Events Pre-1600 310 – Sixty-five days after being exiled by the Emperor Maxentius to Sicily, Pope Eusebius dies.; ; 685 – Election of Pope Conon following the death of Pope John V. 1094 – El Cid and his forces defeat a larger army of the Almoravids in the battle of Cuarte. 1096 – A Seljuk Turkish army successfully ambushes the People's Crusade at the Battle of Civetot. 1097 – First Crusade: Crusaders led by Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemund of Taranto, and Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, begin the Siege of Antioch. 1139 – Zengi, atabeg of Aleppo, takes Baalbek from the Burid dynasty. 1187 – Election of Gregory VIII following the death of Pope Urban 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 – 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.
1601–1900 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 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 the western Indian Territory. 1879 – Thomas Edison applies for a patent for his design for an incandescent light bulb. 1888 – The Swiss Social Democratic Party is founded. 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 capitulation of Tainan completes the Japanese conquest of Taiwan.
1901–present 1907 – The 1907 Qaratog earthquake hits the borders of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, killing between 12,000 and 15,000 people. 1910 – arrives in Halifax Harbour to become the first ship of the Royal Canadian Navy. 1912 – First Balkan War: The Greek navy completes the capture of the island of Lemnos for use as a forward base against the Dardanelles. 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. 1941 – World War II: The Kragujevac massacre against Serbian men and boys takes place. 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 as the Battle of Leyte Gulf begins. 1944 – World War II: The Nemmersdorf massacre against German civilians takes place. 1944 – World War II: The city of Aachen falls to American forces after three weeks of fighting, the first German city to fall to the Allies. 1945 – In the 1945 French legislative election French women vote for the first time. 1950 – Korean War: Heavy fighting begins between British and Australian forces and 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 Dwight D. 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 slips onto houses and a school in the village of Aberfan in Wales, killing 144 people, 116 of whom were 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. 1984 – Niki Lauda claims his third and final Formula One Drivers' Championship Title by half a point ahead of McLaren team-mate Alain Prost at the Portuguese Grand Prix. 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 peacekeeping forces in Sri Lanka, killing 70 Tamil patients, doctors and nurses. 1989 – In Honduras, 131 people are killed when a Boeing 727 crashes on approach to Toncontín International Airport near the nation's capital Tegucigalpa. 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. 2003 – Images of the dwarf planet Eris are taken and subsequently used in documenting its discovery. 2007 – Finnish race drivers Kimi Räikkönen of Scuderia Ferrari won the Brazilian Grand Prix in Formula One. With this result, Räikkönen became world champion, surpassing McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso by one point in the drivers' standings. 2011 – Iraq War: President Barack Obama announces that the withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq will be complete by the end of the year. 2018 – A passenger train derails in Yilan County, Taiwan, killing 18 people and injuring 187. 2019 – Thirty people are killed in a fiery bus crash in western Democratic Republic of the Congo. 2019 – In Canada, the 2019 Canadian federal election ends, resulting in incumbent Prime Minister Justin Trudeau remaining in office, albeit with the Liberal Party in a minority government. 2021 – A shooting occurs on the set of the film Rust, in which actor Alec Baldwin discharged a prop weapon which had been loaded, killing the director of photography, Halyna Hutchins, and injuring director Joel Souza.
