Events Pre-1600 537 – Siege of Rome: King Vitiges attempts to assault the northern and eastern city walls, but is repulsed at the Praenestine Gate, known as the Vivarium, by the defenders under the Byzantine generals Bessas and Peranius. 630 – Emperor Heraclius returns the True Cross, one of the holiest Christian relics, to Jerusalem. 717 – Battle of Vincy between Charles Martel and Ragenfrid. 867 – An army of the Kingdom of Northumbria attempts to recapture York from the Great Heathen Army but is defeated in the battle of York. 1152 – Annulment of the marriage of King Louis VII of France and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. 1180 – Emperor Antoku accedes to the throne of Japan. 1349 – Erfurt massacre: Outbreak of an antisemitic pogrom in Erfurt, Germany, during which between 100 and up to 3000 Jews were killed by Christians after being accused of causing the Black Death. 1556 – On the day of his execution in Oxford, former archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer deviates from the scripted sermon by renouncing the recantations he has made and adds, "And as for the pope, I refuse him, as Christ's enemy, and Antichrist with all his false doctrine."
1601–1900 1788 – A fire in New Orleans leaves most of the town in ruins. 1800 – With the church leadership driven out of Rome during an armed conflict, Pius VII is crowned Pope in Venice with a temporary papal tiara made of papier-mâché. 1801 – The Battle of Alexandria is fought between British and French forces near the ruins of Nicopolis near Alexandria in Egypt. 1804 – Code Napoléon is adopted as French civil law. 1814 – Napoleonic Wars: Austrian forces repel French troops in the Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube. 1821 – Greek War of Independence: Greek revolutionaries seize Kalavryta. 1829 – The Wellington–Winchilsea duel takes place in London involving the Prime Minister the Duke of Wellington.Muir, Rory. Wellington: Waterloo and the Fortunes of Peace 1814–1852. Yale University Press, 2015. p.575-7 1844 – The Baháʼí calendar begins. This is the first day of the first year of the Baháʼí calendar. It is annually celebrated by members of the Baháʼí Faith as the Baháʼí New Year or Náw-Rúz. 1861 – Alexander H. Stephens gives the Cornerstone Speech. 1871 – Otto von Bismarck is appointed as the first Chancellor of the German Empire. 1871 – Journalist Henry Morton Stanley begins his trek to find the missionary and explorer David Livingstone.
1901–present 1918 – World War I: The first phase of the German spring offensive, Operation Michael, begins. 1919 – The Hungarian Soviet Republic is established becoming the first Communist government to be formed in Europe after the October Revolution in Russia. 1921 – The New Economic Policy is implemented by the Bolshevik Party in response to the economic failure as a result of war communism. 1925 – The Butler Act prohibits the teaching of human evolution in Tennessee. 1925 – Syngman Rhee is removed from office after being impeached as the President of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. 1925 – Ravel's opera L'enfant et les sortilèges, to a libretto by Colette, is premiered at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo.L'Enfant et les sortilèges - Details by McLellan, Joe; LA Philharmonic. 1928 – Charles Lindbergh is presented with the Medal of Honor for the first solo trans-Atlantic flight. 1934 – The landmark Australian Eastern Mission led by John Latham departs on its three-month tour of East and South-East Asia. 1935 – Shah of Iran Reza Shah Pahlavi formally asks the international community to call Persia by its native name, Iran. 1937 – Ponce massacre: Nineteen unarmed civilians in Ponce, Puerto Rico are gunned down by police in a terrorist attack ordered by the US-appointed Governor, Blanton Winship. 1943 – Wehrmacht officer Rudolf von Gersdorff plots to assassinate Adolf Hitler by using a suicide bomb, but the plan falls through; von Gersdorff is able to defuse the bomb in time and avoid suspicion. 1945 – World War II: British troops liberate Mandalay, Burma. 1945 – World War II: Operation Carthage: Royal Air Force planes bomb Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark. They also accidentally hit a school, killing 125 civilians. 1945 – World War II: Bulgaria and the Soviet Union successfully complete their defense of the north bank of the Drava River as the Battle of the Transdanubian Hills concludes. 1946 – The Los Angeles Rams sign Kenny Washington, making him the first African American player in professional American football since 1933. 1952 – Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio. 1960 – Apartheid: Sharpeville massacre, South Africa: Police open fire on a group of black South African demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding 180. 1963 – Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary closes. 1965 – Ranger program: NASA launches Ranger 9, the last in a series of uncrewed lunar space probes. 1965 – Martin Luther King Jr. leads 3,200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. 1968 – Battle of Karameh in Jordan between the Israel Defense Forces and the combined forces of the Jordanian Armed Forces and PLO. 1970 – The first Earth Day proclamation is issued by Joseph Alioto, Mayor of San Francisco. 1970 – San Diego Comic-Con, the largest pop and culture festival in the world, hosts its inaugural event. 1980 – Cold War: American President Jimmy Carter announces a United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet–Afghan War. 1983 – The first cases of the 1983 West Bank fainting epidemic begin; Israelis and Palestinians accuse each other of poison gas, but the cause is later determined mostly to be psychosomatic. 1985 – Canadian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen begins his circumnavigation of the globe in a wheelchair in the name of spinal cord injury medical research. 1986 – Debi Thomas becomes the first African American to win the World Figure Skating Championships. 1989 – Transbrasil Flight 801 crashes into a slum near São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport, killing 25 people. 1990 – Namibia becomes independent after 75 years of South African rule. 1994 – The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change enters into force. 1999 – Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon. 2000 – Pope John Paul II makes his first ever pontifical visit to Israel. 2006 – The social media site Twitter (now officially named X) is founded. 2019 – The 2019 Xiangshui chemical plant explosion occurs, killing at least 47 people and injuring 640 others. 2022 – China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 crashes in Guangxi, China, killing 132 people.
