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Events

303 or 304 - Martyrdom of Saint Adrian of Nicomedia.

852 - Croatian Duke Trpimir I issued a statute, a document with the first known written mention of the Croats name in Croatian sources.

1152 - Frederick I Barbarossa is elected King of the Germans.

1215 - King John of England makes an oath to the Pope as a crusader to gain the support of Innocent III.

1238 - The Battle of the Sit River was fought in the northern part of the present-day Yaroslavl Oblast of Russia between the Mongol Hordes of Batu Khan and the Russians under Yuri II of Vladimir-Suzdal during the Mongol invasion of Russia.

1275 - Chinese astronomers observe a total eclipse of the sun.

1351 - Ramathibodi becomes King of Siam.

1386 - W?adys?aw II Jagie??o (Jogaila) was crowned King of Poland.

1461 - Wars of the Roses in England: Lancastrian King Henry VI is deposed by his Yorkist cousin, who then becomes King Edward IV.

1492 - King James IV of Scotland concludes an alliance with France against England.

1493 - Explorer Christopher Columbus arrives in America aboard his ship Niña.

1570 - King Philip II of Spain bans foreign Dutch students.

1611 - George Abbot is appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.

 
 

1621 - Jakarta, Java is renamed Batavia.

1629 - Massachusetts Bay Colony, which had the role of colonizing the Americas, is granted a Royal charter.

1634 - Samuel Cole opens the first tavern in Boston, Massachusetts.

1665 - English King Charles II declares war on The Netherlands which marked the start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

1675 - John Flamsteed appointed first Astronomer Royal of England.

1681 - Charles II of England grants a land charter to William Penn for the area that will later become Pennsylvania.

1766 - The British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, which had caused bitter and violent opposition in the U.S. colonies.

1774 - First sighting of Orion Nebula by William Herschel.

1776 - The American War of Independence: The Americans capture "Dorchester Heights" dominating the port of Boston, Massachusetts.

1778 - The Continental Congress voted to ratify both the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance with France. The two treaties were the first entered into by the U.S. government.

1789 - In New York City, the first U.S. Congress meets and declares the new Constitution of the United States is in effect.

1790 - France is divided into 83 départements, which cut across the former provinces in an attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on noble ownership of land.

1791 - Vermont is admitted as the 14th U.S. state.

 
 

1791 - A Constitutional Act is introduced by the British House of Commons in London which envisages the separation of Canada into Lower Canada (Quebec) and Upper Canada (Ontario).

1792 - Oranges were introduced into Hawaii.

1793 - French troops conquer Geertruidenberg, Netherlands.

1794 - The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. Congress. The Amendment limited the jurisdiction of the federal courts to automatically hear cases brought against a state by the citizens of another state. Later interpretations expanded this to include citizens of the state being sued, as well.

1797 - Inauguration of John Adams as 2nd President of the USA.

1801 - Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd President of the USA, becomes the first U.S. president inaugurated in Washington, D.C..

1804 - The Battle of Vinegar Hill, colony of New South Wales (Australia). [1]

1804 - The British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) was founded at a large interdenominational meeting in London.

1809 - Inauguration of James Madison as 4th President of the USA.

1813 - Russian troops fighting the army of Napoleon reach Berlin in Germany and the French garrison evacuate the city without a fight.

1814 - Americans defeat the British at the Battle of Longwoods between London and Thamesville near present-day Wardsville, Ontario.

1817 - Inauguration of James Monroe as 5th President of the USA.

1824 - The "National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck" was founded in the United Kingdom, later to be renamed The Royal National Lifeboat Institution in 1858.

1825 - Inauguration of John Q. Adams as 6th President of the USA.

1829 - Inauguration of Andrew Jackson as 7th President of the USA. Subsequently, an unruly crowd mobs the White House during the inaugural ball.

1837 - Inauguration of Martin Van Buren as 8th President of the USA.

1837 - Chicago is granted a city charter by Illinois.

1841 - Inauguration of William Henry Harrison as 9th President of the USA. Harrison died exactly one month into his term ? the briefest presidency in the history of the office - and was the first president to die in office.

1845 - Inauguration of James Polk as 11th President of the United States of America.

1848 - Carlo Alberto di Savoia signs the Statuto Albertino that will represent the first constitution of the Regno d'Italia

1849 - Zachary Taylor refuses to be sworn in office as 12th President of the USA on a Sabbath (Sunday). Consequently the office of President of the United States of America is vacant for a single day. Urban legend instead holds that David Rice Atchison, President pro tempore of the United States Senate was President de jure for a single day.

