Event of Interest
330 Newly built city of Constantinople (Byzantium) dedicated to Emperor Constantine the Great, becomes the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire
First Queen of England Crowned
1068 Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror, is crowned Queen of England in Westminster Abbey, London
Barbarossa Leaves for Third Crusade
1189 Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and 100,000 crusaders depart Regensburg for the Third Crusade
- 1310 Fifty-four members of the Knights Templar are burned at the stake in France for being heretics
- 1421 Jews are expelled from Styria Austria
- 1625 Peasants besiege Frankenburg estate in Upper Austria
- 1647 Peter Stuyvesant arrives in New Amsterdam
- 1674 Netherlands & Cologne sign peace treaty
- 1678 French admiral Jean d'Estrees' naval fleet runs aground on Aves-islands, Curacao, ends French control and ushers in an age of Piracy in the Caribbean
- 1689 Battle of Bantry Bay, French & English naval battle
- 1690 English troops of W Phips conquer Port Royal, Nova Scotia
- 1745 Battle of Fontenoy (Doornik): Austrian Succession war
- 1749 British parliament accepts Consolidation Act, to reorganise the Royal Navy
Pennsylvania Hospital Founded
1751 Pennsylvania Hospital founded by Dr. Thomas Bond and Benjamin Franklin, in Philadelphia
Lamarck Outlines his Theories of Evolution
1800 French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck gives his first lecture outlining his theories of evolution at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris, France
British PM Assassinated
1812 British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated by John Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons, London. Ironically, descendants of both later stand for the same seat in Parliament at the same time but neither win.
- 1812 Waltz introduced into English ballrooms; some observers consider it disgusting and immoral
- 1813 In Australia, William Lawson, Gregory Blaxland and William Wentworth, lead an expedition westwards from Sydney. Their route opens up inland Australia for continued expansion throughout the 19th century.
- 1816 American Bible Society forms (NY)
HMS Beagle Launches
1820 Launch of HMS Beagle, the ship that would later take a young Charles Darwin on his famous scientific voyage
- 1833 "Lady-of-the-Lake" strikes iceberg & sinks in North Atlantic; kills 215
Wilkes Explores Puget Sound
1841 American Charles Wilkes lands at Fort Nisqually in Puget Sound
Battle of Yellow Tavern
1864 Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart is mortally wounded at the Battle of Yellow Tavern in Henrico County, Virginia
Liverpool Becomes a City
1880 British Queen Victoria issues charter granting city status to the Borough of Liverpool
Music Premiere
1881 Bedřich Smetana's opera "Libuše" premieres iat the Natonal Theater, in Prague
Assassination Attempt on Prince Nicholas
1891 The Otsu Scandal: While visiting Japan, Prince Nicholas (later Tsar Nicholas II) survives an assassination attempt
1st Bicycle World Record
1893 Henri Desgrange establishes world's 1st bicycle world record, travelling 35.325 km (21.95 miles) an hour
Jeffries KOs Corbett
1900 James J. Jeffries KOs James J Corbett in 23 for heavyweight boxing title
Carnegie's Peace Palace
1904 Andrew Carnegie donates $1.5m to build the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, an international law administrative building and home for the Permanent Court of Arbitration [1]
- 1907 A derailment outside Lompoc, California, kills 32 Shriners when their chartered train jumps off the tracks at a switch near Surf Depot
- 1907 Bank of San Francisco incorporated
- 1910 Montana's Glacier National Park forms
- 1911 The United States becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty
- 1919 Cincinnati Reds pitcher Hod Eller no-hits St Louis Cardinals, 6-0 at Redland Field, Cincinnati
Johnson - Quinn Pitching Duel
1919 Washington Senators future Baseball Hall of Fame ace Walter Johnson pitches 12 scoreless innings in a famous 0-0 duel with Jack Quinn of the NY Yankees at the Polo Grounds
