Events Pre-1600 1066 – The Norman conquest of England begins with the Battle of Hastings. 1322 – Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at the Battle of Old Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland's independence. 1586 – Mary, Queen of Scots, goes on trial for conspiracy against Queen Elizabeth I of England.
1601–1900 1656 – The General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony enacts the first punitive legislation against the Religious Society of Friends. 1758 – Seven Years' War: Frederick the Great suffers a rare defeat at the Battle of Hochkirch. 1773 – The first recorded ministry of education, the Commission of National Education, is formed in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. 1774 – American Revolution: The First Continental Congress denounces the British Parliament's Intolerable Acts and demands British concessions. 1791 – The revolutionary group the United Irishmen is formed in Belfast, Ireland leading to the Irish Rebellion of 1798. 1805 – War of the Third Coalition: A French corps defeats an Austrian attempt to escape encirclement at Ulm. 1806 – War of the Fourth Coalition: Napoleon decisively defeats Prussia at the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt. 1808 – The Republic of Ragusa is annexed by France. 1809 – The Treaty of Schönbrunn is signed, ending the War of the Fifth Coalition, the final successful war in Napoleon Bonaparte's military career. 1843 – Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell is arrested by the British on charges of criminal conspiracy. 1863 – American Civil War: Confederate troops under the command of A. P. Hill fail to drive the Union Army completely out of Virginia. 1884 – George Eastman receives a U.S. Government patent on his new paper-strip photographic film. 1888 – Louis Le Prince films the first motion picture, Roundhay Garden Scene. 1898 – The steam ship sinks near the Lizard peninsula, Cornwall, killing 106.
1901–present 1908 – The Chicago Cubs defeat the Detroit Tigers, 2–0, clinching the 1908 World Series; this would be their last until winning the 2016 World Series. 1910 – English aviator Claude Grahame-White lands his aircraft on Executive Avenue near the White House in Washington, D.C. 1912 – Former president Theodore Roosevelt is shot and mildly wounded by John Flammang Schrank in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. With the fresh wound in his chest, and the bullet still within it, Roosevelt delivers his scheduled speech. 1913 – Senghenydd colliery disaster, the United Kingdom's worst coal mining accident, claims the lives of 439 miners. 1915 – World War I: Bulgaria joins the Central Powers. 1920 – Finland and Soviet Russia sign the Treaty of Tartu, exchanging some territories. 1923 – After the Irish Civil War the 1923 Irish hunger strikes were undertaken by thousands of Irish republican prisoners protesting the continuation of their internment without trial. 1930 – The former and first President of Finland, K. J. Ståhlberg, and his wife, Ester Ståhlberg, are kidnapped from their home by members of the far-right Lapua Movement. 1933 – Germany withdraws from the League of Nations and World Disarmament Conference. 1939 – World War II: The sinks the British battleship within her harbour at Scapa Flow, Scotland. 1940 – World War II: The Balham underground station disaster kills sixty-six people during the London Blitz. 1942 – World War II: The German submarine U-69 (1940) sinks the Canadian passenger ferry SS Caribou approximately 20 nautical miles southwest of Port aux Basques, Newfoundland. 1943 – World War II: Prisoners at Sobibor extermination camp covertly assassinate most of the on-duty SS officers and then stage a mass breakout. 1943 – World War II: The United States Eighth Air Force loses 60 of 291 B-17 Flying Fortresses during the Second Raid on Schweinfurt. 1943 – World War II: The Second Philippine Republic, a puppet state of Japan, is inaugurated with José P. Laurel as its president. 1947 – Flying the Bell X-1 over Muroc Army Air Field in California, Captain Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier in level flight, reaching Mach 1.05. 1949 – The Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders in the United States convicts eleven defendants of conspiring to advocate the violent overthrow of the federal government. 1952 – Korean War: The Battle of Triangle Hill is the biggest and bloodiest battle of 1952. 1956 – Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, leader of India's Untouchable caste, converts to Buddhism along with 385,000 of his followers (see Neo-Buddhism). 1957 – The 23rd Canadian Parliament becomes the only one to be personally opened by the Queen of Canada. 1957 – At least 81 people are killed in the most devastating flood in the history of the Spanish city of Valencia. 1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis begins when an American reconnaissance aircraft takes photographs of Soviet ballistic missiles being installed in Cuba. 1964 – Martin Luther King Jr. receives the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence. 1964 – The Soviet Presidium and the Communist Party Central Committee each vote to accept Nikita Khrushchev's "voluntary" request to retire from his offices. 1966 – The city of Montreal begins the operation of its underground Montreal Metro rapid transit system. 1966 – The Dutch Cals cabinet fell after Norbert Schmelzer, the leader of the government party, filed a successful motion against the budget, in what later became known as the Night of Schmelzer. 1968 – Apollo program: The first live television broadcast by American astronauts in orbit is performed by the Apollo 7 crew. 1968 – The 6.5 Meckering earthquake shakes the southwest portion of Western Australia with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), causing $2.2 million in damage and leaving 20–28 people injured. 1968 – Jim Hines becomes the first man ever to break the so-called "ten-second barrier" in the 100-meter sprint with a time of 9.95 seconds. 1973 – In the Thammasat student uprising, over 100,000 people protest in Thailand against the military government. Seventy-seven are killed and 857 are injured by soldiers. 1975 – An RAF Avro Vulcan bomber explodes and crashes over Żabbar, Malta after an aborted landing, killing five crew members and one person on the ground. 1979 – The first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights draws approximately 100,000 people. 1980 – The 6th Congress of the Workers' Party ended, having anointed North Korean President Kim Il Sung's son Kim Jong Il as his successor. 1981 – Vice President Hosni Mubarak is elected as the President of Egypt, one week after the assassination of Anwar Sadat. 1982 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan proclaims a war on drugs. 1991 – Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. 1994 – Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres receive the Nobel Peace Prize for their role in the establishment of the Oslo Accords and the framing of future Palestinian self government. 1998 – Eric Rudolph is charged with six bombings, including the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, Georgia. 2003 – The Steve Bartman Incident takes place at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois. 2004 – MK Airlines Flight 1602 crashes during takeoff from Halifax Stanfield International Airport, killing all seven people on board. 2004 – Pinnacle Airlines Flight 3701 crashes in Jefferson City, Missouri. The two pilots (the aircraft's only occupants) are killed. 2012 – Felix Baumgartner successfully jumps to Earth from a balloon in the stratosphere. 2014 – A snowstorm and avalanche in the Nepalese Himalayas triggered by the remnants of Cyclone Hudhud kills 43 people. 2014 – The Serbia vs. Albania UEFA qualifying match is canceled after 42 minutes due to several incidents on and off the pitch. Albania is eventually awarded a win. 2015 – A suicide bomb attack in Tonsa, Pakistan kills at least seven people and injures 13 others. 2017 – An Al-Shabaab suicide bomber detonated a massive truck bomb at the Zobe junction in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, killing 587 people, injuring 316 others, and leaving more than 500 missing. 2021 – About 10,000 American employees of John Deere go on strike. 2023 – Australians vote to reject a constitutional amendment that would have established an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. 2025 – A coup d'état successfully overthrows Malagasy president Andry Rajoelina.
