1428 – King Alfonso V, orders Sicily’s Jews to attend conversion sermons
1597 – A group of early Japanese Christians are killed by the new government of Japan for being seen as a threat to Japanese society.
1631 – Rhode Island, founder, Roger Williams arrives in Boston from England
1644 – 1st US livestock branding law passed, by Connecticut
1723 – John Witherspoon, Gifford Scotland, president of the College of New Jersey (signed Declaration of Independence) Born
1788 – Robert “Bobbie” Peel, British PM (1834-5; 41-46)/founder (British Conservative Party)/founder (Bobbies) Birthed
1778 – South Carolina becomes the second state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
1807 – Pasquale Paoli, Corsican freedom fighter, dies at 80
1817 – 1st US gas co incorporated, Baltimore (coal gas for street lights)
1848 – Belle Starr [Myra Belle Shirley], US female outlaw (wild west) Born
1850 – Adding machine employing depressible keys patented, New Paltz, NY (Invented by William S Burroughs Grandfather)
1852 – The New Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, opens to the public.
1869 – The largest alluvial gold nugget in history, called the “Welcome Stranger”, is found in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia.
1870 – 1st motion picture shown to a theater audience, Philadelphia
1879 – Joseph Swan demonstrates light bulb using carbon glow
1881 – Phoenix, Az incorporates
1885 – King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo as a personal colonial possession
1897 – Dirk Stikker, Dutch businessman and politician, 3rd Secretary General of NATO (d. 1979) was birthed.
1897 – Poet / Author Marcel Proust meets Jean Lorrain in a pistol duel
1900 – The United States and the United Kingdom sign a treaty for the Panama Canal.
1900 – Adlai E Stevenson, (Gov-D-Ill), pres candidate (D) (1952, 1956) Born
1901 – Pierpont Morgan forms US Steel Corp
1901 – Loop-the-loop centrifugal RR (roller coaster) patented by Ed Prescot
1904 – American occupation of Cuba ends
1906 – John Carradine, Greenwich Village NY, actor (Grapes of Wrath, Howling) Born
1908 – Bob Dunn, American trombonist and guitarist (d. 1971) was born.
1909 – Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland announces the creation of Bakelite, the world’s first synthetic plastic.
1912 – Hedwig Potthast, German secretary and mistress of Heinrich Himmler (d. 1997) was birthed.
1914 – William S Burroughs, St Louis, novelist (Naked Lunch, Junkie) BORN
1917 – The Congress of the United States passes the Immigration Act of 1917 over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto. Also known as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act, it forbade immigration from nearly all of south and southeast Asia.
1917 – The last of the American troops commanded by General John Pershing leave Mexico; President Carranza will be assassinated within the next year
1918 – Stephen W. Thompson shoots down a German airplane. It is the first aerial victory by the U.S. military.
1918 – SS Tuscania is torpedoed off the coast of Ireland; it is the first ship carrying American troops to Europe to be torpedoed and sunk.
1918 – Separation of church & state begins in USSR
1919 – Red Buttons, [Aaron Chwatt], Bronx comedian/actor (Sayonara), born in NYC, New York – Born
1919 – NL pres John Heydler dismisses charges that Hal Chase bet against his team & threw games in collusion with gamblers
1921 – Yankees purchase 20 acres in Bronx for Yankee Stadium
1919 – Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith launch United Artists.
1922 – Reader’s Digest magazine 1st published
1923 – Mass arrests of socialists & communists in Italy
1934 – Hank Aaron. American baseball player was born.
1934 – Don Cherry, Canadian sportscaster was born.
1935 – Alex Harvey, Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1982) was born.
1937 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposes a plan to enlarge the Supreme Court of the United States.
1940 - H R Giger, Invented Bio – mechanical Art / Swiss artist & special effects designer (Alien), born in Zürich, (d. 2014) Born
1941 – Barrett Strong, vocalist (Money, That’s What I Want), born in Detroit, Michigan
1941 – Stephen J Cannell, producer (Rockford Files) Born
1942 – Cory Wells, American singer (Three Dog Night) was born.
1942 – Roger Staubach, NFL quarterback (Dallas Cowboys) Born
1943 – Charles Winfield, Penn, rocker (Blood Sweat & Tears-Spinning Wheel) Born
1943 – Nolan Bushnell, American businessman, founded Atari, Inc. was born.
1943 – Amsterdam resistance group CS-6 shoots nazi general Seyffardt
1944 – Al Kooper, American singer-songwriter and producer (Blues Project and Blood, Sweat & Tears) was born.
1944 – J R Cobb, Birmingham Ala, rocker (Atlanta Rhythm Section, Classic IV) Born
1946 – Charlotte Rampling, England, actress (Zardoz, Night Porter, Verdict) Born
1945 – World War II: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.
1947 – Darrell Waltrip, American race car driver – Born
1948 – Barbara Hershey, [Herzstein], (Stuntman, Shy People), born in Atlanta, Georgia Born
1948 – Christopher Guest, (Nigel Tufnel) actor (SNL, Heartbeeps, This is Spinal Tap), born in NYC, New York – Born
1948 – David Denny, rock guitarist (Steve Miller Band-Abracadabra) Born
1948 – Dick Button becomes 1st US figure skating Olympic champion
1954 – Cliff Martinez, American drummer and songwriter (Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Dickies, and The Weirdos) was born.
1955 – Debra Jo Fondren, Los Angeles Cal, playmate of year (September, 1977) Born
1956 – Betty Ong, American flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11 (d. 2001) was born.
1958 – A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, never to be recovered.