Births Pre-1600 1328 – Hongwu Emperor of China (died 1398) 1409 – Alessandro Sforza, Italian condottiero (died 1473)'Sfòrza, Alessandro, signore di Pesaro', Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. 1449 – George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, Irish-English son of Cecily Neville, Duchess of York (died 1478) 1527 – Louis I, Cardinal of Guise (died 1578) 1536 – Joachim Ernest, Prince of Anhalt (died 1586) 1581 – Domenichino, Italian painter (died 1641)
1601–1900 1650 – Jean Bart, French admiral (died 1702) 1658 – Henri de Boulainvilliers, French nobleman (died 1722) 1675 – Emperor Higashiyama of Japan (died 1710) 1687 – Nicolaus I Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician and theorist (died 1759) 1712 – James Steuart, Scottish economist and author (died 1780) 1725 – Franz Moritz von Lacy, Austrian field marshal (died 1801) 1757 – Pierre Augereau, French general (died 1816) 1762 – Herman Willem Daendels, Dutch general, lawyer, and politician, 36th Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (died 1818) 1772 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet, philosopher, and critic (died 1834) 1775 – Giuseppe Baini, Italian priest, composer, and critic (died 1844) 1790 – Alphonse de Lamartine, French poet and politician, French Head of State (died 1869) 1809 – James Clark, American Jesuit (died 1885) 1811 – Filippo Colini, Italian operatic baritone (died 1863) 1821 – Sims Reeves, English tenor and actor (died 1900) 1833 – Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist and engineer, invented dynamite and founded the Nobel Prize (died 1896) 1845 – Will Carleton, American poet and journalist (died 1912) 1847 – Giuseppe Giacosa, Italian poet and playwright (died 1906) 1851 – George Ulyett, English cricketer and footballer (died 1898) 1868 – Ernest Swinton, British Army officer (died 1951) 1874 – Tan Kah Kee, Chinese businessman, community leader, communist and philanthropist (died 1961) 1877 – Oswald Avery, Canadian-American physician and microbiologist (died 1955) 1884 – Claire Waldoff, German singer and actress (died 1957) 1886 – Eugene Burton Ely, American soldier and pilot (died 1911) 1887 – Krishna Singh, Indian lawyer and politician, 1st Chief Minister of Bihar (died 1961) 1894 – Edogawa Ranpo, Japanese author and critic (died 1965) 1895 – Paavo Johansson, Finnish javelin thrower and decathlete (died 1983) 1895 – Edna Purviance, American actress (died 1958) 1896 – Esther Shumiatcher-Hirschbein, Russian-Canadian poet and screenwriter (died 1985) 1898 – Eduard Pütsep, Estonian wrestler and actor (died 1960) 1900 – Andrée Boisson, French Olympic fencer (died 1973)
1901–present 1902 – Eddy Hamel, American footballer (died 1943)Simon Kuper (2012). Ajax, the Dutch, the War; The Strange Tale of Soccer During Europe's Darkest Hour 1907 – Nikos Engonopoulos, Greek painter and poet (died 1985) 1908 – Niyazi Berkes, Cypriot-English sociologist and academic (died 1988) 1911 – Mary Blair, American illustrator and animator (died 1978) 1912 – Don Byas, American saxophonist and educator (died 1972) 1912 – Alfredo Pián, Argentinian race car driver (died 1990) 1912 – Georg Solti, Hungarian-English conductor and director (died 1997) 1914 – Martin Gardner, American mathematician and author (died 2010) 1915 – Owen Bradley, American country music record producer (died 1998) 1917 – Dizzy Gillespie, American trumpet player, composer, and bandleader (died 1993) 1918 – Milton Himmelfarb, American sociologist and author (died 2006) 1918 – Albertina Sisulu, South African anti-apartheid activist (died 2011) 1919 – Jim Wallwork, English-Canadian sergeant and pilot (died 2013) 1921 – Malcolm Arnold, English composer (died 2006) 1921 – Bruce Beeby, Australian-English actor (died 2013) 1921 – Robert Clothier, Canadian actor (died 1999) 1921 – Jim Shumate, American fiddler and composer (died 2013) 1921 – Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld, Dutch astronomer and academic (died 2015) 1922 – Liliane Bettencourt, French businesswoman and philanthropist (died 2017) 1923 – Samuel Khachikian, Iranian director, screenwriter, and author (died 2001) 1924 – Joyce Randolph, American actress (died 2024) 1924 – Julie Wilson, American actress and singer (died 2015) 1925 – Celia Cruz, Cuban-American singer (died 2003) 1925 – Virginia Zeani, Romanian soprano and educator (died 2023) 1926 – Bob Rosburg, American golfer (died 2009) 1926 – Leonard Rossiter, English actor (died 1984) 1927 – Fritz Wintersteller, Austrian mountaineer (died 2018) 1927 – Howard Zieff, American director and photographer (died 2009) 1928 – Whitey Ford, American baseball player and coach (died 2020) 1928 – Eudóxia Maria Froehlich, Brazilian zoologist (died 2015) 1928 – Vern Mikkelsen, American basketball player and coach (died 2013) 1929 – Pierre Bellemare, French radio and television host (died 2018)