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Events

1012 - Martyrdom of St. Alphege in Greenwich, London.

1529 - At the Diet of Speyer, a group of rulers (German: Fürst) and independent cities (German: Reichsstadt) protests the reinstatement of the Edict of Worms, beginning the Protestant movement.

1587 - Sir Francis Drake sinks the Spanish fleet in Cádiz harbor.

1692 - Bridget Bishop goes on trial in Salem, Massachusetts for witchcraft.

1713 - With no living male heirs, Emperor Charles VI issues the Pragmatic Sanction to ensure that Habsburg lands and the Austrian throne would be inherited by his daughter, Maria Theresa (not actually born until 1717).

1775 - American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Lexington and Concord ? British General Thomas Gage attempts to confiscate American colonists' firearms. Captain John Parker orders his band of minutemen to not fire unless fired upon. Random shots rang out among the British soldiers. The minutemen promptly fired back. This was the "shot heard round the world." The British are driven back to Boston, Massachusetts, thus beginning the American Revolutionary War.

1809 - The army of Austria attacks and is defeated by the forces of the Duchy of Warsaw in the Battle of Raszyn, part of the struggles of the Fifth Coalition.

1810 - Venezuela achieves home rule: Emparan, Governor of the Captaincy General is removed by the people of Caracas and a Junta is installed.

1839 - The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom.

1861 - American Civil War: Baltimore riot of 1861, a pro-Secession mob in Baltimore, Maryland, attacks United States Army troops marching through the city.

1892 - Charles Duryea claims to have driven the first automobile in the United States, in Springfield, Massachusetts.

1904 - Much of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is destroyed by fire.

1909 - Joan of Arc receives beatification.

 
 

1919 - Leslie Irvin of the United States makes the first successful parachute jump and free-fall.

1927 - Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in jail for obscenity for her play Sex.

1928 - The 125th and final fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.

1933 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces that the United States will be abandoning the gold standard.

1934 - Shirley Temple debuts in Stand Up and Cheer.

1936 - First day of the Great Uprising in Palestine.

1938 - RCA?NBC begins regular television broadcasts.

1943 - World War II: In Poland, German troops enter the Warsaw ghetto to round up the remaining Jews, beginning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

1943 - Bicycle Day ? Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time.

1950 - Argentina becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.

1951 - General Douglas MacArthur retires from the military.

1954 - Constituent Assembly of Pakistan decides Urdu and Bengali to be national languages of Pakistan.

1956 - Actress Grace Kelly marries Rainier III of Monaco.

 
 

1960 - Students in South Korea hold a nationwide pro-democracy protest against their president Syngman Rhee, eventually forcing him to resign.

1961 - The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba ends in failure.

1971 - Sierra Leone becomes a republic, and Siaka Stevens the president.

1971 - Vietnam War: Vietnam Veterans Against the War begin a five-day demonstration in Washington, DC.

1971 - Launch of Salyut 1, first human-made space station.

1976 - Executive Order 9066 is rescinded.

1978 - Lagumot Harris is elected President of Nauru.

1985 - U.S.S.R performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk U.S.S.R.

1989 - A gun turret explodes on the USS Iowa, killing 47 sailors.

1993 - The 50-day siege of the Branch Davidian building outside Waco, Texas, USA, ends when a fire breaks out. Eighty-one people die.

1995 - Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, is bombed, killing 168.

1999 - The German Bundestag returns to Berlin.

2000 - An Air Philippines Boeing 737-200 crashes near Davao International Airport, killing 131.

2005 - Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger elected Pope Benedict XVI on the second day of the Papal conclave.

 

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