- 1921 Tel Aviv is 1st all Jewish municipality
- 1921 The Allied Supreme Council warns Germany to pay reparations or the entire Ruhr Valley will be occupied; Germany agrees
- 1923 10 HRs hit in Phillies 20-14 victory over St Louis Cardinals at the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia
- 1924 Cartel des Gauches wins French parliamentary election
Pulitzer to Robert Frost
1924 Pulitzer Prize for poetry awarded to Robert Frost for "New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes"
- 1925 Communist Party of Holland splits
- 1925 Kara-Kalpak Autonomous Region constituted in RSFSR
- 1926 Airship Norge leaves Ny-Ålesund, on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, for 1st air crossing of Arctic Ocean
- 1927 England's football team beat Belgium 9-1
- 1927 Louis B Mayer forms Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences
- 1928 General Electric opens 1st TV-station in Schenectady, New York
- 1929 1st regularly scheduled TV broadcasts (3 nights per week)
- 1929 Dr Annie Webb Blanton forms Delta Kappa Gamma Society in Austin, Texas
- 1931 "M" Fritz Lang's first sound film starring Peter Lorre premieres in Berlin
- 1931 Credit-Anstalt, Austria's largest bank, fails, beginning financial collapse of Central Europe
- 1934 Great dust bowl storm sweeps across the American and Canadian prairies traveling as far as the East Coast
- 1937 Los Glaciares National Park established in Patagonia, Argentina, the country's largest national park (UNESCO World Heritage Site 1981) [1]
- 1940 NY World's Fair reopens
- 1941 1st Messerschmidt 109F shot down above England
- 1942 Japanese troops conquer Kalewa
Go Down, Moses
1942 William Faulkner's collections of short stories, "Go Down, Moses", is published
Hermann Goering Division Surrenders
1943 German Luftwaffe armoured Hermann Göring division in Tunisia surrenders - its commander Colonel Joseph Schmid escapes
- 1943 US 7th div lands on Attu, Aleutian, (1st US territory recaptured)
- 1944 Opposition group surprise attack post office Washer
- 1945 US Marines conquer Awatsha Draw, Okinawa
- 1946 1st night game at Boston Braves Field (Giants 5, Braves 1)
- 1946 United Malays National Organisation is created.
- 1947 BF Goodrich announced the development of tubeless tire (Akron Ohio)
- 1947 Laos accepts constitution for parliamentary democracy
- 1948 Haganah takes control of Safed & port of Haifa
- 1948 Luigi Einaudi elected President of Italy
- 1949 By a vote of 37-12, Israel becomes 59th member of UN
- 1949 Siam renames itself Thailand
- 1950 Belgium mine disaster at Borinage, 39 die
La Cantatrice Chauve
1950 Eugene Ionesco's first play "La Cantatrice Chauve" (The Bald Soprano) premieres in Paris
Event of Interest
1953 Winston Churchill criticizes US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles' domino theory
- 1955 Israel attacks Gaza
Music History
1956 Elvis Presley's 1st entry on UK charts with "Heartbreak Hotel"
- 1956 Pinky Lee Show last airs on NBC-TV
- 1957 Gabriel Paris forms government of Colombia
- 1958 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Bikini Island
- 1958 US performs its second atmospheric nuclear test of the day, this one at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands
- 1959 "Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb" by Edd Byrnes & Connie Stevens hits #4
Sports History
1959 New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra's errorless streak of 148 games ends
- 1960 French liner "France" launched
'The Banality of Evil'
1960 Israeli soldiers capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires
Event of Interest
1962 Antonio Segni becomes President of Italy
- 1962 US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island
- 1962 US sends troops to Thailand
- 1963 "Puff (The Magic Dragon)" single by Peter, Paul & Mary hits #2; Peter Yarrow adapted a poem that college classmate Lenny Lipton had left behind after borrowing Yarrow's typewriter
Sports History
