Event-a-Day

Post Reply New Topic

1422, King Henry V of England dies of dysentery while in France. His son, Henry VI, becomes King of England at the age of 9 months.

1795, War of the First Coalition: The British capture Trincomalee (present-day Sri Lanka) from the Dutch in order to keep it out of French hands.

1803, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark start their expedition to the west by leaving Pittsburgh at 11 in the morning.

1864, During the American Civil War, Union forces led by General William T. Sherman launch an assault on Atlanta.

1888, Mary Ann Nichols is murdered. She is the first of Jack the Ripper's confirmed victims.

1920, The first radio news program is broadcast by 8MK in Detroit.

1939, Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on the Gleiwitz radio station, creating an excuse to attack Poland the following day thus starting World War II in Europe.

1943, USS Harmon, the first U.S. Navy ship to be named after a black person, is commissioned.

1997, Diana, Princess of Wales, her companion Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul die in a car crash in Paris.

1532, Lady Anne Boleyn is made Marquess of Pembroke by her fiancé, King Henry VIII of England.

1715, King Louis XIV of France dies after a reign of 72 years—the longest of any major European monarch.

1763, Catherine II of Russia endorses Ivan Betskoy's plans for a Foundling Home in Moscow.

1804, Juno, one of the largest asteroids in the Main Belt, is discovered by the German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding.

1864, American Civil War: The Confederate Army General John Bell Hood orders the evacuation of Atlanta, ending a four-month siege by General William Tecumseh Sherman.

1939, World War II: Nazi Germany and Slovakia invade Poland, beginning the European phase of World War II. General George C. Marshall becomes Chief of Staff of the United States Army.

1951, The United States, Australia and New Zealand sign a mutual defense pact, called the ANZUS Treaty.

1952, The Old Man and the Sea, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Ernest Hemingway, is first published.

1979, The American space probe Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to visit Saturn when it passes the planet at a distance of 21,000 kilometers (13,000 mi).

1985, A joint American–French expedition locates the wreckage of the RMS Titanic.

1192, The Treaty of Jaffa is signed between Richard I of England and Saladin, leading to the end of the Third Crusade.

1666, The Great Fire of London breaks out and burns for three days, destroying 10,000 buildings including St Paul's Cathedral.

1752, Great Britain adopts the Gregorian calendar, nearly two centuries later than most of Western Europe.

1789, The United States Department of the Treasury is founded.

1864, American Civil War: Union forces enter Atlanta, a day after the Confederate defenders flee the city, ending the Atlanta Campaign.

1901, Vice President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt utters the famous phrase, 'Speak softly and carry a big stick' at the Minnesota State Fair.

1939, World War II: Following the start of the invasion of Poland the previous day, the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) is annexed by Nazi Germany.

1945, World War II: Combat ends in the Pacific Theater: The Japanese Instrument of Surrender is signed by Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and accepted aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

1945, Vietnam declares its independence, forming the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

1970, NASA announces the cancellation of two Apollo missions to the Moon, Apollo 15 (the designation is re-used by a later mission), and Apollo 19.

1189, Richard I of England (a.k.a. Richard "the Lionhearted") is crowned at Westminster.

1651, Third English Civil War: Battle of Worcester: The future Charles II of England is defeated in the last main battle of the war.

1658, Richard Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of England after death of his father.

1666, The Royal Exchange burns down in the Great Fire of London.

1777, American Revolutionary War: During the Battle of Cooch's Bridge, the Flag of the United States is flown in battle for the first time.

1783, American Revolutionary War: The war ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris by the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1838, Future abolitionist Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery.

1939, World War II: France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia declare war on Germany after the invasion of Poland, forming the Allies. The United Kingdom and France begin a naval blockade of Germany that lasts until the end of the war. This also marks the beginning of the Battle of the Atlantic.

1976, Viking program: The American Viking 2 spacecraft lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars.

1666, In London, England, the most destructive damage from the Great Fire occurs.

1862, American Civil War Maryland Campaign: General Robert E. Lee takes the Army of Northern Virginia, and the war, into the North.

1870, Emperor Napoleon III of France is deposed and the Third Republic is declared.

