1862 – American Civil War: The U.S. federal government forbids all Union army officers to return fugitive slaves, thus effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.
1911 – L. Ron Hubbard, American religious leader and author, founded the Church of Scientology (d. 1986) was born.
1933 – Great Depression: Banks in the U.S. begin to re-open after President Franklin D. Roosevelt mandates a “bank holiday”.
1943 – The Holocaust: German forces liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków.
1957 – Cuban student revolutionaries storm the presidential palace in Havana in a failed attempt on the life of President Fulgencio Batista.
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
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.
1997 – The Phoenix lights are seen over Phoenix, Arizona by hundreds of people, and by millions on television.
2008 – Gold prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit $1,000 per ounce for the first time.
2013 – Pope Francis is elected in the papal conclave to succeed Pope Benedict XVI.
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