Events Pre-1600 4 – Augustus adopts Tiberius. 221 – Roman emperor Elagabalus adopts his cousin Alexander Severus as his heir and grants him the title of Caesar. 363 – Roman emperor Julian is fatally wounded by Sassanid troops in a skirmish close to Samarra while retreating from his failed siege of Ctesiphon. 684 – Pope Benedict II is consecrated as pope following imperial approval from the Byzantine Emperor. He is the last pope to require the confirmation of the emperor; the next popes require only that of the more closely situated exarch of Ravenna. 699 – En no Ozuno, a Japanese mystic and apothecary who will later be regarded as the founder of the folk religion Shugendō, is banished to Izu Ōshima. 1243 – Mongols under Baiju Noyan defeat the Seljuk Turks under Kaykhusraw II at the Battle of Köse Dağ. The Sultanate of Rum subsequently becomes a vassal to the Mongol Empire. 1243 – Election of Pope Innocent IV following the death of Pope Celestine IV in 1241. 1295 – Przemysł II crowned king of Poland, following Ducal period. The white eagle is added to the Polish coat of arms. 1407 – Ulrich von Jungingen becomes Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights. 1409 – Western Schism: The Roman Catholic Church is led into a double schism as Petros Philargos is crowned Pope Alexander V after the Council of Pisa, joining Pope Gregory XII in Rome and Pope Benedict XIII in Avignon. 1460 – War of the Roses: Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, and Edward, Earl of March, land in England with a rebel army and march on London. 1483 – Richard III becomes King of England. 1522 – Ottomans begin the second Siege of Rhodes. 1539 – Afghan Sur forces under Sher Shah Suri defeat a Mughal army under Humayun in the battle of Chausa. 1541 – Francisco Pizarro is assassinated in Lima by the son of his former companion and later antagonist, Diego de Almagro the younger. Almagro is later caught and executed. 1579 – Livonian campaign of Stephen Báthory begins.
1601–1900 1656 – A joined Hospitaller-Venetian fleet defeats a numerically superior Ottoman fleet in the battle of the Dardanelles. 1718 – Alexei Petrovich, Tsarevich of Russia, Peter the Great's son, mysteriously dies after being sentenced to death by his father for plotting against him. 1723 – After a siege and bombardment by cannon, Baku surrenders to the Russians. 1740 – A combined force of Spanish, free blacks and allied Indians defeat a British garrison at the Siege of Fort Mose near St. Augustine during the War of Jenkins' Ear. 1794 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Fleurus marks the first successful military use of aircraft and turns the tide of the War of the First Coalition. 1830 – William IV becomes king of Britain and Hanover following the death without surviving legitimate issue of his older brother George IV. 1843 – Treaty of Nanking comes into effect; Hong Kong Island is ceded to the British "in perpetuity". 1848 – End of the June Days Uprising in Paris, France. 1857 – The first investiture of the Victoria Cross takes place in Hyde Park, London. 1886 – Henri Moissan isolates elemental fluorine for the first time. 1889 – Bangui is founded by Albert Dolisie and Alfred Uzac in what was then the upper reaches of the French Congo.
1901–present 1906 – The first Grand Prix motor race is held at Le Mans. 1909 – The Science Museum in London comes into existence as an independent entity. 1917 – World War I: The American Expeditionary Forces begin to arrive in France. They will first enter combat in the Battle of Hamel on July 4. 1918 – World War I: Allied forces under John J. Pershing and James Harbord defeat Imperial German forces under Wilhelm, German Crown Prince in the Battle of Belleau Wood. 1924 – The American occupation of the Dominican Republic ends after eight years. 1934 – United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Federal Credit Union Act, which establishes credit unions. 1936 – Initial flight of the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first practical helicopter. 1940 – World War II: Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union presents an ultimatum to Romania requiring it to cede Bessarabia and the northern part of Bukovina. 1941 – World War II: Soviet planes bomb Kassa, Hungary (now Košice, Slovakia), giving Hungary the impetus to declare war the next day. 1942 – The first flight of the Grumman F6F Hellcat. 1944 – World War II: San Marino, a neutral state, is mistakenly bombed by the RAF based on faulty information, leading to 35 civilian deaths. 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Osuchy in Osuchy, Poland, one of the largest battles between Nazi Germany and Polish resistance forces, ends with the defeat of the latter. 1945 – The United Nations Charter is signed by 50 Allied nations in San Francisco, California. 1948 – Cold War: The first supply flights are made in response to the Berlin Blockade. 1948 – William Shockley files the original patent for the grown-junction transistor, the first bipolar junction transistor. 1952 – The Pan-Malayan Labour Party is founded in Malaya, as a union of statewide labour parties. 1953 – Lavrentiy Beria, head of MVD, is arrested by Nikita Khrushchev and other members of the Politburo. 1955 – The South African Congress Alliance adopts the Freedom Charter at the Congress of the People in Kliptown. 1959 – Swedish boxer Ingemar Johansson becomes world champion of heavyweight boxing, by defeating American Floyd Patterson on technical knockout after two minutes and three seconds in the third round at Yankee Stadium. 1960 – The former British Protectorate of British Somaliland gains its independence as Somaliland. 1960 – Madagascar gains its independence from France. 1963 – Cold War: U.S. President John F. Kennedy gives his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, underlining the support of the United States for democratic West Germany shortly after Soviet-supported East Germany erected the Berlin Wall. 1967 – Karol Wojtyła (later John Paul II) is made a cardinal by Pope Paul VI. 1974 – The Universal Product Code is scanned for the first time to sell a package of Wrigley's chewing gum at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. 