311 – The Diocletianic Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire ends.
1315 – Enguerrand de Marigny is hanged on the public gallows at Montfaucon.
1492 – Spain gives Christopher Columbus his commission of exploration.
1513 – Edmund de la Pole, Yorkist pretender to the English throne, is executed on the orders of Henry VIII.
1789 – On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States.
1803 – Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.
1812 – The Territory of Orleans becomes the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana.
1863 – A 65-man French Foreign Legion infantry patrol fights a force of nearly 2,000 Mexican soldiers to nearly the last man in Hacienda Camarón, Mexico.
1871 – The Camp Grant massacre takes place in Arizona Territory.
1885 – Governor of New York David B. Hill signs legislation creating the Niagara Reservation, New York’s first state park, ensuring that Niagara Falls will not be devoted solely to industrial and commercial use.
1893 – Joachim von Ribbentrop, German politician, 14th German Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs (d. 1946) was birthed.
1894 – Coxey’s Army reaches Washington, D.C. to protest the unemployment caused by the Panic of 1893.
1900 – Hawaii becomes a territory of the United States, with Sanford B. Dole as governor.
1900 – Casey Jones dies in a train wreck in Vaughan, Mississippi, while trying to make up time on the Cannonball Express.
1904 – The Louisiana Purchase Exposition World’s Fair opens in St. Louis, Missouri.
1907 – Honolulu, Hawaii becomes an independent city.
1927 – The Federal Industrial Institute for Women opens in Alderson, West Virginia, as the first women’s federal prison in the United States.
1927 – Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford become the first celebrities to leave their footprints in concrete at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
1938 – The animated cartoon short Porky’s Hare Hunt debuts in movie theaters, introducing Happy Rabbit (a prototype of Bugs Bunny).
1939 – NBC inaugurates its regularly scheduled television service in New York City, broadcasting President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s N.Y. World’s Fair opening day ceremonial address.
1943 – World War II: Operation Mincemeat: The submarine HMS Seraph surfaces in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain to deposit a dead man planted with false invasion plans and dressed as a British military intelligence officer.
1945 – World War II: Führerbunker: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide after being married for one day. Soviet soldiers raise the Victory Banner over the Reichstag building.
1947 – In Nevada, the Boulder Dam is renamed the Hoover Dam a second time.
1948 – In Bogotá, Colombia, the Organization of American States is established.
1956 – Former Vice President and Senator Alben Barkley dies during a speech in Virginia. He collapses after proclaiming “I would rather be a servant in the house of the lord than sit in the seats of the mighty.”
1959 – Stephen Harper, Canadian politician, 22nd Prime Minister of Canada was birthed.
1961 – K-19, the first Soviet nuclear submarine equipped with nuclear missiles, is commissioned.
1963 – The Bristol Bus Boycott is held in Bristol to protest the Bristol Omnibus Company’s refusal to employ Black or Asian bus crews, drawing national attention to racial discrimination in the United Kingdom.
1966 – The Church of Satan is established at the Black House in San Francisco.
1973 – Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces that top White House aides H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and others have resigned.
1980 – Beatrix becomes Queen of the Netherlands.
1980 – The Iranian Embassy siege begins in London.
1983 – Muddy Waters, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and bandleader (b. 1913) died.
1993 – CERN announces World Wide Web protocols will be free.
1995 – U.S. President Bill Clinton becomes the first President to visit Northern Ireland.
2004 – U.S. media release graphic photos of American soldiers abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
2013 – Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands abdicates and Willem-Alexander becomes King of the Netherlands.
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