1882, Thomas Edison flips the switch to the first commercial electrical power plant in history, lighting one square mile of lower Manhattan. This is considered by many as the day that began the electrical age.

1888, George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak and receives a patent for his camera that uses roll film.

1972, Mark Spitz becomes the first competitor to win seven medals at a single Olympic Games.

1998, Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University.

1666, Great Fire of London ends: Ten thousand buildings including St Paul's Cathedral are destroyed, but only six people are known to have died.

1698, In an effort to Westernize his nobility, Tsar Peter I of Russia imposes a tax on beards for all men except the clergy and peasantry.

1725, Wedding of King Louis XV and Maria Leszczyńska.

1774, First Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia.

1781, Battle of the Chesapeake in the American Revolutionary War: The British Navy is repelled by the French Navy, contributing to the British surrender at Yorktown.

1793, French Revolution: The French National Convention initiates the Reign of Terror.

1798, Conscription is made mandatory in France by the Jourdan law.

1812, War of 1812: The Siege of Fort Wayne begins when Chief Winamac's forces attack two soldiers returning from the fort's outhouses.

1816, Louis XVIII has to dissolve the Chamber introuvable ("Unobtainable Chamber").

1836, Sam Houston is elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas.

1882, The first United States Labor Day parade is held in New York City.

1906, The first legal forward pass in American football is thrown by Bradbury Robinson of St. Louis University to teammate Jack Schneider in a 22–0 victory over Carroll College (Wisconsin).

1945, Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet Union embassy clerk, defects to Canada, exposing Soviet espionage in North America, signaling the beginning of the Cold War.

1960, Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) wins the gold medal in the light heavyweight boxing competition at the Olympic Games in Rome.

1977, Voyager 1 is launched after a brief delay.

1984, STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage.

1522, The Victoria, the only surviving ship of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, returns to Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the world.

1620, The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower to settle in North America. (Old Style date; September 16 per New Style date.)

1939, World War II: South Africa declares war on Nazi Germany.

1946, United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes announces that the U.S. will follow a policy of economic reconstruction in postwar Germany.

1949, Allied military authorities relinquish control of former Nazi Germany assets back to German control.

1972, Munich massacre: Nine Israel athletes taken hostage at the Munich Olympic Games by the Palestinian 'Black September' terrorist group die (as did a German policeman) at the hands of the kidnappers during a failed rescue attempt. Two other Israeli athletes were slain in the initial attack the previous day.

1991, The Soviet Union recognizes the independence of the Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

1991, The name Saint Petersburg is restored to Russia's second largest city, which had been known as Leningrad since 1924.

1992, Hunters discover the emaciated body of Christopher Mccandleuss at his camp 20 miles (32 km) west of the town of Healy, Alaska.

1995, Cal Ripken, Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles plays in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking a record that had stood for 56 years.

1997, The Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales takes place in London. Well over a million people lined the streets and 2.5 billion watched around the world on television.

1571, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, is arrested for his role in the Rudolf plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots.

1695, Henry Every perpetrates one of the most profitable pirate raids in history with the capture of the Grand Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai. In response, Emperor Aurangzeb threatens to end all English trading in India.

1812, French invasion of Russia: The Battle of Borodin, the bloodiest battle of the Napoleonic Wars, was fought near Moscow and resulted in a French victory.

1864, American Civil War: Atlanta is evacuated on orders of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman.

1876, In Northfields, Minnesota, Jesse James and the James–Younger Gang attempt to rob the town's bank but are driven off by armed citizens.

1895, The first game of what would become known as rugby league football is played, in England, starting the 1895–96 Northern Rugby Football Union season.

1896, The first successful heart surgery was conducted on this day by Ludwig Rehn.

1907, Cunard Line's RMS Lusitania sets sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England, to New York City.

1940, World War II: The German Luftwaffe begins the Blitz, bombing London and other British cities for over 50 consecutive nights.

1963, The Pro Football Hall of Fame opens in Canton, Ohio with 17 charter members.

1988, Abdul Ahad Mohmand, the first Afghan in space, returns aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz TM-5 after 9 days on the Mir space station.

