- 1096 – A Seljuk Turkish army successfully fight off the People’s Crusade.
- 1097 – Crusaders led by Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemund of Taranto, and Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, begin the Siege of Antioch.
- 1209 – Otto IV is crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Innocent III.
- 1392 – Japanese Emperor Go-Kameyama abdicates in favor of rival claimant Go-Komatsu.
- 1512 – Martin Luther joins the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg.
- 1520 – Ferdinand Magellan discovers a strait now known as the Strait of Magellan.
- 1520 – João Álvares Fagundes discovers the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, bestowing them their original name of “Islands of the 11,000 Virgins”.
- 1600 – Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats the leaders of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of Sekigahara and becomes shōgun of Japan.
- 1774 – The flag of Taunton, Massachusetts is the first to include the word “Liberty”.
- 1797 – In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched.
- 1805 – Napoleonic Wars: A British fleet led by Lord Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet under Admiral Villeneuve in the Battle of Trafalgar.
- 1824 – Portland cement is patented.
- 1854 – Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses are sent to the Crimean War.
- 1861 – American Civil War: Union forces under Colonel Edward Baker are defeated by Confederate troops in the second major battle of the war.
- 1867 – The Medicine Lodge Treaty is signed by southern Great Plains Indian leaders. The treaty requires Native American Plains tribes to relocate to a reservation in western Oklahoma.
- 1879 – Thomas Edison applies for a patent for his design for an incandescent light bulb.
- 1888 – Foundation of the Swiss Social Democratic Party.
- 1892 – Opening ceremonies for the World’s Columbian Exposition are held in Chicago, though because construction was behind schedule, the exposition did not open until May 1, 1893.
- 1895 – The Republic of Formosa collapses as Japanese forces invade.
- 1907 – The 1907 Qaratog earthquake hits the borders of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, killing between 12,000 and 15,000 people.
- 1910 – HMS Niobe arrives in Halifax Harbour to become the first ship of the Royal Canadian Navy.
- 1921 – President Warren G. Harding delivers the first speech by a sitting U.S. president against lynching in the deep South.
- 1931 – A secret society in the Imperial Japanese Army launches an abortive coup d’état attempt.
- 1940 – The first edition of the Ernest Hemingway novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is published.
- 1943 – World War II: The Provisional Government of Free India is formally established in Japanese-occupied Singapore.
- 1944 – World War II: The first kamikaze attack damages HMAS Australia as the Battle of Leyte Gulf begins.
- 1944 – World War II: The Nemmersdorf massacre against the German civilians takes place.
- 1944 – World War II: The city of Aachen falls to American forces after three weeks of fighting, making it the first German city to fall to the Allies.
- 1945 – French women vote for the first time during the 1945 French legislative election.
- 1950 – Korean War: Heavy fighting begins between British and Australian forces against the North Koreans during the Battle of Yongju.
- 1956 – The Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya is defeated.
- 1959 – In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opens to the public.
- 1959 – President Eisenhower approves the transfer of all US Army space-related activities to NASA, including most of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency.
- 1965 – Comet Ikeya–Seki approaches perihelion, passing 450,000 kilometers (279,617 miles) from the sun.
- 1966 – A colliery spoil tip collapses on the village of Aberfan in Wales, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren.
- 1967 – The National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam organizes a march of fifty thousand people from the Lincoln Memorial to the Pentagon.
- 1969 – The 1969 Somali coup d’état establishes a Marxist–Leninist administration.
- 1971 – A gas explosion kills 22 people at a shopping centre near Glasgow, Scotland.
- 1973 – Fred Dryer of the Los Angeles Rams becomes the first player in NFL history to score two safeties in the same game.
- 1978 – Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.
- 1979 – Moshe Dayan resigns from the Israeli government because of strong disagreements with Prime Minister Menachem Begin over policy towards the Arabs.
- 1981 – Andreas Papandreou becomes Prime Minister of Greece, ending an almost 50-year-long system of power dominated by conservative forces.
- 1983 – The metre is defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
- 1986 – In Lebanon, pro-Iran kidnappers claim to have abducted American writer Edward Tracy (he is released in August 1991).
- 1987 – The Jaffna hospital massacre is carried out by Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka, killing 70 ethnic Tamil patients, doctors and nurses.
- 1994 – North Korea and the United States sign an Agreed Framework that requires North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons program and agree to inspections.
- 1994 – In Seoul, South Korea, 32 people are killed when a span of the Seongsu Bridge collapses.[1]
- 2005 – Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in documenting its discovery.
- 2019 – Thirty people are killed in a fiery bus crash in western Democratic Republic of the Congo.[2]
- 2019 – In Canada, the 2019 Canadian Federal Election ends, resulting in incumbent Prime Minister Justin Trudeau remaining in office, albeit in a minority government. (Global) (CBC)
-Source: wikipedia
