Events Pre-1600 1479 BC – Thutmose III ascends to the throne of Egypt, although power effectively shifts to Hatshepsut (according to the Low Chronology of the 18th dynasty). 1183 BC – Traditional reckoning of the Fall of Troy marking the end of the legendary Trojan War, given by chief librarian of the Library of Alexandria Eratosthenes, among others. 858 – Consecration of Pope Nicholas I following the death of Pope Benedict III earlier that month. 934 – Abbasid Caliph Al-Qahir is deposed and blinded. His nephew al-Radi succeeds him as caliph. 1547 – Battle of Mühlberg. Duke of Alba, commanding Spanish-Imperial forces of Charles I of Spain, defeats the troops of Schmalkaldic League. 1558 – Mary, Queen of Scots, marries the Dauphin of France, François, at Notre-Dame de Paris.Herbert Van Scoy & Bernerd C. Weber, 'The Marriage of Mary Queen of Scots and the Dauphin', Scottish Historical Review, 31:111, Part 1 (April 1952), p. 41.
1601–1900 1704 – The first regular newspaper in British Colonial America, The Boston News-Letter, is published. 1793 – French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat is acquitted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of charges brought by the Girondin in Paris. 1800 – The United States Library of Congress is established when President John Adams signs legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress". 1837 – The great fire in Surat, India causes more than 500 deaths and destruction of more than 9,000 houses. 1877 – Russo-Turkish War: The Russian Empire declares war on the Ottoman Empire. 1885 – American sharpshooter Annie Oakley is hired by Nate Salsbury to be a part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West. 1895 – Joshua Slocum, the first person to sail single-handedly around the world, sets sail from Boston, Massachusetts aboard the sloop Spray.
1901–present 1913 – The Woolworth Building, a skyscraper in New York City, is opened. 1914 – The Franck–Hertz experiment, a pillar of quantum mechanics, is presented to the German Physical Society. 1915 – The arrest of 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Istanbul marks the beginning of the Armenian genocide. 1916 – Easter Rising: Irish rebels, led by Patrick Pearse and James Connolly, launch an uprising in Dublin against British rule and proclaim an Irish Republic. 1916 – Ernest Shackleton and five men of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition launch a lifeboat from uninhabited Elephant Island in the Southern Ocean to organise a rescue for the crew of the sunken . 1918 – World War I: First tank-to-tank combat, during the second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux. Three British Mark IVs meet three German A7Vs. 1922 – The first segment of the Imperial Wireless Chain providing wireless telegraphy between Leafield in Oxfordshire, England, and Cairo, Egypt, comes into operation. 1924 – Thorvald Stauning becomes premier of Denmark (first term).Skou, Kaare R. (2005). Dansk politik A-Å . Aschehoug, pp. 110, 638-639. . 1926 – The Treaty of Berlin is signed. Germany and the Soviet Union each pledge neutrality in the event of an attack on the other by a third party for the next five years. 1932 – Benny Rothman leads the mass trespass of Kinder Scout, leading to substantial legal reforms in the United Kingdom. 1933 – Nazi Germany begins its persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses by shutting down the Watch Tower Society office in Magdeburg. 1944 – World War II: The SBS launches a raid against the garrison of Santorini in Greece. 1953 – Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. 1955 – The Bandung Conference ends: Twenty-nine non-aligned nations of Asia and Africa finish a meeting that condemns colonialism, racism, and the Cold War. 1957 – Suez Crisis: The Suez Canal is reopened following the introduction of UNEF peacekeepers to the region. 1963 – Marriage of Princess Alexandra of Kent to Angus Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey in London. 