1761, Marriage of King George III of the United Kingdom to Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

1831, William IV and Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

1883, The Northern Pacific Railway (reporting mark NP) was completed in a ceremony at Gold Creek, Montana. Former president Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final "golden spike" in an event attended by rail and political luminaries.

1888, In Spain, the first travel of Isaac Peral's submarine, was the first practical submarine ever made.

1926, Germany is admitted to the League of Nations.

1935, US Senator from Louisiana Huey Long is fatally shot in the Louisiana State Capitol building.

1943, World War II: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the Allied armistice with Italy.

1944, World War II: London is hit by a V-2 rocket for the first time.

1946, A 95.6% vote in favor of abolishing the monarchy in Bulgaria.

1951, Treaty of San Francisco: In San Francisco, 48 nations sign a peace treaty with Japan in formal recognition of the end of the Pacific War.

1960, In Huntsville, Alabama, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA had already activated the facility on July 1).

1966 – The landmark American science fiction television series Star Trek premieres with its first-aired episode, "The Man Trap".

1974, Watergate scandal: US President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.

2004, NASA's unmanned spacecraft Genesis crash-lands when its parachute fails to open.

1087, William Rufus becomes King of England, taking the title William II.

1513, James IV of Scotland is defeated and dies in the Battle of Flodden, ending Scotland's involvement in the War of the League of Cambrai.

1543, Mary Stuart, at nine months old, is crowned "Queen of Scots" in the central Scottish town of Stirling.

1776, The Continental Congress officially names its new union of sovereign states the United States.

1791, Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, is named after President George Washington.

1801, Alexander I of Russia confirms the privileges of Baltic provinces.

1839, John Herschel takes the first glass plate photograph.

1850, California is admitted as the thirty-first U.S. state. The Compromise of 1850 transfers a third of Texas's claimed territory (now parts of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming) to federal control in return for the U.S. federal government assuming $10 million of Texas's pre-annexation debt.

1892, Amalthea, third moon of Jupiter is discovered by Edward Emerson Barnard.

1926, In the United States the National Broadcasting Company is formed.

1948, Kim Il-sung declares the establishment of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

1965, The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development is established.

1971, The four-day Attica Prison riot begins, eventually resulting in 39 dead, most killed by state troopers retaking the prison.

2015, Elizabeth II became the longest reigning monarch of the United Kingdom.

1515, Thomas Wolsey is invested as a Cardinal

1547, The Battle of Pinkie Clough, the last full-scale military confrontation between England and Scotland, resulting in a decisive victory for the forces of Edward VI.

1813, The United States defeats the British Fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812.

1846, Elias Howe is granted a patent for the sewing machine.

1858, George Mary Searle discovers the asteroid 55 Pandora.

1919, Austria and the Allies sign the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye recognizing the independence of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

1939, World War II: Canada declares war on Nazi Germany, joining the Allies: Poland, France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.

1972, The United States suffers its first loss of an international basketball game in a disputed match against the Soviet Union at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany.

2008, The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, described as the biggest scientific experiment in history, is powered up in Geneva, Switzerland

2001, Two hijacked aircraft crash into the World Trade Center in New York City, while a third smashes into The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and a fourth into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, in a series of coordinated suicide attacks by 19 members of al-Qaeda. In total 2,996 people are killed.

1708, Charles XII of Sweden stops his march to conquer Moscow outside Smolensk, marking the turning point in the Great Northern War. The army is defeated nine months later in the Battle of Poltava, and the Swedish Empire ceases to be a major power.

1789, Alexander Hamilton is appointed the first United States Secretary of the Treasury.

1940, George Stibitz performs the first remote operation of a computer.

1941, Ground is broken for the construction of The Pentagon.

1985, Pete Rose breaks Ty Cobb's baseball record for most career hits with his 4,192nd hit.

1997, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor reaches Mars.

1919, Adolf Hitler joins the German Workers' Party (later the Nazi Party).

1923, Southern Rhodesia, today called Zimbabwe, is annexed by the United Kingdom.

1943, World War II: Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy, is rescued from house arrest on the Gran Sasso in Abruzzi, by German commando forces led by Otto Skorzeny.