Births Pre-1600 1257 – Przemysł II of Poland (died 1296)Kronika wielkopolska, Warsaw 1965, vol. 119, pp. 260–261: "In the same year (ie in 1257) was born the son of Przemyśl the Good Duke of Greater Poland, in Poznań, on Sunday morning, the feast of the martyr Saint Callixtus (Pope Callixtus I)". 1404 – Marie of Anjou (died 1463) 1425 – Alesso Baldovinetti, Italian painter (died 1499) 1465 – Konrad Peutinger, German humanist and antiquarian (died 1547) 1493 – Shimazu Tadayoshi, Japanese daimyō (died 1568) 1542 – Philip IV, Count of Nassau-Weilburg (died 1602) 1563 – Jodocus Hondius, Flemish engraver and cartographer (died 1611) 1569 – Giambattista Marino, Italian poet (died 1625)
1601–1900 1609 – Ernest Günther, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (died 1689) 1630 – Sophia of Hanover (died 1714) 1633 – James II of England (died 1701) 1639 – Simon van der Stel, Dutch commander and politician, 1st Governor of the Dutch Cape Colony (died 1712) 1643 – Bahadur Shah I, Mughal emperor (died 1712) 1644 – William Penn, English businessman who founded Pennsylvania (died 1718) 1687 – Robert Simson, Scottish mathematician and academic (died 1768) 1712 – George Grenville, English lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of Great Britain (died 1770) 1726 – Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham, Scottish-English admiral and politician (died 1813) 1733 – François Sébastien Charles Joseph de Croix, Count of Clerfayt, Austrian field marshal (died 1798) 1784 – Ferdinand VII of Spain (died 1833) 1791 – Friedrich Parrot, Baltic German naturalist (died 1841) 1801 – Joseph Plateau, Belgian physicist and academic, created the Phenakistoscope (died 1883) 1806 – Preston King, American lawyer and politician (died 1865) 1824 – Adolphe Monticelli, French painter (died 1886) 1840 – Dmitry Pisarev, Russian author and critic (died 1868) 1842 – Joe Start, American baseball player and manager (died 1927) 1844 – John See, English-Australian politician, 14th Premier of New South Wales (died 1907) 1845 – Laura Askew Haygood, American educator and missionary (died 1900) 1848 – Byron Edmund Walker, Canadian banker and philanthropist (died 1924) 1853 – John William Kendrick, American engineer and businessman (died 1924) 1861 – Julia A. Ames, American journalist, editor, and reformer (died 1891) 1867 – Masaoka Shiki, Japanese poet, author, and critic (died 1902) 1869 – Joseph Duveen, 1st Baron Duveen, English art dealer (died 1939) 1871 – Alexander von Zemlinsky, Austrian composer, conductor, and teacher (died 1942) 1872 – Reginald Doherty, English tennis player (died 1910) 1882 – Éamon de Valera, American-Irish rebel and politician, 3rd President of Ireland (died 1975) 1882 – Charlie Parker, English cricketer, coach, and umpire (died 1959) 1888 – Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand novelist, short story writer, and essayist (died 1923) 1888 – Yukio Sakurauchi, Japanese businessman and politician, 27th Japanese Minister of Finance (died 1947) 1890 – Dwight D. Eisenhower, American general and politician, 34th President of the United States (died 1969) 1892 – Sumner Welles, American politician and diplomat, 11th Under Secretary of State (died 1961) 1893 – Lois Lenski, American author and illustrator (died 1974) 1893 – Lillian Gish, American actress (died 1993) 1894 – E. E. Cummings, American poet and playwright (died 1962) 1894 – Victoria Drummond, British marine engineer (died 1978) 1894 – Sail Mohamed, Algerian anarchist and Spanish Civil War veteran (died 1953) 1897 – Alicja Dorabialska, Polish chemist (died 1975) 1898 – Thomas William Holmes, Canadian sergeant and pilot, Victoria Cross recipient (died 1950)