1963 LA Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax throws his second career no-hitter; beats Juan Marichal and the SF Giants, 8-0
- 1963 Racial bomb attacks in Birmingham Alabama
- 1965 1st of 2 cyclones in less than a month kills 35,000 (India)
- 1965 Bangladesh windstorm kills 17,000
Statue of Liberty
1965 Ellis Island added to Statue of Liberty National monument
- 1965 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1965 West Indies becomes 1st holders of the Frank Worrell Cricket Trophy
- 1967 100,000,000th US phone connected
- 1967 Great Britain, Ireland & Denmark apply for membership of the EEC
MacArthur Park
1968 Irish actor Richard Harris releases single "MacArthur Park"; it becomes a million-seller topping the charts in Canada and Australia, and peaking at #2 in US and #4 in UK
- 1968 Stanley Cup Final, Montreal Forum, Montreal, Quebec: Defenceman J. C. Tremblay fires home the winner as Montreal Canadiens edge St Louis Blues, 3-2 for a 4-0 series sweep
- 1968 Students & police battle in Paris, 100s injured
- 1968 Toronto Transit Commission opens the largest expansion of its Bloor-Danforth Line, going to Scarborough in the east, Etobicoke in the west
Monty Python Formed
1969 British comedy troupe Monty Python forms, made up of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin
Baseball Trade
1972 Giants trade Willie Mays to Mets for pitcher Charlie Williams & cash
Music History
1972 John Lennon says his phone is tapped by FBI on "The Dick Cavett Show"
- 1972 Stanley Cup Final, Madison Square Garden, NYC: Wayne Cashman scores twice as Boston Bruins beat NY Rangers, 3-0 to take title, 4-2
- 1972 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
- 1973 Citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg has his charges for his involvement in releasing the "Pentagon Papers" to The New York Times dismissed
- 1973 Dutch government of Uyl forms
Zanjeer
1973 Ground-breaking Indian crime film "Zanjeer" directed by Prakash Mehra and starring "The Angry Young Man" Amitabh Bachchan released
- 1974 "Tubular Bells" by Mike Oldfield hits #7
Rikki Don't Lose That Number
1974 ABC Records releases Steely Dan single "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" from the "Pretzel Logic "album; it peaks at #4 in the US, making it their biggest hit
- 1975 Israel signs an agreement with European Economic Market
Inseparable
1975 Natalie Cole releases her debut album "Inseparable" (wins 2 Grammy Awards)
- 1976 Last broadcast of "Marcus Welby, MD" on ABC-TV
Sports History
1977 Ted Turner manages an Atlanta Braves game
- 1978 Margaret A Brewer is 1st female general in the US Marine Corps
Cats
1981 Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical "Cats" (based on poetry by T. S. Eliot) directed by Trevor Nunn, opens at the New London Theatre in the West End, London; runs for 8,949 performances
- 1983 Comet C/1983 H1 (IRAS-Araki-Alcock) approaches 0.0312 AUs of Earth
- 1984 Johan Cruijff quits soccer
- 1984 Tigers set best 30 game start record (26-4)
- 1984 Transit of Earth as seen on Mars
- 1985 56 die and at least 265 are injured at Bradford City football ground in the worst fire in English football history
- 1985 Booby trap bomb kills 86 people in India
- 1985 Dave Concepcion becomes 4th Cincinnati Red teammate to get 2,000 hits, others include Pete Rose, Tony Perez and César Cedeño
Event of Interest
1985 Pope John Paul II arrival in Netherlands marred by violent protest
- 1987 1st heart-lung transplant take place in Baltimore
Trial of Interest
1987 Trial of former Gestapo commandant Klaus Barbie begins in France for war crimes during World War II
- 1988 France performs nuclear test
Television Finale
1989 217th & final episode of TV soap opera "Dynasty" is aired
- 1989 France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
- 1989 Kenya announces worldwide ban on ivory to preserve its elephant herds
Operation Nimrod Dancer
1989 US President George H. W. Bush orders 1,900 additional troops to Panama
Baseball Trade
1990 NY Yankees trade Dave Winfield to Angels for Mike Witt
Sarafina!
