Events Pre-1600 1152 – After an eight-year conflict, Baldwin III of Jerusalem wins sole control of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from his mother Melisende. 1303 – The Sapienza University of Rome is instituted by a bull of Pope Boniface VIII. 1303 – The Bahri Mamluks defeat the Ilkhanate in the battle of Marj al-Saffar, marking the end of the Mongol incursions into Syria. 1535 – A complex halo display is observed over Stockholm, Sweden, inspiring the Vädersolstavlan ("The Sundog painting"), the earliest depiction of such an event, and the oldest colour depiction of the city.
1601–1900 1653 – Oliver Cromwell dissolves England's Rump Parliament. 1657 – English Admiral Robert Blake destroys a Spanish silver fleet, under heavy fire from the shore, at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. 1657 – Freedom of religion is granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam (later New York City). 1752 – Start of Konbaung–Hanthawaddy War, a new phase in the Burmese Civil War (1740–57). 1770 – The Georgian king, Erekle II, abandoned by his Russian ally Count Totleben, wins a victory over Ottoman forces at Aspindza. 1789 – George Washington arrives at Grays Ferry, Philadelphia, while en route to Manhattan for his inauguration. 1792 – France declares war against the "King of Hungary and Bohemia", the beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars. 1800 – The Septinsular Republic is established. 1809 – Two Austrian army corps in Bavaria are defeated by a First French Empire army led by Napoleon at the Battle of Abensberg on the second day of a four-day campaign that ended in a French victory. 1828 – René Caillié becomes the second non-Muslim to enter Timbuktu, following Major Gordon Laing. He would also be the first to return alive. 1836 – U.S. Congress passes an act creating the Wisconsin Territory. 1861 – American Civil War: Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army in order to command the forces of the state of Virginia. 1861 – Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, attempting to display the value of balloons, makes record journey, flying 900 miles from Cincinnati to South Carolina. 1862 – Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard complete the experiment disproving the theory of spontaneous generation. 1865 – Astronomer Angelo Secchi demonstrates the Secchi disk, which measures water clarity, aboard Pope Pius IX's yacht, the L'Immaculata Concezion. 1876 – The April Uprising begins. Its suppression shocks European opinion, and Bulgarian independence becomes a condition for ending the Russo-Turkish War. 1884 – Pope Leo XIII publishes the encyclical Humanum genus, condemning Freemasonry. 1898 – U.S. President William McKinley signs a joint resolution to Congress for declaration of war against Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.
1901–present 1902 – Pierre and Marie Curie refine radium chloride. 1908 – Opening day of competition in the New South Wales Rugby League. 1914 – Nineteen men, women, and children participating in a strike are killed in the Ludlow Massacre during the Colorado Coalfield War. 1918 – World War I: Manfred von Richthofen, a.k.a. The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims, his final victories before his death the following day. 1922 – The Soviet government creates the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast within the Georgian SSR. 1945 – World War II: U.S. troops capture Leipzig, Germany, only to later cede the city to the Soviet Union. 1945 – World War II: Führerbunker: On his 56th birthday Adolf Hitler makes his last trip to the surface to award Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth. 1945 – Twenty Jewish children used in medical experiments at Neuengamme are killed in the basement of the Bullenhuser Damm school. 1946 – The League of Nations officially dissolves, giving most of its power to the United Nations. 1949 – Amethyst incident: The People's Liberation Army attacks travelling to the British embassy in Nanjing during the Chinese Civil War. 1961 – Cold War: Failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion of US-backed Cuban exiles against Cuba. 1968 – English politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech. 1968 – South African Airways Flight 228 crashes near J.G. Strijdom Airport in South West Africa (now Hosea Kutako International Airport in Namibia), killing 123 people. 1972 – Apollo program: The Apollo 16 Lunar Module Orion, commanded by John Young and piloted by Charles Duke, lands on the Moon. 1985 – University of California, Riverside 1985 laboratory raid: Animal Liberation Front rescues 467 animals being tested in a lab at University of California, Riverside in Riverside, California, causing $700,000 in damages to the laboratory, in advocacy for animal rights. 1998 – Air France Flight 422 crashes after taking off from El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá, Colombia, killing all 53 people on board. 1999 – Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 14 people and injure 23 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado. 2004 – The Nicoll Highway in Singapore collapses, killing four workers. 2007 – Johnson Space Center shooting: William Phillips barricades himself with a handgun in NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, before killing a male hostage and himself. 2008 – Danica Patrick wins the Indy Japan 300, becoming the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race. 2010 – The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and beginning an oil spill that lasted six months. 2012 – One hundred twenty-seven people are killed when a plane crashes in a residential area near the Benazir Bhutto International Airport near Islamabad, Pakistan. 2013 – A 6.6-magnitude earthquake strikes Lushan County, Ya'an, in China's Sichuan province, killing at least 193 people and injuring thousands. 2015 – Ten people are killed in a bomb attack on a convoy carrying food supplies to a United Nations compound in Garowe in the Somali region of Puntland. 2020 – For the first time in history, oil prices drop below zero, an effect of the 2020 Russia-Saudi Arabia oil price war. 2021 – State of Minnesota v. Derek Michael Chauvin: Derek Chauvin is found guilty of all charges in the murder of George Floyd by the Fourth Judicial District Court of Minnesota. 2023 – SpaceX's Starship rocket, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, launches for the first time. It explodes four minutes into flight.