Births Pre-1600 927 – Emperor Taizu of Song (died 976) 1474 – Angela Merici, Italian educator and saint (died 1540) 1501 – Anne Brooke, Baroness Cobham, English noble (died 1558) 1521 – Maurice, Elector of Saxony (died 1553) 1527 – Hermann Finck, German composer and educator (died 1558) 1555 – John Leveson, English politician (died 1615) 1557 – Anne Howard, Countess of Arundel, English countess and poet (died 1630)
1601–1900 1626 – Peter of Saint Joseph Betancur, Spanish saint and missionary (died 1667) 1672 – Stefano Benedetto Pallavicino, Italian poet and translator (died 1742) 1685 – Johann Sebastian Bach, German Baroque composer and musician (died 1750) 1713 – Francis Lewis, Welsh-American merchant and politician (died 1803) 1716 – Josef Seger, Bohemian organist, composer, and educator (died 1782) 1752 – Mary Dixon Kies, American inventor (died 1837) 1763 – Jean Paul, German journalist and author (died 1825) 1768 – Joseph Fourier, French mathematician and physicist (died 1830) 1779 – José Bernardo de Tagle y Portocarrero, Marquis of Torre Tagle, Peruvian soldier and politician, 2nd President of Peru (died 1825) 1802 – Augusta Waddington, Welsh writer and patron of the arts (died 1896) 1806 – Benito Juárez, Mexican lawyer and politician, 25th President of Mexico (died 1872) 1811 – Nathaniel Woodard, English priest and educator (died 1891) 1825 – Alexander Mozhaysky, Russian soldier and engineer (died 1890) 1831 – Dorothea Beale, English suffragist, educational reformer and author (died 1906) 1835 – Thomas Hayward, English cricketer (died 1876) 1839 – Modest Mussorgsky, Russian pianist and composer (died 1881) 1854 – Alick Bannerman, Australian cricketer and coach (died 1924) 1857 – Alice Henry, Australian journalist and activist (died 1943) 1859 – Daria Pratt, American golfer (died 1938) 1865 – George Owen Squier, American general and inventor of Musak (died 1934) 1866 – Antonia Maury, American astronomer and astrophysicist (died 1952) 1867 – Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., American director and producer (died 1932) 1869 – David Robertson, Scottish-English golfer and rugby player (died 1937) 1874 – Alfred Tysoe, English runner (died 1901) 1876 – Walter Tewksbury, American runner and hurdler (died 1968) 1877 – Maurice Farman, French race car driver and pilot (died 1964) 1878 – Morris H. Whitehouse, American architect (died 1944) 1880 – Broncho Billy Anderson, American actor, director, and producer (died 1971) 1880 – Hans Hofmann, German-American painter and academic (died 1966) 1882 – Aleksander Kesküla, Estonian politician (died 1963) 1884 – George David Birkhoff, American mathematician (died 1944) 1885 – Pierre Renoir, French actor and director (died 1952) 1886 – Walter Dray, American pole vaulter (died 1973) 1887 – Clarice Beckett, Australian painter (died 1935) 1887 – Lajos Kassák, Hungarian poet, novelist and painter (died 1967) 1887 – M. N. Roy, Indian philosopher and politician (died 1954) 1889 – Jock Sutherland, American football player and coach (died 1948) 1894 – Hannah Ryggen, Norwegian textile artist (died 1970) 1896 – Friedrich Waismann, Austrian mathematician, physicist, and philosopher from the Vienna Circle (died 1959) 1897 – Sim Gokkes, Dutch composer and conductor (died 1943) 1897 – Salvador Lutteroth, Mexican wrestling promoter, founded Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (died 1987) 1899 – Panagiotis Pipinelis, Greek politician, Prime Minister of Greece (died 1970)
1901–present 1901 – Karl Arnold, German businessman and politician, President of the German Bundesrat (died 1958) 1902 – Son House, American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1988) 1904 – Jehane Benoît, Canadian journalist and author (died 1987) 1904 – Forrest Mars, Sr., American candy maker, created M&M's and Mars bar (died 1999) 1904 – Nikos Skalkottas, Greek violinist and composer (died 1949) 1905 – Phyllis McGinley, American author and poet (died 1978) 1906 – André Filho, Brazilian musician and songwriter (died 1974) 1906 – John D. Rockefeller III, American philanthropist (died 1978) 1906 – Jim Thompson, American businessman (died 1967) 1907 – Zoltán Kemény, Hungarian sculptor (died 1965) 1909 – Harry Lane, English footballer (died 1977) 1910 – Julio Gallo, American businessman, co-founded E & J Gallo Winery (died 1993) 1910 – Muhammad Siddiq Khan, Bangladeshi librarian and educator (died 1978) 1911 – Walter Lincoln Hawkins, American scientist and inventor (died 1992) 1912 – André Laurendeau, Canadian journalist, playwright, and politician (died 1968) 1913 – George Abecassis, English race car driver and pilot (died 1991) 1913 – Guillermo Haro, Mexican astronomer (died 1988) 1914 – Paul Tortelier, French cellist and composer (died 1990) 1916 – Bismillah Khan, Indian shehnai player (died 2006) 1916 – Ken Wharton, English race car driver (died 1957) 1917 – Frank Hardy, Australian journalist, author, and playwright (died 1994) 1918 – Patrick Lucey, American captain and politician, 38th Governor of Wisconsin (died 2014) 1918 – Charles Thompson, American pianist and composer (died 2016) 1919 – Douglas Warren, Australian bishop (died 2013) 1920 – Manolis Chiotis, Greek singer-songwriter and bouzouki player (died 1970)