- 845 – Paris is sacked by Viking raiders, probably under Ragnar Lodbrok, who collects a huge ransom in exchange for leaving.
- 1430 – The Ottoman Empire under Murad II captures Thessalonica from the Republic of Venice.
- 1461 – Battle of Towton: Edward of York defeats Queen Margaret to become King Edward IV of England, bringing a temporary stop to the Wars of the Roses.[1]
- 1500 – Cesare Borgia is given the title of Captain General and Gonfalonier by his father Rodrigo Borgia after returning from his conquests in the Romagna.
- 1549 – The city of Salvador da Bahia, the first capital of Brazil, is founded.
- 1632 – Treaty of Saint-Germain is signed returning Quebec to French control after the English had seized it in 1629.
- 1792 – King Gustav III of Sweden dies after being shot in the back at a midnight masquerade ball at Stockholm‘s Royal Opera 13 days earlier. He is succeeded by Gustav IV Adolf.
- 1806 – Construction is authorized of the Great National Pike, better known as the Cumberland Road, becoming the first United States federal highway.
- 1809 – King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden abdicates after a coup d’état. At the Diet of Porvoo, Finland’s four Estates pledge allegiance to Alexander I of Russia, commencing the secession of the Grand Duchy of Finland from Sweden.
- 1831 – Great Bosnian uprising: Bosniaks rebel against Turkey.
- 1847 – Mexican–American War: United States forces led by General Winfield Scott take Veracruz after a siege.
- 1849 – The United Kingdom annexes the Punjab.
- 1857 – Sepoy Mangal Pandey of the 34th Regiment, Bengal Native Infantry mutinies against the East India Company‘s rule in India and inspires the protracted Indian Rebellion of 1857, also known as the Sepoy Mutiny.
- 1865 – American Civil War: Federal forces under Major General Philip Sheridan move to flank Confederate forces under Robert E. Lee as the Appomattox Campaign begins.
- 1867 – Queen Victoria gives Royal Assent to the British North America Act which establishes Canada on July 1.
- 1871 – Royal Albert Hall is opened by Queen Victoria.
- 1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: Battle of Kambula: British forces defeat 20,000 Zulus.
- 1882 – The Knights of Columbus is established.
- 1886 – John Pemberton brews the first batch of Coca-Cola in a backyard in Atlanta.
- 1911 – The M1911 .45 ACP pistol becomes the official U.S. Army side arm.
- 1927 – Sunbeam 1000hp breaks the land speed record at Daytona Beach, Florida.[2]
- 1930 – Heinrich Brüning is appointed German Reichskanzler.
- 1936 – The 1936 German parliamentary election and referendum seeks approval for the recent remilitarization of the Rhineland.
- 1941 – The North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement goes into effect at 03:00 local time.
- 1941 – World War II: British Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy forces defeat those of the Italian Regia Marina off the Peloponnesian coast of Greece in the Battle of Cape Matapan.
- 1942 – The Bombing of Lübeck in World War II is the first major success for the RAF Bomber Command against Germany and a German city.
- 1945 – World War II: Last day of V-1 flying bomb attacks on England.
- 1945 – World War II: The German 4th Army is almost destroyed by the Soviet Red Army.
- 1946 – Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, one of Mexico’s leading universities, is founded.
- 1947 – Malagasy Uprising against French colonial rule in Madagascar.
- 1951 – Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage.
- 1957 – The New York, Ontario and Western Railway makes its final run, the first major U.S. railroad to be abandoned in its entirety.
- 1961 – The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, allowing residents of Washington, D.C., to vote in presidential elections.
- 1962 – Arturo Frondizi, the president of Argentina, is overthrown in a military coup by Argentina’s armed forces, ending an 111⁄2 day constitutional crisis.
- 1971 – My Lai Massacre: Lieutenant William Calley is convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison.
- 1973 – Vietnam War: The last United States combat soldiers leave South Vietnam.
- 1973 – Operation Barrel Roll, a covert American bombing campaign in Laos to stop communist infiltration of South Vietnam, ends.
- 1974 – NASA‘s Mariner 10 becomes the first space probe to fly by Mercury.
- 1974 – Terracotta Army was discovered in Shaanxi province, China.
- 1982 – The Canada Act 1982 receives the Royal Assent from Queen Elizabeth II, setting the stage for the Queen of Canada to proclaim the Constitution Act, 1982.
- 1984 – The Baltimore Colts load its possessions onto fifteen Mayflower moving trucks in the early morning hours and transfer its operations to Indianapolis.
- 1990 – The Czechoslovak parliament is unable to reach an agreement on what to call the country after the fall of Communism, sparking the so-called Hyphen War.
- 1993 – Catherine Callbeck becomes premier of Prince Edward Island and the first woman to be elected in a general election as premier of a Canadian province.
- 1999 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 mark (10,006.78) for the first time, during the height of the dot-com bubble.
- 1999 – A magnitude 6.8 earthquake in India strikes the Chamoli district in Uttar Pradesh, killing 103.
- 2002 – In reaction to the Passover massacre two days prior, Israel launches Operation Defensive Shield against Palestinian militants, its largest military operation in the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War.
- 2004 – Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia join NATO as full members.
- 2010 – Two suicide bombers hit the Moscow Metro system at the peak of the morning rush hour, killing 40.
- 2013 – At least 36 people are killed when a 16-floor building collapses in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
- 2014 – The first same-sex marriages in England and Wales are performed.
- 2017 – Prime Minister Theresa May invoked Article 50 of the Treaty on the European Union, formally beginning the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union. [3]
-Source: wikipedia