1853 - Pope Pius IX recovers Catholic hierarchy in Netherlands.

1853 - Inauguration of Franklin Pierce as 14th President of the USA.

1853 - An oncoming mail train shatters the rear car of a stalled Pennsylvania Railroad emigrant train in the Allegheny Mountains near Mount Union, Pennsylvania, killing seven. This was the highest single U.S. accident toll up to this time.

1857 - Inauguration of James Buchanan as 15th President of the USA.

1859 - Charter of the French Opera House in New Orleans is granted, which opens on December 1 of the same year with a gala performance of Rossini's "William Tell".

1861 - President Lincoln opens Government Printing Office.

1861 - Confederate States adopt "Stars and Bars" flag, on the same day that Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as 16th President of the USA.

1863 - Territory of Idaho established.

1869 - Inauguration of Ulysses Grant as 18th President of the USA.

1877 - Emile Berliner invents the microphone.

1877 - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake debuts.

1877 - Inauguration of Rutherford Hayes as 19th President of the USA.

1880 - New York Daily Graphic publishes the first half-tone engraving.

1881 - St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada receives its city charter.

1881 - Inauguration of James Garfield as 20th President of the USA.

1885 - Gilbert & Sullivan's opera The Mikado premieres in London.

1885 - Inauguration of Grover Cleveland as 22nd President of the USA.

1887 - Gottlieb Daimler unveils his first automobile which he test runs in Esslingen and Cannstatt, Germany.

1889 - Inauguration of Benjamin Harrison as 23rd President of the USA.

1890 - The longest bridge in the United Kingdom, the Forth Bridge (railway) (1,710 ft) in Scotland is opened by the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII. [2]

1893 - Congo Free State: The army of Francis, Baron Dhanis attacks the Lualaba, enabling him to transport his troops across the Upper Congo and, capture Nyangwe almost without an effort.

1893 - Second time inauguration of Grover Cleveland as 24th President of the USA.

1894 - Great fire in Shanghai. Over 1,000 buildings are destroyed.

1895 - Premiere of Gustav Mahler's second symphony in Berlin.

1897 - Inauguration of William McKinley as 25th President of the USA.

1899 - Cyclone Mahina sweeps in north of Cooktown, Queensland, with a 12 m wave that reaches up to 5 km inland - over 300 dead.

1902 - In Chicago, the American Automobile Association is established.

1904 - Russo-Japanese War: Russian troops in Korea retreat toward Manchuria followed by 100,000 Japanese troops.

1905 - Gerhart Hauptmann's 'Elga' premieres in Berlin.

1907 - Louis Botha is appointed Prime Minister of the Transvaal, South Africa.

1908 - Collingwood Primary School, Ohio catches fire; 180 die.

1909 - Inauguration of William Taft as 27th President of the USA.

1911 - Victor Berger (Wisconsin) becomes the first socialist congressman in U.S..

1913 - Inauguration of Woodrow Wilson as 28th President of the USA.

1913 - The United States Department of Commerce and United States Department of Labor are established by splitting the duties of the 10-year-old Department of Commerce and Labor.

1913 - First U.S. law regulating the shooting of migratory birds passed.

1917 - Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first female member of the United States House of Representatives.

1917 - Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia's renunciation of the throne is made public, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia publicly issues his abdication manifesto.

1921 - Inauguration of Warren Harding as 29th President of the USA.

1921 - Hot Springs National Park created in Arkansas.

1923 - Lenin's last article about Red bureaucracy was published in Pravda.

1924 - The song 'Happy Birthday To You' is published by Clayton F. Summy.

1925 - Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President of the United States to have his inauguration broadcasted on radio.

1926 - The government of Dirk Jan de Geer takes office in The Netherlands.

1929 - Inauguration of Herbert Hoover as 31st President of the USA.

1929 - Charles Curtis becomes the first native-American Vice President.

1930 - Terrible floods ransack Languedoc and the surrounds in south-west France, resulting in twelve departments being submerged by water and causing the death of over 700 people.

1931 - The British Viceroy of India, Governor-General Edward Frederick Lindley Wood and Mohandas Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi) meet to sign an agreement envisaging the release of political prisoners and allowing that salt is freely used by the poorest layers of the population.

1933 - Frances Perkins becomes United States Secretary of Labor, first female member of the United States Cabinet.

1933 - Bertha Wilson is appointed as first woman to sit on the Supreme Court of Canada.