Births Pre-1600 1494 – Johannes Agricola, German theologian and reformer (died 1566) 1544 – Renata of Lorraine, Duchess consort of Bavaria (died 1602) 1586 – Rose of Lima, Peruvian mystic and saint (died 1617)
1601–1900 1619 – Geoffrey Shakerley, English politician (died 1696) 1633 – Emperor Go-Kōmyō of Japan (died 1654) 1646 – Charles Plumier, French botanist and author (died 1704) 1650 – William Bedloe, English spy (died 1680) 1718 – David Brainerd, American missionary (died 1747) 1723 – Cornelius Harnett, American merchant, farmer, and politician (died 1781) 1727 – Florimond Claude, Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, Belgian-Austrian minister and diplomat (died 1794) 1745 – Philippe Pinel, French physician and psychiatrist (died 1826) 1748 – Georg Michael Telemann, German composer and theologian (died 1831) 1808 – Napoleon III, French politician, 1st President of France, Emperor of French Second Empire (died 1873) 1816 – Bogoslav Šulek, Croatian philologist, historian, and lexicographer (died 1895) 1818 – Heinrich Göbel, German-American mechanic and engineer (died 1893) 1826 – Dinah Craik, English author and poet (died 1887) 1839 – Carol I of Romania, King of Romania (died 1914) 1840 – Odilon Redon, French painter and illustrator (died 1916) 1850 – Daniel Chester French, American sculptor, designed the Lincoln statue (died 1931) 1851 – Alexander Dianin, Russian chemist (died 1918) 1851 – Siegmund Lubin, Polish-American businessman, founded the Lubin Manufacturing Company (died 1923) 1860 – Justinien de Clary, French target shooter (died 1933) 1871 – Sydney Chapman, English economist and civil servant (died 1951) 1873 – James Harcourt, English character actor (died 1951) 1875 – Vladimir Vidrić, Croatian poet and lawyer (died 1909) 1879 – Paul Poiret, French fashion designer (died 1944) 1882 – Holland Smith, American general (died 1967) 1884 – Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (died 1966) 1884 – Oliver Kirk, American boxer (died 1960) 1884 – Daniel Varoujan, Armenian poet and educator (died 1915) 1889 – Albert Jean Amateau, Turkish rabbi, lawyer, and activist (died 1996) 1889 – Prince Erik, Duke of Västmanland (died 1918) 1889 – Marie-Antoinette de Geuser, French mystic (died 1918) 1889 – Adolf Hitler, Austrian-born German politician, Führer of Nazi Germany (died 1945) 1889 – Tonny Kessler, Dutch footballer (died 1960) 1890 – Maurice Duplessis, Canadian lawyer and politician, 16th Premier of Quebec (died 1959) 1890 – Adolf Schärf, Austrian soldier and politician, 6th President of Austria (died 1965) 1891 – Dave Bancroft, American baseball player and manager (died 1972) 1893 – Harold Lloyd, American actor, comedian, and producer (died 1971) 1893 – Joan Miró, Spanish painter and sculptor (died 1983) 1895 – Henry de Montherlant, French essayist, novelist, and dramatist (died 1972) 1899 – Alan Arnett McLeod, Canadian lieutenant, Victoria Cross recipient (died 1918)
1901–present 1904 – Bruce Cabot, American actor (died 1972) 1907 – Miran Bakhsh, Pakistani cricketer (died 1991) 1907 – Augoustinos Kantiotes, Greek bishop (died 2010) 1908 – Lionel Hampton, American vibraphone player, pianist, bandleader, and actor (died 2002) 1910 – Fatin Rüştü Zorlu, Turkish diplomat and politician (died 1961) 1913 – Mimis Fotopoulos, Greek actor and poet (died 1986) 1913 – Willi Hennig, German biologist and entomologist (died 1976) 1914 – Betty Lou Gerson, American actress (died 1999) 1915 – Joseph Wolpe, South African psychotherapist and physician (died 1997) 1915 – Israel Epstein, Chinese-Polish journalist and member of the Chinese Communist Party (died 2005) 1916 – Yoko Matsuoka, Japanese writer (died 1979) 1916 – Nasiba Zeynalova, Azerbaijani actress (died 2004) 1918 – Kai Siegbahn, Swedish physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2007) 1919 – Richard Hillary, Australian lieutenant and pilot (died 1943) 1920 – Frances Ames, South African neurologist, psychiatrist, and human rights activist (died 2002) 1920 – Clement Isong, Nigerian banker and politician, Governor of Cross River State (died 2000) 1920 – John Paul Stevens, American lawyer and jurist, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (died 2019) 1921 – Katarína Kolníková, Slovak actress (died 2006) 1923 – Mother Angelica, American nun and broadcaster, founded Eternal Word Television Network (died 2016) 1923 – Irene Lieblich, Polish-American painter and illustrator (died 2008) 1923 – Tito Puente, American drummer and producer (died 2000) 1924 – Nina Foch, Dutch-American actress (died 2008) 1924 – Leslie Phillips, English actor and producer (died 2022) 1924 – Guy Rocher, Canadian sociologist and academic (died 2025) 1925 – Ernie Stautner, German-American football player and coach (died 2006) 1925 – Elena Verdugo, American actress (died 2017) 1927 – Bud Cullen, Canadian judge and politician, 1st Canadian Minister of Employment and Immigration (died 2005) 1927 – Phil Hill, American race car driver (died 2008) 1927 – K. Alex Müller, Swiss physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2023) 1928 – Robert Byrne, American chess player and author (died 2013) 1928 – Johnny Gavin, Irish international footballer (died 2007) 1930 – Dwight Gustafson, American composer and conductor (died 2014) 1930 – Antony Jay, English director and screenwriter (died 2016) 1931 – Michael Allenby, 3rd Viscount Allenby, English lieutenant and politician (died 2014) 1931 – John Eccles, 2nd Viscount Eccles, English businessman and politician 1932 – Myriam Bru, French actress