1953, U.S. Senator and future President John Fitzgerald Kennedy marries Jacqueline Lee Bouvier at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island.

1958, Jack Kilby demonstrates the first integrated circuit.

1959 – Premiere of Bonanza, the first regularly scheduled TV program presented in color. The Soviet Union launches a large rocket, Lunik II, at the moon.

1962, President John F. Kennedy, at a speech at Rice University, reaffirms that the U.S. will put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

1966, Gemini 11, the penultimate mission of NASA's Gemini program, and the current human altitude record holder (except for the Apollo lunar missions).

1984, Dwight Gooden sets the baseball record for strikeouts in a season by a rookie with 246, previously set by Herb Score in 1954. Goodness 276 strikeouts that season, pitched in 218 innings, set the current record.

1990, The two German states and the Four Powers sign the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany in Moscow, paving the way for German reunification.

1992, NASA launches Space Shuttle Endeavor on STS-47 which marked the 50th shuttle mission. On board are Mae Carol Jamison, the first African-American woman in space, Mamoru Mohri, the first Japanese citizen to fly in a US spaceship, and Mark Lee and Jan Davis, the first married couple in space.

2011, The 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City opens to the public.

1788, The Philadelphia Convention sets the date for the first presidential election in the United States, and New York City becomes the country's temporary capital.

1791, King Louis XVI of France accepts the new constitution.

1814, In a turning point in the War of 1812, the British fail to capture Baltimore. During the battle, Francis Scott Key composes his poem "Defence of Fort McHenry", which is later set to music and becomes the United States' national anthem.

1843, The Greek Army rebels (OS date: September 3) against the autocratic rule of king Otto of Greece, demanding the granting of a constitution.

1906, First flight of a fixed-wing aircraft in Europe.

1933, Elizabeth McCombs becomes the first woman elected to the New Zealand Parliament.

1948, Margaret Chase Smith is elected United States senator, and becomes the first woman to serve in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate.

1953, Nikita Khrushchev is appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1812, Napoleonic Wars: The French Grande Armée enters Moscow. The Fire of Moscow begins as soon as Russian troops leave the city.

1814, Battle of Baltimore: The poem Defense of Fort McHenry is written by Francis Scott Key. The poem is later used as the lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner.

1901, U.S. President William McKinley dies after an assassination attempt on September 6, and is succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt.

1917, Russia is officially proclaimed a republic.

1958, The first two German post-war rockets, designed by the German engineer Ernst Mohr, reach the upper atmosphere.

1959, The Soviet probe Luna 2 crashes onto the Moon, becoming the first man-made object to reach it.

1960, The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is founded.

1994, The Major League Baseball season is canceled because of a strike.

1789, The United States 'Department of Foreign Affairs', established by law in July, is renamed the Department of State and given a variety of domestic duties.

1812, The French army under Napoleon reaches the Kremlin in Moscow.

1830, The Liverpool to Manchester railway line opens.

1831, The locomotive John Bull operates for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.

1835, HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reaches the Galápagos Islands. The ship lands at Chatham or San Cristobal, the easternmost of the archipelago.

1915, The Empire Picture Theatre (now The New Empire Cinema), the oldest running cinema in mainland Australia, opens in Bowral, New South Wales.

1916, World War I: Tanks are used for the first time in battle, at the Battle of the Somme.

1935, The Nuremberg Laws deprive German Jews of citizenship. Nazi Germany adopts a new national flag bearing the swastika.

1940, World War II: The climax of the Battle of Britain, when the Royal Air Force shoots down large numbers of Luftwaffe aircraft.

1948, The F-86 Sabre sets the world aircraft speed record at 671 miles per hour (1,080 km/h).

1959, Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the United States.

1963, Four children killed at an African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama, United States.

1966, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to a sniper attack at the University of Texas at Austin, writes a letter to Congress urging the enactment of gun control legislation.

1968, The Soviet Zond 5 spaceship is launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.

1978, Muhammad Ali outscored Leon Spinks in a rematch to become the first boxer to win the world heavyweight title three times at the Superdome in New Orleans.

1981, The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The John Bull becomes the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world when the Smithsonian Institution operates it under its own power outside Washington, D.C.