Gadsden Purchase: The United States bought approximately 29,600 square miles (77,000 km²) of land south of the Gila River and west of the Rio Grande from Mexico for US$10 million.
- 1896 – Philippine Revolution: Nationalist José Rizal (pictured) was executed by a firing squad in Manila after Spanish authorities convicted him of rebellion, sedition, and conspiracy.
- 1922 – The Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, legalizing the creation of a union of several Soviet republics in the form of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was ratified.
- 1927 – The Ginza Line, the oldest underground subway line in the Far East, opened in Tokyo.
- 1947 – King Michael I was forced to abdicate as Romania became a People's Republic.
More events: December 29 – December 30 – December 31
December 31: New Year's Eve; Hogmanay in Scotland
- 1775 – American Revolutionary War: At the Battle of Quebec, British forces repulsed an attack by the Continental Army to capture Quebec City and enlist French Canadian support.
- 1857 – Queen Victoria (pictured) selected Ottawa as the capital of the British colony of Canada.
- 1960 – The farthing, a British coin first minted in England in the 13th century, ceased to be legal tender.
- 1963 – The Central African Federation officially collapsed, eventually to become Zambia, Malawi and Rhodesia.
- 1972 – American baseball player Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash en route to deliver aid to victims of the Nicaragua earthquake.
- 1999 – Boris Yeltsin, the first democratically elected President of Russia, resigned and named Vladimir Putin as Acting President.
More events: December 30 – December 31 – January 1
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