Caligula Accepts Principate
37 Roman Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, better known as Caligula (which means "little soldier's boots"), accepts the titles of the Principate, entitled to him by the Senate
- 193 Roman Emperor Pertinax is assassinated by his Praetorian Guards, who then sell the throne in an auction to Didius Julianus
- 364 Roman Emperor Valentinian I appoints his brother Flavius Valens co-emperor
- 519 Pope Hormisdas reunites the Eastern and Western church, ending the Acacian schism in a ceremony in the cathedral of Constantinople
- 1535 Bloemkamp Abbey (Oldeklooster) attacked & destroyed in Friesland
- 1556 Origin of Fasli Era (India)
Coronation of Philip II
1556 Philip II of Spain is formally crowned King of Spain
- 1566 Foundation stone laid for the new city of La Valletta in Malta by Knights Hospitaller Grand Master Jean de Valette
- 1738 Parliament sends an address to the king requesting that he demand redress from Spain (War of Jenkin's Ear)
- 1774 Britain passes Coercive Act against Massachusetts
- 1776 Juan Bautista de Anza finds the site for the Presidio of San Francisco
- 1794 Allies under the prince of Coburg defeat French forces at Le Cateau
- 1794 Louvre opens to the public (although officially opened since August)
- 1795 Partitions of Poland: The Duchy of Courland, a northern fief of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, ceases to exist and becomes part of Imperial Russia.
- 1796 Bethel African Methodist Church of Philadelphia is 1st US-African church
- 1797 Nathaniel Briggs of New Hampshire patents a washing machine
- 1802 Wilhelm Olbers discovers 2 Pallas, the second known asteroid
- 1804 Ohio passes law restricting movement of Blacks
- 1830 Javanese Prince Diponegoro, leader of resistance against Dutch colonial rule is arrested by Dutch authorities during peace negotiations
- 1834 Senate censure President Jackson for taking fed deposits from Bank of US
- 1844 Jose Zorilla's "Don Juan Tenorio" premieres in Madrid
- 1845 Mexico drops diplomatic relations with US
- 1854 Great Britain and France declare war on Russia, expanding the Crimean War
- 1860 First Taranaki War: The Battle of Waireka begins in New Zealand
- 1862 Skirmish at Bealeton Station, Virginia
- 1866 1st ambulance goes into service
- 1871 San Francisco Art Association holds open reception at 430 Pine
Greatest Show On Earth
1881 "Greatest Show On Earth" formed by P. T. Barnum and James Anthony Bailey
A Salute To The Salvation Army
1885 US Salvation Army officially organized
Fabre Hydravion
1910 First seaplane takes off from water under its own power, piloted by Henri Fabre from the Étang de Berre lagoon at Martigues, France
- 1913 Guatemala becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty
Jerusalem
1916 First performance of "Jerusalem" by George Parry set to words by William Blake at a 'Fight for Right' meeting at the Queen’s Hall, London
- 1917 Jews are expelled from Tel Aviv & Jaffa by Turkish authorities
- 1917 Puccini's "La Rondine" premieres in Monte Carlo
- 1920 Anton Denkin's White Russian troops defeated by Bolsheviks and Soviets at Novorossijsk on the Black Sea (The British aid Denkin in his escape)
- 1920 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1920 affects the Great Lakes region and Deep South states
Tomáš Masaryk President
1920 Tomáš Masaryk elected President of Czechoslovakia
- 1922 1st microfilm device introduced
- 1924 WGN-AM in Chicago IL begins radio transmissions
- 1927 Majestic Theater opens at 245 W 44th St, NYC; designed with a modern Spanish exterior and French revival style interior by architect Herbert J. Krapp, it is largest of 3 theater and hotel development cuilt by Irving Chanin
- 1929 Democratic constitution goes into effect in Ecuador
Istanbul – The Queen of Cities
1930 Turkish cities Constantinople and Angora change their names to Istanbul and Ankara
Goddard Employs Gyroscopes
1935 Robert Goddard uses gyroscopes to control a rocket
- 1939 Philip Barry's comic play "Philadelphia Story" about a socialite's impending wedding premieres at the Shubert Theater in NYC; star Katherine Hepburn also led the 1940 film version
The Fall of Madrid
1939 Spanish Civil War ends, Madrid falls to the Nationalists headed by Francisco Franco
- 1940 Construction begins of the exhibition center to host the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair
- 1940 WWII: Two Dutch Fokker fighter plane crews shoot down British RAF bomber near Rotterdam
- 1941 Sea battle at Cape Matapan: British fleet under Cunningham defeats Italy
- 1942 -29] 234 RAF bombers attack Lubeck
- 1942 British naval forces raid Nazi occupied French port of St Nazaire
- 1942 St. Nazaire Raid (Operation Chariot): obsolete British destroyer HMS Campbeltown, rigged with explosives and flying German flags, rams gates of German occupied St Nazaire port in France, and self detonates; kills 360 Germans, and disables the dry dock for duration of the war
- 1944 Astrid Lindgren sprains ankle and begins writing "Pippi Longstocking"
- 1945 Last German V-1 (buzz bomb) attack on London
- 1946 Cold War: The United States State Department releases the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, outlining a plan for the international control of nuclear power.