1975 – Two FBI agents and a member of the American Indian Movement are killed in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota; Leonard Peltier is later convicted of the murders in a controversial trial. 1978 – Air Canada Flight 189, flying to Toronto, overruns the runway and crashes into the Etobicoke Creek ravine. Two of the 107 passengers on board perish. 1981 – Dan-Air Flight 240, flying to East Midlands Airport, crashes in Nailstone, Leicestershire. All three crew members perish. 1988 – The first crash of an Airbus A320 occurs when Air France Flight 296Q crashes at Mulhouse–Habsheim Airfield in Habsheim, France, during an air show, killing three of the 136 people on board. 1991 – Yugoslav Wars: The Yugoslav People's Army begins the Ten-Day War in Slovenia. 1995 – Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani deposes his father Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, in a bloodless coup d'état. 1997 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Communications Decency Act violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. 1997 – J. K. Rowling publishes the first of her Harry Potter novel series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in the United Kingdom. 2000 – The Human Genome Project announces the completion of a "rough draft" sequence. 2003 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Lawrence v. Texas that sex-based sodomy laws are unconstitutional. 2006 – Mari Alkatiri, the first Prime Minister of East Timor, resigns after weeks of political unrest. 2007 – Pope Benedict XVI reinstates the traditional laws of papal election in which a successful candidate must receive two-thirds of the votes. 2008 – A suicide bomber dressed as an Iraqi policeman detonates an explosive vest, killing 25 people. 2012 – The Waldo Canyon fire descends into the Mountain Shadows neighborhood in Colorado Springs, United States, burning 347 homes in a matter of hours and killing two people. 2013 – Riots in China's Xinjiang region kill at least 36 people and injure 21 others. 2013 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules, 5–4, that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 2015 – Five different terrorist attacks in France, Tunisia, Somalia, Kuwait, and Syria occur on what was dubbed Bloody Friday by international media. Upwards of 750 people are either killed or injured in these uncoordinated attacks. 2015 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules, 5–4, that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marriage under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.Obergefell, slip op. at 28 ("The Court, in this decision, holds same-sex couples may exercise the fundamental right to marry in all States."). 2024 – Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, returns to Australia after pleading guilty to one charge of espionage in a Saipan court and subsequently being released by the United States Department of Justice.
Births Pre-1600 12 BC – Agrippa Postumus, Roman son of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia the Elder (died 14) 1399 – John, Count of Angoulême (died 1467) 1467 – Ferdinand II of Naples (died 1496) 1575 – Anne Catherine of Brandenburg (died 1612) 1581 – San Pedro Claver, Spanish Jesuit saint (died 1654) 1600 – Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Spanish-born bishop and viceroy of New Spain (died 1659)
1601–1900 1681 – Hedvig Sophia of Sweden (died 1708) 1689 – Edward Holyoke, American pastor and academic (died 1769) 1694 – Georg Brandt, Swedish chemist and mineralogist (died 1768) 1699 – Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin, French businesswoman (died 1777) 1702 – Philip Doddridge, English hymn-writer and educator (died 1751) 1703 – Thomas Clap, American minister and academic (died 1767) 1726 – Victor Amadeus III, King of Sardinia (died 1796) 1730 – Charles Messier, French astronomer and academic (died 1817) 1764 – Jan Paweł Łuszczewski, Polish politician (died 1812) 1786 – Sunthorn Phu, Thai poet (died 1855) 1796 – Jan Paweł Lelewel, Polish painter and engineer (died 1847) 1798 – Wolfgang Menzel, German poet and critic (died 1873) 1817 – Branwell Brontë, English painter and poet (died 1848) 1819 – Abner Doubleday, American general (died 1893) 1821 – Bartolomé Mitre, Argentinian soldier, journalist, and politician, 6th President of Argentina (died 1906) 1824 – William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, Irish-Scottish physicist and engineer (died 1907) 1835 – Thomas W. Knox, American journalist and author (died 1896) 1839 – Sam Watkins, American soldier and author (died 1901) 1852 – Daoud Corm, Lebanese painter (died 1930) 1854 – Robert Laird Borden, Canadian lawyer and politician, 8th Prime Minister of Canada (died 1937) 1865 – Bernard Berenson, Lithuanian-American historian and author (died 1959) 1866 – George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, English archaeologist and banker, backer in the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb (died 1923) 1869 – Martin Andersen Nexø, Danish journalist and author (died 1954) 1878 – Leopold Löwenheim, German mathematician and logician (died 1957) 1880 – Mitchell Lewis, American actor (died 1956) 1881 – Ya'akov Cohen, Israeli linguist, poet, and playwright (died 1960) 1892 – Pearl S. Buck, American novelist, essayist, short story writer, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1973) 1893 – Dorothy Fuldheim, American journalist and news anchor (died 1989) 1895 – George Hainsworth, Canadian ice hockey player and politician (died 1950) 1898 – Willy Messerschmitt, German engineer and businessman (died 1978) 1898 – Chesty Puller, US general (died 1971) 1899 – Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (died 1918)
1901–present 1901 – Stuart Symington, American lieutenant and politician, 1st United States Secretary of the Air Force (died 1988) 1902 – Hugues Cuénod, Swiss tenor and educator (died 2010) 1903 – Big Bill Broonzy, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1958)