1478 – George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason against his older brother Edward IV of England, is executed in private at the Tower of London.
1516 – Mary I of England, Queen of England and Ireland (d. 1558) was born.
1546 – Martin Luther, German monk and priest, leader of the Protestant Reformation (b. 1483) died.
1564 – Michelangelo, Italian sculptor and painter (b. 1475) died.
1861 – In Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America.
1865 – American Civil War: Union forces under Major General William T. Sherman set the South Carolina State House on fire during the burning of Columbia.
1862 – Charles M. Schwab, American businessman, co-founded Bethlehem Steel (d. 1939) was born.
1878 – John Tunstall is murdered by outlaw Jesse Evans, sparking the Lincoln County War in Lincoln County, New Mexico.
1885 – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is published in the United States.
1898 – Enzo Ferrari, Italian race car driver and businessman, founded Ferrari (d. 1988) was born.
1942 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Army begins the systematic extermination of perceived hostile elements among the Chinese in Singapore.
1943 – A small group of anti Nazi students known as the White Rose movement were arrested after distributing leaflets with anti NAZI Propaganda are arrested and sentenced 5 days later by “The Peoples Court” to death and are beheaded.
1943 – Joseph Goebbels delivers his Sportpalast speech.
1954 – The first Church of Scientology is established in Los Angeles, California.
1955 – Operation Teapot: Teapot test shot “Wasp” is successfully detonated at the Nevada Test Site with a yield of 1.2 kilotons. Wasp is the first of fourteen shots in the Teapot series.
1957 – Walter James Bolton becomes the last person legally executed in New Zealand.
1964 – The US displays it’s anger at countries that are still trading with Cuba by stopping military assistance , the countries include Britain, France, and Yugoslavia. The US was trying to destabilize the Castro Regime and used any means at their disposal.
1970 – The Chicago Seven are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
1972 – The California Supreme Court in the case of People v. Anderson, (6 Cal.3d 628) invalidates the state’s death penalty and commutes the sentences of all death row inmates to life imprisonment.
1983 – Thirteen people die and one is seriously injured in the Wah Mee massacre in Seattle, Washington. It is said to be the largest robbery-motivated mass-murder in U.S. history.
1991 – The IRA explodes bombs in the early morning at Paddington station and Victoria station in London.
2001 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. He is ultimately convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
2001 – Seven-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt dies in an accident during the Daytona 500.
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