1965 – Civil war breaks out in the Dominican Republic when Colonel Francisco Caamaño overthrows the triumvirate that had been in power since the coup d'état against Juan Bosch. 1967 – Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when its parachute fails to open. He is the first human to die during a space mission. 1967 – Vietnam War: American General William Westmoreland says in a news conference that the enemy had "gained support in the United States that gives him hope that he can win politically that which he cannot win militarily". 1970 – China launches Dong Fang Hong I, becoming the fifth nation to put an object into orbit using its own booster. 1970 – The Gambia becomes a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, with Dawda Jawara as its first President. 1980 – Eight U.S. servicemen die in Operation Eagle Claw as they attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis. 1990 – STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery. 1990 – Gruinard Island, Scotland, is officially declared free of the anthrax disease after 48 years of quarantine. 1993 – An IRA bomb devastates the Bishopsgate area of London. 1994 – A Douglas DC-3 ditches in Botany Bay after takeoff from Sydney Airport. All 25 people on board survive. 1996 – In the United States, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 is passed into law. 2004 – The United States lifts economic sanctions imposed on Libya 18 years previously, as a reward for its cooperation in eliminating weapons of mass destruction. 2005 – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI. 2006 – Bombings in the Egyptian resort city of Dahab kill 23 people and injure about 80. 2011 – WikiLeaks starts publishing the Guantanamo Bay files leak. 2013 – A building collapses near Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing 1,134 people and injuring about 2,500 others. 2013 – Violence in Bachu County, Kashgar Prefecture, of China's Xinjiang results in death of 21 people. 2025 – A mass stabbing at a school in Nantes, France, leaves one person dead and three others wounded.
Births Pre-1600 1086 – Ramiro II of Aragon (died 1157) 1492 – Sabina of Bavaria, Bavarian duchess and noblewoman (died 1564) 1532 – Thomas Lucy, English politician (died 1600) 1533 – William I of Orange, founding father of the Netherlands (died 1584) 1538 – Guglielmo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua (died 1587) 1545 – Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton, English Earl (died 1581) 1562 – Xu Guangqi, Ming Dynasty Chinese politician, scholar and lay Catholic leader (died 1633) 1581 – Vincent de Paul, French priest and saint (died 1660)
1601–1900 1608 – Gaston, Duke of Orléans, third son of King Henry IV of France (died 1660) 1620 – John Graunt, English demographer and statistician (died 1674) 1706 – Giovanni Battista Martini, Italian pianist and composer (died 1780) 1718 – Nathaniel Hone the Elder, Irish-English painter and educator (died 1784) 1743 – Edmund Cartwright, English clergyman and engineer, invented the power loom (died 1823) 1784 – Peter Vivian Daniel, American lawyer and jurist (died 1860) 1815 – Anthony Trollope, English novelist, essayist, and short story writer (died 1882) 1823 – Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, Mexican politician, President of Mexico (died 1889) 1829 – Luisa Cappiani, Austrian soprano, educator and essayist (died 1919) 1845 – Carl Spitteler, Swiss poet and author, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1924) 1856 – Philippe Pétain, French general and politician, 119th Prime Minister of France (died 1951) 1860 – Queen Marau, last Queen of Tahiti (died 1935) 1862 – Tomitaro Makino, Japanese botanist (died 1957) 1868 – Sandy Herd, Scottish golfer (died 1944) 1876 – Erich Raeder, German admiral (died 1960) 1878 – Jean Crotti, Swiss-French painter (died 1958) 1879 – Susanna Bokoyni, Hungarian-American circus performer (died 1984) 1880 – Gideon Sundback, Swedish-American engineer and businessman, developed the zipper (died 1954) 1880 – Josef Müller, Croatian entomologist (died 1964) 1882 – Hugh Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding, Scottish-English air marshal (died 1970) 1885 – Thomas Cronan, American triple jumper (died 1962) 1885 – Con Walsh, Irish-Canadian hammer thrower and footballer (died 1961) 1887 – Denys Finch Hatton, English hunter (died 1931) 1888 – Pe Maung Tin, Burma-based scholar and educator (died 1973) 1889 – Stafford Cripps, English academic and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (died 1952) 1889 – Lyubov Popova, Russian painter and academic (died 1924) 1897 – Manuel Ávila Camacho, Mexican colonel and politician, 45th President of Mexico (died 1955) 1897 – Benjamin Lee Whorf, American linguist, anthropologist, and engineer (died 1941) 1899 – Oscar Zariski, Russian-American mathematician and academic (died 1986) 1900 – Elizabeth Goudge, English author and educator (died 1984)
1901–present 1903 – José Antonio Primo de Rivera, Spanish lawyer and politician, founded the Falange (died 1936) 1904 – Willem de Kooning, Dutch-American painter and educator (died 1997) 1905 – Al Bates, American long jumper (died 1999) 1905 – Robert Penn Warren, American novelist, poet, and literary critic (died 1989) 1906 – William Joyce, American-born Irish-British Nazi propaganda broadcaster (died 1946) 1906 – Mimi Smith, English nurse (died 1991) 1907 – Gabriel Figueroa, Mexican cinematographer (died 1997) 1908 – Marceline Day, American actress (died 2000) 1908 – Inga Gentzel, Swedish runner (died 1991) 1908 – Józef Gosławski, Polish sculptor (died 1963) 1912 – Ruth Osburn, American discus thrower (died 1994) 1913 – Dieter Grau, German-American scientist and engineer (died 2014) 1914 – William Castle, American director, producer, and screenwriter (died 1977) 1914 – Phil Watson, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (died 1991) 1914 – Justin Wilson, American chef and author (died 2001) 1916 – Lou Thesz, American wrestler and trainer (died 2002) 1919 – David Blackwell, American mathematician and academic (died 2010) 1919 – Glafcos Clerides, Cypriot lawyer and politician, 4th President of Cyprus (died 2013) 1920 – Gino Valenzano, Italian race car driver (died 2011) 1922 – Marc-Adélard Tremblay, Canadian anthropologist and academic (died 2014) 1923 – Gus Bodnar, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (died 2005) 1923 – Doris Burn, American author and illustrator (died 2011) 1924 – Clement Freud, German-English radio host, academic, and politician (died 2009) 1924 – Ruth Kobart, American actress and singer (died 2002) 1925 – Franco Leccese, Italian sprinter (died 1992) 1926 – Marilyn Erskine, American actress 1926 – Thorbjörn Fälldin, Swedish farmer and politician, 27th Prime Minister of Sweden (died 2016) 1927 – Josy Barthel, Luxembourgish runner and politician, Luxembourgish Minister for Energy (died 1992) 1928 – Tommy Docherty, Scottish footballer and manager (died 2020) 1928 – Johnny Griffin, American saxophonist (died 2008) 1928 – Anahit Perikhanian, Russian-born Armenian Iranologist (died 2012) 1929 – Dr. Rajkumar, Indian actor and singer (died 2006) 1930 – Jerome Callet, American instrument designer, educator, and author (died 2019) 1930 – Richard Donner, American actor, director, and producer (died 2021) 1930 – José Sarney, Brazilian lawyer and politician, 31st President of Brazil 1931 – Abdelhamid Kermali, Algerian footballer and manager (died 2013) 1931 – Bridget Riley, English painter and illustrator 1934 – Jayakanthan, Indian journalist and author (died 2015) 1934 – Shirley MacLaine, American actress, singer, and dancer 1936 – David Crombie, Canadian educator and politician, 56th Mayor of Toronto 1936 – Jill Ireland, English actress (died 1990) 1937 – Joe Henderson, American saxophonist and composer (died 2001) 1940 – Sue Grafton, American author (died 2017) 1941 – Richard Holbrooke, American journalist, banker, and diplomat, 22nd United States Ambassador to the United Nations (died 2010) 1941 – John Williams, Australian-English guitarist and composer 1942 – Richard M. Daley, American lawyer and politician, 54th Mayor of Chicago