Historical Events On This Day

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• 837 15th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet
• 1526 Saxony & Hesse form League of Gotha (league of Protestant princes)
• 1531 Evangelical German monarchy/towns form Schmalkaldische Union
• 1557 1st Russian Embassy arrives in London
• 1563 William Byrd is appointed organist at Lincoln Cathedral
• 1594 Henri IV crowned king of France
• 1626 Yuan Chonghuan is appointed Governor of Liaodong, after he led the Chinese into a great victory against the Manchurians under Nurhaci.
• 1665 Battle at Elmina, Gold Coast: Vice-adm De Ruyter beats English
• 1667 Abraham Crijnssen conquers Fort Willoughby (Zeelandia), Suriname
• 1670 Jews expelled from Austria by order of Leopold I
• 1678 Earl of Shaftesbury freed from the Tower of London
• 1696 English/Welsh nobles lay down Oath of Association
• 1700 Pacific Island of New Britain discovered
• 1713 French troops bomb Willemstad Curacao
• 1801 Washington, D.C. placed under Congressional jurisdiction
• 1803 Great fire in Bombay, India
• 1813 1st federal vaccination legislation enacted
• 1813 USnCongress authorizes use of steamboats to transport mail
• 1869 John Menard is 1st black to make a speech in the US Congress
• 1871 Meeting of Alabama claims commission
• 1872 Charlotte Ray, 1st Black woman lawyer in USA, graduated from Howard University
• 1873 Dutch socialist Samuel van Wooden demands law against child labor
• 1874 Baseball 1st played in England at Lord's Cricket Ground
• 1908 Sacrifice fly adopted (repealed in 1931, reinstated 1954)
• 1908 Star #46 was added to US flag for Oklahoma
• 1912 Lord Kitchener opens Khartoum-El Obeid (Nyala) railway
• 1919 1st public performance of Holst's "Planets"
• 1919 American Association for Hard of Hearing forms (NYC)
• 1921 US Female Figure Skating championship won by Theresa Weld Blanchard; US male Figure Skating championship won by Sherwin Badger
• 1921 The International Working Union of Socialist Parties is founded in Vienna
• 1921 The Fascists incite a riot in Florence, Italy
• 1941 13th Academy Awards: "Rebecca", James Stewart & Ginger Rogers win
• 1942 1st transport of French Jews to nazi-Germany
• 1942 Battle of Java Sea began: 13 US warships sunk-2 Japanese
• 1942 J S Hey discovers radio emissions from Sun
• 1943 The Smith Mine #3 in Bearcreek, Montana, explodes, killing 74 men.
• 1943 The Rosenstrasse protest starts in Berlin
• 1945 Battle of US 94 Infantry
• 1946 4th "Road" film "Road to Utopia" premieres (NYC)
• 1947 Paul-Emile Victor French polar expeditions organized
• 1949 Chaim Weizmann becomes 1st President of Israel
• 1964 "What Makes Sammy Run?" opens at 84th St Theater NYC for 540 performances
• 1964 The government of Italy asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over.
• 1965 "High Spirits" closes at Alvin Theater NYC after 375 performances
• 1965 Dutch Marijnen government resigns
• 1965 France performs Underground nuclear test at Ecker Algeria
• 1966 Ice Dance Championship at Davos won by Diane Towler/Bernard Ford GRB
• 1966 Ice Pairs Championship at Davos won by Belousova & Protopopov of URS
• 1966 Ladies Figure Skating Championship in Davos won by Peggy Fleming of US
• 1966 Men's Figure Skating Championship in Davos won by Emmerich Danzer AUT
• 1966 8th Daytona 500: Richard Petty wins (160.927 MPH)
• 1967 Antigua & St Christopher-Nevis become associated states of UK
• 1967 Dominica gains independence from England
• 1967 Rio de la Plata Treaty
• 1969 Gen Hafez al-Assad becomes head of Syria via military coup
• 1969 President Nixon visits West Berlin
• 1970 NY Times (falsely) reports US army has ended domestic surveillance
• 1971 Doctors in the first Dutch abortion clinic (the Mildredhuis in Arnhem) start to perform aborti provocati.
• 1984 WRC-AM in Washington, D.C. changes call letters to WWRC
• 1984 Worker's union leader Billy Nair freed in South Africa
• 1985 Farmers converge in Washington to demand economic relief
• 1985 Mauritania's new constitutional charter published
• 1985 US dollar is worth Ÿ3.9355 (Netherlands)
• 1986 The United States Senate allows its debates to be televised on a trial basis.
• 1987 "Washington Week In Review" 20th anniversary on PBS
• 1987 Donald Regan resigned as White House chief of staff
• 1987 Mike Conley triple jumps world indoor record (17.76m)
• 1987 NCAA cancels SMU's entire 1987 football schedule for gross violations of NCAA rules regarding athletic corruption
• 1988 Ayako Okamoto wins LPGA Orient Leasing Hawaiian Ladies Golf Open
• 1988 Bonnie Blair (US) wins Olympic 500m speed skating in record 39.1
• 1988 Gulfstream G-IV goes around the world 36:08:34
• 1988 Katarina Witt (GDR) wins 2nd consecutive Olympic figure skating
• 1989 German war criminals Aus der Funten and Fischer freed in Holland
• 1989 Venezuela is rocked by the riots of Caracazo.
• 1990 Exxon Corp & Exxon Shipping are indicted on 5 criminal counts (Valdez)
• 1990 No-one elected to Hall of Fame for 2nd time in 3 years
• 1993 PBA National Championship Won by Ron Palombi Jr
• 1994 17th Winter Olympic games closes in Lillehammer, Norway
• 1994 Maronite church near Beirut bombed, 10 killed
• 1995 Car bomb explodes in Zakho, North-Iraq (54-80 killed)
• 1996 Mark Waugh scores 126 in World Cup against India
• 1997 "Last Night of Ballyhoo" opens at Helen Hayes Theater NYC
• 1997 Singer Sade (Helen Folasade) arrested in Jamaica for disobeying a police officer
• 1998 Apple discontinues development of the Newton computer
• 1998 FBI arrests 10 most wanted suspected serial killer Tony Ray Amati
• 1998 NE Patriot David Meggett arrested in Toronto on sex assault charges
• 1998 Britain's House of Lords agrees to end 1,000 years of male precedence by giving a monarch's first-born daughter the same claim to the throne as any first born son
• 2014 Republic of Crimea announces a referendum & ousts its regional government
• 2014 Arseniy Yatsenyuk appointed Prime Minister of the Ukraine
• 2014 Chaos erupts after the Swedish Public Employment Service mistakenly invites 61,000 people to a job interview in Stockholm
• 2014 US Republican Governor Jan Brewer vetoes a "religious freedom" bill that would have allowed businesses to turn away gay customers
• 2015 Russian politician Boris Nemtsov is assassinated in Moscow