1958 – Gamel Abdel Nasser nominated 1st president of United Arab Republic
1961 – Tim Meadows, (SNL) American actor and comedian – Born
1962 – Jennifer Jason Leigh [Morrow], American actress (Single White Female, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle), born in Los Angeles, California
1962 – French President de Gaulle calls for Algeria’s independence
1963 – The European Court of Justice’s ruling in Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen establishes the principle of direct effect, one of the most important, if not the most important, decisions in the development of European Union law.
1963 – Maarten Schmidt discovers enormous red shifts in quasars
1963 – Soviet lunar probe failure
1964 – Duff McKagan, American singer-songwriter, bass player, and producer (Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver, Loaded, and Neurotic Outsiders) was born.
1969 – Bobby Brown, Roxbury Ma, US singer-songwriter (“My Prerogative”) Born
1971 – Apollo 14, 3rd US manned Moon expedition, lands near Fra Mauro Alan Shepard & Edward Mitchell (Apollo 14) walk on Moon for 4 hrs
1972 – Bob Douglas is 1st African American elected to Basketball Hall of Fame
1972 – US airlines begin mandatory inspection of passengers & baggage
1974 – Maximum speed on Autobahn reduced to 100 kph
1974 – John Murtha becomes the first Vietnam War veteran elected to the Congress of the United States.
1975 – Adam Carson, American musician (AFI) Born
1975 – Riots break in Lima, Peru after the police forces go on strike the day before. The uprising (locally known as the Limazo) is bloodily suppressed by the military dictatorship.
1976 – The 1976 “swine flu” outbreak begins at Fort Dix, NJ.
1980 – Egyptian parliament votes to end boycott of Israel
1982 – DEA announces seizure of 3,192 tons of marijuana, 495 people
1983 – Former Nazi Gestapo official Klaus Barbie brought to trial
1985 – Cristiano Ronaldo, Funchal Portgual, Portuguese footballer – Born
1985 – Laurence Maroney, American football player (NE Patriots) – Born
1988 – Manuel Noriega is indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges.
1988 – 1st prime-time wrestling match in 30 yrs-Andre the Giant beats Hulk Hogan
1988 – Arizona House of Reps vote to impeach Republican Gov Evan Mecham
1991 – A Michigan court bars Dr Jack Kevorkian from assisting in suicides
1992 – Jury selection begins in the LA police beating Rodney King case
1993 – R James Woolsey, becomes 16th director of CIA
1994 – Kenneth “Buddy” Scott, blues guitarist/Singer, dies at 59
1994 – Medgar Evers’ murderer Byron De La Beckwith sentenced to life, in Jackson Miss, 30 years after the crime
1996 – The first genetically modified, or GM, food goes on sale in British supermarkets. The first GM puree based on GM tomatoes with the rotting gene removed.
1997 – Pamela Harriman, US Ambassador (to France) daughter of Bones’man Banker Avrill Harriman, Funded both Clinton and Bush, dies of stroke at 76
1997 – OJ Simpson found liable in the deaths of Ron Goldman & Nicole Simpson in a civil court action.
1997 – 3 Swiss banks create $70 million Holocaust fund
1998 – Author Tom Clancy confirms he signed agreement to purchase Minnesota Vikings for slightly more than $200 million, an NFL franchise record
1998 – Tim Kelly, American guitarist for the band Slaughter, dies at 34
2000 – Russian forces massacre at least 60 civilians in the Novye Aldi suburb of Grozny, Chechnya.
2002 – The American John Walker Lindh who was captured on November 25, during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan while fighting for the Taliban is indicted by A federal grand jury on 10 charges, alleging that he was trained by Osama bin Laden’s network and that he conspired with the Taliban to kill Americans.
2003 – Secretary of State Colin Powell urges the U.N. Security Council to move against Iraq, saying that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and was harboring terrorists – claims that later turned out to be false.
2004 – Rebels from the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front capture the city of Gonaïves, starting the 2004 Haiti rebellion. (Earthquake soon follows)
2007 – A close friend of murdered spy Alexander Litvinenko has broken his silence in a B.B.C. interview. Boris Berezovsky said that Litvinenko had named former K.G.B. agent Andrei Lugovoi as responsible. Berezovsky also said that Litvinenko, whose body contained radioactive polonium-210, had told him that ‘I think Lugovoi is involved in my poison.’ British police sources have said that Lugovoi was the ‘most likely poisoner,’ and he has denied any involvement. (Some have also said that Russia was set up in Litvinenko poisoning)
2008 – A major tornado outbreak across the Southern United States leaves at least 58 dead, the most since the May 31, 1985 outbreak that killed 88.
2008 – The C.I.A. has admitted to ‘waterboarding’ terror suspects. The C.I.A. director Michael Hayden has told Congress that it has only been used on three people, and not for the past five years. (cough… LIE) He said that the technique was used on high-profile al-Qaeda detainees 9Suspects without trial) like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Waterboarding has been condemned as a torture by a number of rights groups. Mr. Hayden was speaking when the National Intelligence Director, Mike McConnell, was presenting his annual threat assessment.
2008 – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Indian guru, founder of Transcendental Meditation (b. ca. 1917) Dies
2009 – The United States Navy guided missile cruiser Port Royal runs aground off Oahu, Hawaii, damaging the ship as well as a coral reef.
2011 – Ed Sabol, co-founder of NFL Films, elected for enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame
2013 – UK House of Commons votes in favour of same-sex marriage
2013 – The US Postal Service announces the cessation of Saturday first-class mail delivery from August 2013
2014 – Archaeologists decrypt the 13th C Viking jötunvillur runic code