546 – Gothic War (535-554): The Ostrogoths of King Totila conquer Rome by bribing the Byzantine garrison.
920 – Romanos I is crowned as co-emperor of the underage Emperor Constantine VII.
942 – Assassination of William I Longsword, 2nd Duke of Normandy.
1398 – Timur (Tamerlane) captures and sacks Delhi, defeating Sultan Nasir-u Din Mehmud’s armies which include elephants
1538 – Pope Paul III excommunicates England’s King Henry VIII
1637 – Shimabara Rebellion: Japanese peasants led by Amakusa Shiro rise against daimyo Matsukura Shigeharu.
1718 – War of the Quadruple Alliance: Great Britain declares war on Spain.
1777 – France recognizes independence of British colonies in America
1777 – George Washington’s army returns to Valley Forge, Pa
1790 – Discovery of the Aztec calendar stone.
1807 – Napoleonic Wars: France issues the Milan Decree, which confirms the Continental System.
1807 – John Greenleaf Whittier, American poet and activist (d. 1892) was born.
1812 – War of 1812: U.S. forces attack a friendly Lenape village in the Battle of the Mississinewa.
1821 – Kentucky abolishes debtors’ prisons
1835 – Great Fire of New York: Fire levels lower Manhattan.
1862 – American Civil War: General Ulysses S. Grant issues General Order No. 11, expelling Jews from parts of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky.
1892 – First issue of Vogue is published
1895 – Anti-Saloon League of America formed, Washington, DC
1896 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s Schenley Park Casino, which was the first multi-purpose arena with the technology to create an artificial ice surface in North America, is destroyed in a fire.
1900 – New Ellis Island Immigration station completed costing $1.5 million (About 300 Million today)
1900 – 1st prize of 100,00 francs offered for communications with extraterrestrials. Martians excluded-considered too easy
1903 – The Wright brothers make the first controlled powered, heavier-than-air flight in the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
1911 – Eastern Oklahoma was under federal orders to enforce prohibition in the Indian area and the Osaga reservation. Shipments of liquor to Indians were forbidden and liquor control was put under the jurisdiction of the federal government.
1914 – Jews are expelled from Tel Aviv by Turkish authorities
1918 – Darwin Rebellion: Up to 1,000 demonstrators march on Government House in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.
1923 – Greek king George II overthrown by army/republic
1928 – Indian revolutionaries Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru assassinate British police officer James Saunders in Lahore, Punjab, to avenge the death of Lala Lajpat Rai at the hands of the police. The three were executed in 1931.
1930 – Bob Guccione, [Robert C J Edwa], US publisher (Penthouse, Omni), (d. 2010) Born
1933 – 13th Dalai Lama (b. 1876) died.
1936 – Pope Francis [Jorge Mario Bergoglio], Buenos Aires, Argentina, Catholic Pope (2013-). He is the 1st Jesuit pope, the 1st from the Americas and the 1st non-European pope since the Syrian Gregory III in 741. Birthed
1936 – Tommy Steele, English singer, guitarist, and actor was born.
1937 – Art Neville, American singer and keyboard player (The Neville Brothers and The Meters) was born.
1938 – Carlo Little, English drummer (Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages and All-Stars) (d. 2005) was born.
1938 – Discovery of nuclear fission using uranium by Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann
1939 – Eddie Kendricks, American singer-songwriter (The Temptations) (d. 1992) was born.
1941 – World War II: Japanese forces land in Northern Borneo.
1942 – News is filtering out of German occupied Europe of atrocities and the mass executions of Jews by killing squads and in Poland, Jewish ghettoes were being “systematically emptied” except for the able-bodied who were being sent to labour camps.
1942 – Paul Butterfield, Chicago, blues musician (Better Days) Born
1943 – All Chinese are again permitted to become citizens of the United States with the repealing of the Act of 1882 and the introduction of the Magnuson Act.
1944 – World War II: Battle of the Bulge – Malmedy massacre – American 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion POWs are shot by Waffen-SS Kampfgruppe Peiper.
1944 – US Army announces end of excluding Japanese-Americans from West Coast, detainees released.
1946 – Eugene Levy, Hamilton Canada, comedian/writer (SCTV)
1949 – Paul Rodgers, English singer-songwriter and producer (Free, Bad Company, The Firm, and The Law) was born.
1949 – Burma recognizes People’s Republic of China (Under Duress)
1951 – The American Civil Rights Congress delivers “We Charge Genocide” to the United Nations.
1953 – Bill Pullman, American actor was born.
1956 – Peter Farrelly, American film director (Something about Mary) Born
1957 – The United States successfully launches the first Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
1958 – Mike Mills, American bass player, songwriter, and producer (R.E.M., Hindu Love Gods, and Automatic Baby) was born.
1962 – Beatles 1st British TV appearance (People & Places)
1964 – Ginger, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Wildhearts, Ginger & The Sonic Circus, and Silver Ginger 5) was born.
1965 – Astrodome opens, 1st event is Judy Garland & Supremes concert
1967 – Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt disappears while swimming near Portsea, Victoria, and is presumed drowned.
1969 – Project Blue Book: The United States Air Force closes its study of UFOs.
1969 – Chuck Liddell, American mixed martial artist – Born
1969 – Mick Quinn, English singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer (Supergrass) was born.
1969 – USAF closes Project Blue Book, concluding no evidence of extraterrestrial spaceships behind thousands of UFO sightings
1972 – New line of control agreed to in Kashmir between India & Pakistan
1974 – Duff Goldman, American chef was born.