1933 - The 32nd President of the USA, Franklin D. Roosevelt, outlines his "New Deal" in his inauguration speech.

1933 - The Parliament of Austria is suspended because of a quibble over procedure - Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss initiates authoritarian rule by decree (see Austrofascism).

1936 - First flight of airship Hindenburg, Germany.

1941 - The United Kingdom launches Operation Claymore on the Lofoten Islands, during World War II.

1941 - Adolf Hitler applies pressure on Yugoslavia to join the Tripartite Pact.

1944 - First U.S. bombing of Berlin and Anti-Germany strikes in northern Italy.

1944 - In Ossining, New York, Louis Buchalter, the leader of 1930s crime syndicate Murder, Inc., is executed at Sing Sing.

1945 - In the United Kingdom, Princess Elizabeth, later to become Queen Elizabeth II, joins the British Army as a driver.

1945 - Lapland War: Finland declares war on nazi-Germany.

1946 - The Voice Of Frank Sinatra, the first Frank Sinatra album ever, is released by Columbia Records.

1946 - C.G.E. Mannerheim resigns from the post of President of Finland.

1946 - The United States, France and the United Kingdom launch a call with the Spaniards in favour of the inversion of the pro-Franco mode.

1949 - Security Council of UN recommends membership for Israel.

1950 - U.S. Premiere of Walt Disney's animated film Cinderella.

1952 - Ernest Hemingway completes his short novel The Old Man and the Sea.

1952 - Ronald Reagan marries his second wife Nancy Davis in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.

1954 - Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston announces the first successful kidney transplant.

1954 - U.S. warns Latin America against international communism.

1955 - First radio facsimile transmission sent across the continent of America.

1959 - U.S. Pioneer IV misses Moon and becomes the second (U.S. first) artificial planet.

1960 - French freighter 'La Coubre' explodes in Havana, Cuba killing 100. Fidel Castro blames the U.S.

1961 - Paul-Henri Spaak resigns as Secretary General of NATO.

1962 - AEC announces that the first atomic power plant at McMurdo Station in Antarctica is in operation.

1963 - In Paris six people are sentenced to death for conspiring to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle.

1964 - Jimmy Hoffa, President of the Teamsters, is convicted by a Federal jury of tampering with a Federal jury.

1966 - John Lennon says The Beatles are "more popular than Jesus" which sparks controversy in the United States.

1966 - Canadian Pacific airliner explodes on landing at Tokyo, killing 64 people.

1967 - The first North Sea gas is pumped ashore at Easington, County Durham by BP (British Petroleum).

1969 - The Kray twins, Ronald and Reginald, face life sentences after being found guilty of the murder of Jack McVitie at the Central Criminal Court.

1970 - French submarine Eurydice explodes.

1971 - Pierre Elliott Trudeau marries Margaret Sinclair in St. Stephen's Roman Catholic Church, Vancouver and becomes the first Canadian Prime Minister to marry while in office. The couple divorced in 1984.

1972 - Libya and the Soviet Union sign a co-operation treaty.

1974 - Harold Wilson becomes British Prime Minister following the resignation of his predecessor Edward Heath.

1975 - Charlie Chaplin is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of England.

1975 - First television coverage of a Canadian parliamentary committee.

1976 - The Maguire Seven were found guilty of the offence of possessing explosives and were subsequently jailed for 14 years.

1976 - The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention is formally dissolved in Northern Ireland resulting in direct rule of Northern Ireland from London via the British parliament.

1977 - The 1977 Bucharest Earthquake in southern and eastern Europe kills more than 1,500.

1977 - First Cray-1 supercomputer shipped to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico.

1978 - Chicago Daily News, founded in 1875, publishes last issue.

1979 - U.S. Voyager I photo reveals Jupiter's rings.

1980 - Nationalist leader Robert Mugabe wins a sweeping election victory to become Zimbabwe's first black prime minister.

1982 - NASA launches "Intelsat V".

1985 - The Food and Drug Administration approves a blood test for AIDS, used since then for screening all blood donations in the United States.

1986 - Launch of the Today UK tabloid newspaper, now defunct, that pioneered the use of computer photosetting and full-colour offset printing at a time when British national newspapers were still using Linotype machines and letterpress.

1987 - President Reagan addressed the American nation on the Iran-Contra Affair, acknowledging his overtures to Iran had ?deteriorated? into an arms-for-hostages deal.

1988 - Building of the Louvre Pyramid begins at the Napoleon court of the Louvre, in Paris, France.

