607 – 12th recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet
624 – Battle of Badr, Muhammad’s Muslim forces win significant victory over Meccan forces
1639 – Harvard College is named after clergyman John Harvard.
1656 – Jews are denied the right to build a synagogue in New Amsterdam (NYC)
1677 – Massachusetts gains title to Maine for $6,000
1697 – Nojpetén, capital of the Itza Maya kingdom, fell to Spanish conquistadors, the final step in the Spanish conquest of Guatemala.
1781 – William Herschel sees what he thinks is a “comet” but is actually the discovery of the planet Uranus
1852 – Uncle Sam cartoon figure made its debut in the NY Lantern weekly
1862 – American Civil War: The U.S. federal government forbids all Union army officers from returning fugitive slaves, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.
1865 – American Civil War: The Confederate States of America agree to the use of African American troops.
1868 – Senate begins US President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial
1869 – Arkansas legislature passes anti-Ku Klux Klan law
1881 – Alexander II, Tsar of Russia, assassinated at 62
1901 – Benjamin Harrison, American general and politician, 23rd President of the United States (b. 1833) died.
1903 – Nicolas Beets [Hildebrand], Dutch writer (Camera Obscura), dies at 88
1906 – Susan B. Anthony, American activist (b. 1820) died.
1911 – L. Ron Hubbard, American religious leader and author, founded the Church of Scientology (d. 1986) was born
1913 – William J. Casey, American politician, 13th Director of Central Intelligence, headed CIA during Iran-contra scandal (1981-87) (d. 1987) was birthed
1918 – Trotsky gains control of the Red Army
1921 – Allan Jaffee, comic strip cartoonist/illustrator (MAD Magazine) Born
1924 – German Republic day
1925 – Tennessee makes it unlawful to teach evolution
1933 – Great Depression: Banks in the U.S. begin to re-open after President Franklin D. Roosevelt mandates a “bank holiday”.
1933 – Joseph Goebbels becomes Nazi Germany’s Minister of Information and Propaganda
1938 – World News Roundup is broadcast for the first time on CBS Radio in the United States.
1938 – Clarence S Darrow, Scopes Monkey Trial attorney, dies in Chicago at 80
1939 – Neil Sedaka, Brooklyn New York, American singer/songwriter (Breaking Up is Hard to Do) Born
1941 – Isaak E Babel, Russian writer (Zakat, Marija), executed at 46
1943 – Failed assassin attempt on Hitler during Smolensk-Rastenburg flight
1946 – Yonatan Netanyahu, (Brother of “Bibi”) Israeli soldier who died leading rescue operation Entebbe in Uganda (d. 1976) Birthed
1950 – William H Macy, actor (Homicide, Water Engine, Shameless, Fargo, Boogie Nights…), born in Miami, Florida
1950 – Charles Krauthammer, Neo Con American political commentator, Birthed
1957 – Cuban student revolutionaries storm the presidential palace in Havana in a failed attempt on the life of President Fulgencio Batista.
1960 – Adam Clayton, English-Irish bass player and songwriter (U2 and Automatic Baby) was born.
1962 – Lyman Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivers a proposal, called Operation Northwoods, regarding performing terrorist attacks upon Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The proposal is scrapped and President John F. Kennedy removes Lemnitzer from his position.
1963 – Police in Phoenix, Arizona arrest Ernesto Miranda and charge him with kidnap and rape. His conviction is ultimately set aside by the United States Supreme Court in Miranda v. Arizona
1964 – American Kitty Genovese is murdered, the media erroneously report that many of the victim’s neighbours witnessed the crime yet failed to help, prompting research into the bystander effect.
1965 – Jeff Beck replaces Eric Clapton of the Yardbirds
1967 – Congo sentences ex-premier Moise Tsjombe to death
1973 – David Draiman, American singer-songwriter (Disturbed and Device) was born
1973 – Syria adopts constitution
1979 – European Monetary System is established, ECU created
1980 – Ford Motor Co found innocent in death of 3 women in a fiery Pinto
1985 – Emile Hirsch, Topanga, California, American actor (Into the Wild, Speed Racer, Lords of Dogtown) Born
1987 – John Gotti is acquitted of racketeering
1991 – The United States Department of Justice announces that Exxon has agreed to pay $1 billion for the clean-up of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
1993 – Ralph Smith Fults, US gangster (Bonnie & Clyde gang), dies at 82
1994 – Danny Barker, US banjo player/guitarist (Bourbon St Black), dies at 85
1995 – Istanbul police shoot dead 16 Alawitische demonstrators
1997 – The Phoenix lights are seen over Phoenix, Arizona by hundreds of people, and by millions on television.
2003 – Human evolution: The journal Nature reports that 350,000-year-old footprints of an upright-walking human have been found in Italy.
2005 – Terry Ratzmann shoots and kills six members of the Living Church of God and the minister at Sheraton Inn in Brookfield, Wisconsin before killing himself.
2008 – Gold prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit $1,000 per ounce for the first time.
2009 – James Purdy, American author, dies at 94
2011 – Owsley Stanley, Sound Engineer for The Grateful Dead and renowned LSD manufacturer (b. 1935) dies
2012 – Encyclopedia Britannica announces that it will no longer publish printed versions of its encyclopedia
2013 – Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio AKA Pope Francis is elected, in the papal conclave, as the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church.
2013 – The European Parliament rejects a European Union budget for the first time
2014 – After protests earlier this month, the Israeli parliament votes 65 to 1 for legislation that ends exemptions from military service for ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students