1974 – Giovonni Ribisi, actor (Cory-My 2 Dads, New Leave it To Beaver) Born
1975 – Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme sentenced to life for attempt on US President Ford’s life
1975 – Milla Jovovich, Kiev Ukraine, actress (Return to Blue Lagoon, Chaplin)
1976 – Superstation WTBS in Atlanta went national
1977 – Elvis Costello & The Attractions 1st US TV appearance (SNL)
1978 – Manny Pacquiao, Filipino boxer – Born
1978 – OPEC raises oil prices by 18%
1978 – Neil Sanderson, Canadian drummer and songwriter (Three Days Grace and Thousand Foot Krutch) was born.
1978 – The U.S.S.R. had been allowing only certain individuals out of the country such as a Jewish couple who sought medical help for their ailing baby and top scientist Venjamin Levich and his wife who wanted to immigrate to Israel. American senators were meeting in Moscow to get the Soviets to allow 200 Jews to immigrate to Israel.
1979 – Budweiser rocket car reaches 1190 kph (record for wheeled vehicle)
1980 – Eli Pariser, American activist and author, co-founded Avaaz.org was born.
1981 – American Brigadier General James L. Dozier is abducted by the Red Brigades in Verona, Italy.
1982 – Craig Kielburger, Canadian activist, co-founded Free the Children and Me to We was born.
1983 – Disco in Madrid catches fire; 83 die
1983 – Provisional IRA members detonate a car bomb at Harrods Department Store in London, England, United Kingdom. Three police officers and three civilians are killed.
1986 – American freelance assassin / Mob hitman Richard Kuklinski (The Iceman) is arrested at a roadblock
While serving several life sentences on murder charges, freelance assassin Richard Kuklinski became talkative. He talked to authors, he talked to television producers and reporters, and he talked to the office of the Bergen County Prosecutor. His conversations led Prosecutor John L. Molinelli to pursue murder charges against Salvatore Gravano (above) in 2003. A murder indictment accused Gravano, already in prison on drug charges, of hiring Kuklinski to gun down New York Police Detective Peter Calabro on March 14, 1980. But Molinelli’s attempt to use one informant against another was frustrated by Kuklinski’s death on March 5, 2005, before the Gravano case could be tried. In interviews, Kuklinski admitted to killing about 100 people. Many of those murders were done under contract with New York region Mafia families. He claimed to have often used a cyanide spray, but he seemed equally comfortable with firearms. Kuklinski acquired his “Iceman” nickname when authorities learned that he sometimes stored the bodies of his victims in an industrial freezer housed in a leased warehouse. He did that to delay decomposition and cause medical examiners to state incorrect times of death. Kuklinski was 70 years old when he died in a secure wing of St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton, NJ, where he was being treated for heart, kidney and lung problems. While not immediately providing a cause of death, authorities stated that his death was not suspicious.
1987 – Final Fantasy is released in Japan on the Famicon, marking the start of the Final Fantasy series and saving Square from bankruptcy.
1987 – A Korean Boeing 707 disappeared near Burma with 115 passengers on board. Pieces of the wreckage washed up 130 miles southeast of Rangoon. An Asian female was apprehended as a possible suspect who bombed the plane. Her mouth was bound with a bandage so she wouldn’t commit suicide by swallowing her tongue.
1989 – The first episode of television series The Simpsons, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”, airs in the United States.
1992 – Gen Suwa finds tooth of 4.4 million year old Australopithecus ramidus
1992 – President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in separate ceremonies
1997 – The British Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997 comes into force, banning all handguns with the exception of antique and show weapons.
2003 – SpaceShipOne, piloted by Brian Binnie, makes its first powered and first supersonic flight.
2005 – Anti-World Trade Organization protesters riot in Wan Chai, Hong Kong.
2005 – President George W. Bush acknowledged he’d personally authorized a secret eavesdropping program in the U.S. following Sept. 11, calling it “crucial to our national security.”, referred to by the Bush administration as the “terrorist surveillance program”, and is authorized by executive order to monitor, without warrants, phone calls and other communication involving any party believed by the NSA ( National Security Agency ) to be a threat to the security of the United States.
2006 – Guantanamo Bay holds the most dangerous, despicable criminals in the world according to the Pentagon. A crowd of suspects was rounded up after September 11th when two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Centre. However, since January 2002, the U.S. had released 360 prisoners from Guantanamo Bay and sent them to other countries. Of these former prisoners 205 out of 245 were freed which casts doubt on their guilt in the first place.
2010 – Mohamed Bouazizi sets himself on fire. This act became the catalyst for the Tunisian Revolution and the wider Arab Spring.
2010 – Captain Beefheart, American musician (b. 1941) Dies
2011 – North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-il, reportedly died after suffering a heart attack according to state media in the tightly controlled and highly isolated Communist country. His death signaled the possibility for increased instability as the transition of power within the country took place. In the days and weeks after Kim Jong-il’s death, his youngest son Kim Jong-un was given various important titles such as “the Great Successor”, leading to to what most suspect will be his eventual rise to leadership in the country. Citizens reportedly took to the streets in public displays of mourning and were shown through the state media.
2012 – Daniel K. Inouye, American politician, dies from respiratory complications at 88 (Below: Senator Daniel K. Inouye in 1987 Chaired the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition, which held public hearings on the Iran-Contra affair.)
2012 – NASA completes a successful mission to map the Moon’s gravity field
2012 – Jesse Hill Jr., American businessman and activist (b. 1926) died.
2013 – Kelly Clark, American lawyer and politician (b. 1957) died.
2013 – Cat Stevens, Hall & Oates, Kiss, Linda Ronstadt, and Nirvana are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame