1184 BC – Traditional date of the fall of Troy.
1558 – Mary, Queen of Scots, marries the Dauphin of France, François, at Notre Dame de Paris.
1581 – Vincent de Paul, French saint (d. 1660) Born
1704 – The first regular newspaper in British Colonial America, the News-Letter, is published in Boston, Massachusetts.
1731 – Daniel Defoe, English novelist (Robinson Crusoe), dies at about 70
1800 – The United States Library of Congress is established when President John Adams signs legislation to appropriate $5,000 USD to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress”.
1885 – American sharpshooter Annie Oakley was hired by Nate Salsbury to be a part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.
1904 – The Lithuanian press ban is lifted after almost 40 years.
1907 – Hersheypark, founded by Milton S. Hershey for the exclusive use of his employees, is opened.
1913 – The Woolworth Building skyscraper in New York City is opened.
1915 – The arrest of 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Istanbul marks the beginning of the Armenian Genocide.
1916 – Easter Rising: The Irish Republican Brotherhood led by nationalists Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, and Joseph Plunkett starts a rebellion in Ireland.
1922 – The first segment of the Imperial Wireless Chain providing wireless telegraphy between Leafield in Oxfordshire, England, and Cairo, Egypt, comes into operation.
1926 – The Treaty of Berlin is signed. Germany and the Soviet Union each pledge neutrality in the event of an attack on the other by a third party for the next five years.
1932 – Benny Rothman leads the mass trespass of Kinder Scout, leading to substantial legal reforms in the United Kingdom.
1933 – Nazi Germany begins its persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses by shutting down the Watch Tower Society office in Magdeburg.
1934 – Shirley MacLaine, Richmond Va, actress/mystic (Irma la Douce) Born
1936 – Jill Ireland, London, actress (Deathwish, Breakout, Assassination, Chino.. Wife of Charles Bronson)Born
1942 – Barbra Streisand, American singer-songwriter, actress, and producer was born.
1951 – The US Army plans to cut it’s draft call for the Korean war to 20,000 in June and to bring home 20,000 Korean Veterans
1952 – Jean Paul Gaultier, Arcueil France, French fashion designer – Born
1953 – Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
1954 – Mumia Abu-Jamal, American death-row inmate – Born
1955 – The Bandung Conference ends: Twenty-nine non-aligned nations of Asia and Africa finish a meeting that condemns colonialism, racism, and the Cold War.
1957 – David J, British musician / bassist (Bauhaus, Love and Rockets) Born
1957 – Suez Crisis: The Suez Canal is reopened following the introduction of UNEF peacekeepers to the region.
1965 – Civil war breaks out in the Dominican Republic when Colonel Francisco Caamaño, overthrows the triumvirate that had been in power since the coup d’état against Juan Bosch.
1967 – Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when its parachute fails to open. He is the first human to die during a space mission.
1967 – Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland says in a news conference that the enemy had “gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily.”
1972 – Chipper Jones, Deland FL, infielder (Atlanta Braves)Born
1980 – Eight U.S. servicemen die in Operation Eagle Claw as they attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis.
1986 – Wallis Simpson [Duchess of Windsor], British King Edward VIII abdicated for her, dies at 89
1990 – STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery.
1990 – Gruinard Island, Scotland, is officially declared free of the anthrax disease after 48 years of quarantine.
1993 – An IRA bomb devastates the Bishopsgate area of London.
1996 – In the United States, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 is passed into law.
2004 – The United States lifts economic sanctions imposed on Libya 18 years previously, as a reward for its cooperation in eliminating weapons of mass destruction.
2005 – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.
2005 – Snuppy becomes world’s first cloned dog.
2008 – Wesley Snipes has been sentenced in Florida on tax evasion charges. A jury had found him guilty in February, and he has been awarded thirty-six months in federal prison. Snipes’s lawyers had called for leniency, arguing that the offences were misdemeanors and that the star was of good character. But prosecutors said an example should be set because of Snipes’s fame. The jury had found Snipes guilty of deliberately failing to file tax returns for 1999, 2000 and 2001, but cleared him of the more serious fraud and conspiracy charges.