- 1952 US Men's Figure Skating championship won by Richard Button
- 1953 "Stock exchanges open, dikes closed" raises 5,200,000 guilders
- 1953 US Men's Figure Skating championship won by Hayes A Jenkins
- 1959 11 days after Tibet uprising, China dissolves Tibet's government & installs Panchen Lama
- 1960 Pope John appoints the first Japanese, African & Filipino cardinals
- 1960 Scotch whisky factory explodes burying 20 fire fighters in Glasgow, Scotland
- 1962 Military coup in Syria, President Nazim al-Kudsi flees
- 1964 1st pirate radio station near England (Radio Caroline)
- 1964 Discovery of Epstein-Barr virus, the first human tumor virus, identified by pathologists English Anthony Epstein and Yvonne Barr published in "Lancet" [1]
- 1970 1,086 die when 7.4 quake destroys 254 villages in Gediz Turkey
- 1972 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
- 1977 Morarji Desai forms a government in India
- 1978 Daryl Gates becomes the 49th Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department
- 1979 A partial meltdown at Three Mile Island nuclear plant in the US results in the release of radioactive gas and iodine into the atmosphere but no deaths
- 1979 British government of Prime Minister Jim Callaghan (Labour Party) falls
- 1981 East German Christa Rothenburger skates ladies' world record 500 m (40.18 sec); she later breaks her own record twice
- 1981 France performs nuclear test
- 1981 Gabi Schonbrunn skates ladies world record 3 km (4:21.70)
- 1981 Yevgeni Kulikov skates world record 500m (36.91 secs)
- 1982 12th Easter Seal Telethon raises $19,500,000
- 1982 JN Duartes' Christian Democrats win elections in El Salvador
- 1985 International Cometary Explorer measures solar wind ahead of Halley
- 1985 STS 51-D vehicle moves to launch pad
- 1986 Extremist Sikhs kill 13 Hindus in Ludhiana, India
- 1986 John N McMahon, ends term as deputy director of CIA
- 1987 Stacking of Discovery's SRBs gets underway
Louvre Pyramid
1989 The Louvre Pyramid designed by I. M. Pei is inaugurated by French President François Mitterrand in Paris
- 1992 Ann Transon runs female world record 50k (3:35:31)
- 1992 PBA National Championship Won by Eric Forkel
- 1993 Conservatives win French parliamentary election
- 1993 Type II supernova detected in M81 (NGC 3031)
- 1994 Armed Zulus demonstrate in Johannesburg, over 53 killed
- 1994 BBC Radio Five Live broadcasts for first time in United Kingdom
Election of Interest
1994 Italy's right-wing alliance under Silvio Berlusconi wins election
- 1995 World's largest bank-Japan's Mitsubishi Bank & Bank of Tokyo merge
- 2000 A Murray County, Georgia, school bus is hit by a CSX freight train (3 children die in this accident).
- 2003 In a "friendly fire" incident, two US A-10 Thunderbolt IIs from the 190th Fighter Squadron attack British tanks participating in the invasion of Iraq, killing British soldier Matty Hull
- 2005 The 2005 Sumatran earthquake rocks Indonesia, and at magnitude 8.7 is the second strongest earthquake since 1960.
- 2006 At least 1 million union members, students and unemployed take to the streets in France in protest at the government's proposed First Employment Contract law
Swine Flu Pandemic
2009 The first cases of H1N1 swine flu in the United States occur in two people in California
- 2013 143 rebels and 20 government troop are killed in conflict in Pibor County, Sudan
- 2013 15 students are killed and 7 are injured after a mortar strikes Damascus University
- 2013 Banks in Cyprus re-open after having been closed for two weeks; the government agrees a 10 billion euro bailout deal with the EU and IMF
Event of Interest
2013 Pope Francis becomes the first Pope to wash the feet of women in the Maundy Thursday service
- 2014 2 cases of Ebola are reported in Liberia among people who have travelled to Guinea
- 2014 Russia increases the price of gas to Ukraine by 80%
- 2017 Britain introduces 1st new pound coin in 30 years with secret security feature inside to stop counterfeiting
- 2017 Cyclone Debbie strikes north east Queensland coast as a category 4 storm
- 2017 US confirms likely it is behind the air strike in Mosul, Iraq, that led to collapse of a building that killed more than 100 civilians
Event of Interest
2017 US President Donald Trump signs Energy Independence executive order undoing Obama climate-control measures
- 2017 World's largest dinosaur footprint at 1.7 metres found in Kimberley, Western Australia
- 2018 At least 68 people die and scores are injured in a fire caused by a prison riot in the cells at the Carabobo state police headquarters in Valencia, Venezuela
Meeting of Interest
2018 North Korea's Kim Jong-un meets Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, China, his first trip outside of North Korea since coming to power in 2011
- 2019 European parliament bans single-use plastics, including cutlery and straws by 2021
- 2019 Study of a 71 year-old British woman who has never felt pain, for the first time understood as due to a gene mutation, published in British Journal of Anaesthesia
- 2020 US President Donald Trump makes grim projection that 240,000 American could die from COVID-19, even with restrictions in place
- 2021 Mexico revises its COVID-19 death toll up by 60% to more than 321,000 giving it the second highest COVID death toll in the world [1]
Event of Interest
2022 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signs so called "Don't Say Gay" bill limiting LGBTQ classroom instruction [1]
- 2023 Chris Sharma completes the first redpoint of Sleeping Lion in Siurana, Spain, a 9b+ (5.15c) route
Kamala Harris Visits Former Slave Port
2023 US Vice President Kamala Harris visits former slave port Cape Coast Castle in Ghana as part of her tour of Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia [1]