1992 Film adaptation of Mbongeni Ngema and Hugh Masekela's anti-apartheid musical "Sarafina!", starring Leleti Khumalo, Miriam Makeba, and Whoopi Goldberg, premieres at Cannes Film Festival in France
- 1993 Paramaribo Suriname TV studio destroyed by fire
- 1994 "Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult" released in France
- 1994 6 white racists sentenced to death in South Africa
- 1995 More than 170 countries agree to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely and without conditions to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons [1]
- 1996 Florida Marlin Al Leiter no hits Colorado Rockies, 11-0
- 1996 Valujet DC-9 crashes in Miami, 109 die
Sports History
1997 Chess-playing computer Deep Blue developed by IBM defeats Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov 3.5-2.5 in chess
- 1997 NY Mets C Everett & Butch Huskey are 9th to hit consecutive pinch HRs
- 1998 India conducts three underground nuclear tests in Pokhran, including a thermonuclear device
- 2000 India's population officially reaches 1 billion - Astha Arora named India's billionth baby
- 2002 Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of the Netherlands unveils the Man With Two Hats monument in Ottawa and Apeldoorn (May 2), 2000, symbolically linking both the Netherlands and Canada for their assistance throughout the Second World War.
Canonization
2007 Pope Benedict XVI canonizes the first Brazilian-born saint, Frei Galvão
- 2009 An American soldier in Iraq opened fire on a counseling center at Camp Liberty in Bagdhad, leaving 5 other US soldiers dead and 3 soldiers wounded
Sports History
2009 Patrick Kane scores his first career hat-trick in the NHL playoffs against the Vancouver Canucks
Election of Interest
2010 David Cameron becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after forming a coalition government between the Liberal Democrats and his own Conservative Party
Election of Interest
2010 Imelda Marcos wins election to the House of Representatives of the Philippines, representing Ilocos Norte province
Sports History
2013 Bayern Munich set a new Bundesliga points record of 91
- 2014 Thousands protest against the construction of a waste incineration plant in Hangzhou, China
Event of Interest
2016 Brazilian senate votes to suspend President Dilma Rousseff and put her on trial for budgetary violations
- 2018 Mass murder-suicide in Margaret River, Australia, grandfather shoots six members of his family and himself
- 2018 Most popular names in the US for 2017 revealed as Emma for girls, Liam for boys
Film & TV History
2019 American actress and #MeToo activist Alyssa Milano urges women to go on a "sex strike" after Georgia state passes new abortion law
- 2019 Carbon dioxide levels in the earth's atmosphere hit levels not seen for 3 million years at 415 parts per million, according to the Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii
- 2019 Militants attack Zaver Pearl-Continental Hotel in Gwadar, Pakistan killing five, Balochistan Liberation Army claim responsibility
Election of Interest
2019 South African parliamentary elections return ruling Cyril Ramaphosa's ANC party to power with reduced majority (58%)
- 2020 Colombian airline Avianca, and world's 2nd oldest, becomes 1st major airline to file for bankruptcy due to COVID-19
- 2020 World Health Organization warns “extreme vigilance” needed as many countries begin easing lockdowns
- 2021 China census figures show country's population 1.41 billion people, growth at its slowest since 1960s, (+0.53 down from +0.57) [1]
- 2021 Northern Ireland inquest into 1971 Ballymurphy killing of ten people finds people were innocent and killed (nine by soldiers) using unjustified force [1]
- 2022 Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh shot and killed by Israeli forces in city of Jenin, in the West Bank [1]
- 2022 Costa Rica declares a state of emergency after a ransomware attack infiltrates and cripples several government agencies [1]
- 2022 First ever US government report into Indian boarding school deaths released (not complete), documents more than 500 deaths across 400 schools and 50 gravesites over 150 years [1]
- 2024 Rare strong solar storm reaches Earth prompting the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to issue a geomagnetic storm warning [1]
