1379 - The Gelderse war ended.
1545 - German Parliament opened in Worms.
1550 - France and England signed the Peace of Boulogne.
1629 - In Virginia, the first game law was passed in the American colonies.
1664 - A charter to colonize Rhode Island was granted to Roger
Williams in London.
1720 - In Paris, banking houses closed due to financial crisis.
1765 - Britain passed the Quartering Act that required the American colonies
to house 10,000 British troops in public and private buildings.
1792 - Benjamin West became the first American artist to be selected
president of the Royal Academy of London.
1828 - The Philadelphia & Columbia Railway was authorized as the
first state owned railway.
1832 - Mormon Joseph Smith was beaten, tarred and feathered in Ohio.
1837 - Canada gave blacks the right to vote
1848 - A state of siege was proclaimed in Amsterdam.
1868 - Metropolitan Life Insurance Company was formed.
1878 - The British frigate Eurydice sank killing 300.
1880 - The first "hail insurance company" was incorporated in
Connecticut. It was known as Tobacco Growers’ Mutual
1882 - In Berlin, German scientist Robert Koch announced the discovery of the
tuberculosis germ (bacillus).
1883 - The first telephone call between New York and Chicago took place.
1900 - Mayor Van Wyck of New York broke the ground for the New York
subway tunnel that would link Manhattan and Brooklyn.
1900 - In New Jersey, the Carnegie Steel Corporation was formed.
1904 - Vice Adm. Tojo sank seven Russian ships as the Japanese
strengthened their blockade of Port Arthur.
1905 - In Crete, a group led by Eleutherios Venizelos claimed
independence from Turkey.
1906 - In Mexico, the Tehuantepec Istmian Railroad opened as a rival
to the Panama Canal.
1906 - The "Census of the British Empire" revealed that England ruled
1/5 of the world.
1911 - In Denmark, penal code reform abolished corporal punishment.
1920 - The first U.S. coast guard air station was established at
Morehead City, NC.
1924 - Greece became a republic.
1927 - Chinese Communists seized Nanking and break with Chiang
Kai-shek over the Nationalist goals.
1932 - Belle Baker hosted a radio variety show from a moving train.
It was the first radio broadcast from a train.
1934 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signed a bill granting future
independence to the Philippines.
1938 - The U.S. asked that all countries help refugees fleeing from
1944 - In Rome, The Gestapo rounded up innocent Italians and shot
them to death in response to a bomb attack that killed 32
German policemen. Over 300 civilians were executed.
1946 - The Soviet Union announced that it was withdrawing its
troops from Iran.
1947 - The U.S. Congress proposed the limitation of the presidency
to two terms.
1954 - Britain opened trade talks with Hungary.
1955 - Tennessee Williams' play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" debuted on Broadway.
1955 - The first oil drill seagoing rig was put into service.
1960 - A U.S. appeals court ruled that the novel "Lady Chatterly’s Lover" was not obscene and could be sent through the mail.
1972 - Great Britain imposed direct rule over Northern Ireland.
1976 - The president of Argentina, Isabel Peron, was deposed by her country's military.
1980 - In San Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was shot to death by gunmen as he celebrated Mass.
1980 - "Nightline" with Ted Koppel premiered.
1982 - Soviet leader Leonid L. Brezhnev stated that Russia was willing to resume border talks with China.
1985 - Thousands demonstrated in Madrid against the NATO presence in Spain.
1988 - Former national security aides Oliver L. North and John M. Poindexter and businessmen Richard V. Secord and Albert Hakim pled innocent to Iran-Contra charges.
1989 - The Exxon Valdez spilled 240,000 barrels (11 million gallons) of oil in Alaska's Prince William Sound after it ran aground.
1989 - The U.S. decided to send humanitarian aid to the Contras.
1990 - Indian troops left Sri Lanka.
1991 - The African nation of Benin held its first presidential elections in about 30 years.
1993 - In Israel, Ezer Weizman, an advocate of peace with neighboring Arab nations, was elected President.
1995 - Russian forces surrounded Achkoi-Martan. It was one of the few remaining strongholds of rebels in Chechenia.
1995 - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a welfare reform package that made the most changes in social programs since the New Deal.
1997 - The Australian parliament overturned the world's first and only euthanasia law.
1998 - In Jonesboro, AR, two young boys open fire at students from woods near a school. Four students and a teacher were killed and 10 others were injured. The two boys were 11 and 13 years old cousins.
1998 - A former FBI agent said papers found in James Earl Ray's car supports a conspiracy theory in the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
1999 - In Kenya, at least 31 people were killed when a passenger train derailed. Hundreds were injured.
1999 - NATO launched air strikes against Yugoslavia (Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Vojvodina). The attacks marked the first time in its 50-year history that NATO attacked a sovereign country. The bombings were in response to Serbia's refusal to sign a peace treaty with ethnic Albanians who were seeking independence for the province of Kosovo.
1999 - The 7-mile tunnel under Mont Blanc in France became an inferno after a truck carrying flour and margarine caught fire. At least 30 people were killed.
2001 - Apple Computer Inc's operating system MAC OS X went on sale.
2002 - Thieves stole five 17th century paintings from the Frans Hals Museum in the Dutch city of Haarlem. The paintings were worth about $2.6 million. The paintings were works by Jan Steen, Cornelis Bega, Adriaan van Ostade and Cornelis Dusart.
2005 - The government of Kyrgyzstan collapsed after opposition protesters took over President Askar Akayev's presidential compound and government offices.
2005 - Sandra Bullock received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
2006 - In Spain, the Basque separatist group ETA announced a permanent cease-fire.
2014 - It was announced that the U.S. and its allies would exclude Russia from the G8 meeting and boycott a planned summit in Sochi in response to Russia's takeover of Crimea.
2019 - U.S. Attorney General William Barr released a four-page summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report in U.S. President Donald Trump's election campaign. The report concluded that there was no evidence of members of the campaign being involved in a criminal conspiracy.