1989 - Six people die and 80 are injured, some of them seriously, at the Purley Station rail crash in Surrey, England.

1989 - Time, Inc. and Warner Communications announce plans for a merger forming Time-Warner.

1990 - Space Shuttle program: STS-36 (Space Shuttle Atlantis) U.S. 65th manned space mission returns from space.

1991 - Most primitive form of World Wide Web is put online.

1991 - Bank of Credit and Commerce International divests itself of First American National Bank.

1991 - The Soviet parliament in Moscow, Russia ratifies a six-nation treaty on German unification.

1991 - In Iraq, Saddam Hussein releases 6 U.S., 3 British and 1 Italian prisoner of war.

1991 - Sheik Saad Al-Abdallah Al-Salim Al-Sabah, the Prime Minister of Kuwait, returned to his country for the first time since Iraq's invasion.

1993 - Authorities announce the capture of suspected World Trade Center bombing conspirator Mohammad Salameh.

1994 - Four terrorists are convicted for their roles in the World Trade Center bombing which killed six and injured more than a thousand.

1994 - Bosnia's Croats and Moslems signed an agreement to form a federation in a loose economic union with Croatia.

1995 - Michael Johnson runs world record 400m indoor (44.63 sec).

1995 - George Foreman loses WBA boxing title, refusing to fight Tony Tucker.

1996 - A train carrying propane and sodium hydroxide derails in Weyauwega, Wisconsin and catches fire. 2,200 homes near the accident site are evacuated for 16 days.

1997 - President Clinton bans federally funded human cloning research.

1997 - In London, the match-fixing trial of footballers Bruce Grobbelaar, John Fashanu and Hans Segers ends in deadlock with the jury failing to reach verdicts.

1997 - Comet Hale-Bopp directly above the Sun (1.04 AU).

1997 - "Zeya Start-1" is launched in (Russia).

1998 - Gay rights: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex.

1998 - Government, naval and university computers running Windows NT across the United States crash as a result of a hacker. The crash affects computers running at MIT, Northwestern University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of California campuses at Berkeley, Irvine, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

1999 - In a military court, Captain Richard Ashby of the United States Marines is acquitted of the charge of reckless flying which resulted in the deaths of 20 skiers in the Italian Alps when his low-flying jet hit a gondola cable.

2000 - The 22nd Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is held in Sydney, Australia.

2001 - During the early hours a massive bomb located in a taxi explodes in front of BBC Television Centre in London, seriously injuring 11 people. The attack was attributed to dissident Irish republicans.

2001 - U.S. Attack on Afghanistan: Seven American Special Operations Forces soldiers are killed as they attempt to infiltrate the Shahi Kot Valley on a low-flying helicopter reconnaissance mission.

2001 - Swiss referendum overwhelmingly rejects a proposal for immediate membership talks with the European Union.

2001 - Hintze Ribeiro disaster, a bridge collapses in northern Portugal, killing up to 70 people.

2002 - Canada banned human embryo cloning but permitted government-funded scientists to use embryos left over from fertility treatment or abortions.

2002 - The moderate leader albanophone Ibrahim Rugova is elected President of Kosovo by the Parliament of the Serb province that had been under international control since 1999.

2003 - In the southern Philippines, a bomb hidden in a backpack exploded and killed 21 people at an airport in Davao City.

2003 - In the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, at least 9 people were killed and 52 were injured when a bus fell into a deep gorge.

2004 - The guilty verdict for Moroccan al-Qaeda suspect Mounir el Motassadeq's involvement in the September 11, 2001 attacks is overturned by the German appeals court, which orders a retrial.

2004 - The files of Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun are released to the public five years after his death.

2005 - The car of released Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena is fired on by US soldiers in Iraq, causing the death of one passenger and injuring two more.

2005 - United Nations warns that about 90 million Africans could be infected by the HIV virus in the future without further action against the spread of the disease.

2005 - Wookiepedia [3]: The Star Wars Wiki is founded.

2006 - The central Papeete power station is damaged by a fire, resulting in limited power for some areas of Tahiti for a couple of weeks. [4]

2006 - Anti-war campaigners criticized British Prime Minister Tony Blair after he suggested his decision to go to war in Iraq would ultimately be judged by God. [5]

2006 - A new species of shark was discovered in Mexico's Sea of Cortez, bringing the types of Mustelus shark found in the eastern North Pacific to five. [6]

2006 - The Deep Space Network tries one final contact attempt to Pioneer 10. [7]

2006 - The 28th Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is held in Sydney, Australia.

 

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