Events Pre-1600 284 – Diocletian is chosen as Roman emperor. 762 – During the An Shi Rebellion, the Tang dynasty, with the help of Huihe tribe, recaptures Luoyang from the rebels. 1194 – Palermo is conquered by Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor. 1407 – John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, and Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans, agree to a truce, but Burgundy would kill Orléans three days later. 1441 – The Peace of Cremona ends the war between the Republic of Venice and the Duchy of Milan, after the victorious Venetian enterprise of military engineering of the Galeas per montes.
1601–1900 1695 – Zumbi, the last of the leaders of Quilombo dos Palmares in early Brazil, is executed by the forces of Portuguese bandeirante Domingos Jorge Velho. 1739 – Start of the Battle of Porto Bello between British and Spanish forces during the War of Jenkins' Ear. 1776 – American Revolutionary War: British forces land at the Palisades and then attack Fort Lee. The Continental Army starts to retreat across New Jersey. 1789 – New Jersey becomes the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights. 1805 – Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, premieres in Vienna. 1815 – The Second Treaty of Paris is signed, returning the French frontiers to their 1790 extent, imposing large indemnities, and prolonging the occupation by troops of Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia for several more years.Michael G. Fry, Erik Goldstein and Richard Langhorne, Guide to International Relations and Diplomacy, "The Congress and Concert of Europe, 1814–1830" p. 118. 1820 – An 80-ton sperm whale attacks and sinks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) from the western coast of South America. (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick was in part inspired by this incident.) 1845 – Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata: Battle of Vuelta de Obligado. 1861 – American Civil War: A secession ordinance is filed by Kentucky's Confederate government. 1873 – Garnier Expedition: French forces under Lieutenant Francis Garnier captured Hanoi from the Vietnamese. 1900 – The French actress Sarah Bernhardt receives the press at the Savoy Hotel in New York at the outset of her first visit since 1896. She talked about her impending tour with a troupe of more than 50 performers and her plans to play the title role in Hamlet.
1901–present 1910 – Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero issues the Plan de San Luis Potosí, denouncing Mexican President Porfirio Díaz, calling for a revolution to overthrow the government of Mexico, effectively starting the Mexican Revolution. 1917 – World War I: Battle of Cambrai begins: British forces make early progress in an attack on German positions but are later pushed back. 1936 – José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange, is killed by a republican execution squad. 1940 – World War II: Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers. 1943 – World War II: Battle of Tarawa (Operation Galvanic) begins: United States Marines land on Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands and suffer heavy fire from Japanese shore guns and machine guns. 1945 – Nuremberg trials: Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg. 1946 – Indonesian National Revolution: 96 Indonesian including I Gusti Ngurah Rai were killed during the Battle of Margarana with Dutch forces. 1947 – The Princess Elizabeth (the future Queen) marries Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, who becomes the Duke of Edinburgh, at Westminster Abbey in London. 1959 – The Declaration of the Rights of the Child is adopted by the United Nations. 1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation. 1968 – A total of 78 miners are killed in an explosion at the Consolidated Coal Company's No. 9 mine in Farmington, West Virginia in the Farmington Mine disaster. 1969 – Vietnam War: The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) publishes explicit photographs of dead villagers from the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam. 1969 – Occupation of Alcatraz: Native American activists seize control of Alcatraz Island until being ousted by the U.S. Government on June 11, 1971. 1974 – The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T Corporation. This suit later leads to the breakup of AT&T and its Bell System. 1974 – The first fatal crash of a Boeing 747 occurs when Lufthansa Flight 540 crashes while attempting to takeoff from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 59 out of the 157 people on board. 1977 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, when he meets Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin and speaks before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement. 1979 – Grand Mosque seizure: About 200 Sunni Muslims revolt in Saudi Arabia at the site of the Kaaba in Mecca during the pilgrimage and take about 6,000 hostages. The Saudi government receives help from French special forces to put down the uprising. 1980 – Lake Peigneur in Louisiana drains into an underlying salt deposit. A misplaced Texaco oil probe had been drilled into the Diamond Crystal Salt Mine, causing water to flow down into the mine, eroding the edges of the hole. 1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0, the first graphical personal computer operating environment developed by Microsoft, is released. 1989 – Velvet Revolution: The number of protesters assembled in Prague, Czechoslovakia, swells from 200,000 the day before to an estimated half-million. 1990 – Andrei Chikatilo, one of the Soviet Union's most prolific serial killers, is arrested; he eventually confesses to 56 killings. 1991 – An Azerbaijani MI-8 helicopter carrying 19 peacekeeping mission team with officials and journalists from Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan is shot down by Armenian military forces in Khojavend District of Azerbaijan. 1992 – In England, a fire breaks out in Windsor Castle, badly damaging the castle and causing over £50 million worth of damage. 1993 – Savings and loan crisis: The United States Senate Ethics Committee issues a stern censure of California senator Alan Cranston for his "dealings" with savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating. 1993 – North Macedonia's deadliest aviation disaster occurs when Avioimpex Flight 110, a Yakovlev Yak-42, crashes near Ohrid Airport, killing all 116 people on board. 1994 – The Angolan government and UNITA rebels sign the Lusaka Protocol in Zambia, ending 19 years of civil war. (Localized fighting resumes the next year.) 1996 – A fire breaks out in an office building in Hong Kong, killing 41 people and injuring 81. 1998 – A court in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan declares accused terrorist Osama bin Laden "a man without a sin" in regard to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. 1998 – The first space station module component, Zarya, for the International Space Station is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. 2003 – After the November 15 bombings, a second day of the 2003 Istanbul bombings occurs in Istanbul, Turkey, destroying the Turkish head office of HSBC Bank AS and the British consulate. 2015 – Following a hostage siege, at least 19 people are killed in Bamako, Mali. 2016 – Jimmie Johnson wins his seventh NASCAR Cup Series championship to tie Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt for the most all-time. 2022 – The 2022 FIFA World Cup begins in Qatar. This is the first time the tournament was held in the Middle East.
Births Pre-1600 270 – Maximinus II, Roman emperor (died 313) 939 – Emperor Taizong of Song (died 997) 1545 – Ernst Ludwig, Duke of Pomerania (died 1592)
1601–1900 1602 – Otto von Guericke, German physicist and politician (died 1686) 1603 – Fasilides, Ethiopian emperor (died 1667) 1620 – Avvakum, Russian priest and saint (died 1682) 1625 – Paulus Potter, Dutch painter (died 1654) 1629 – Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg (died 1698) 1660 – Daniel Ernst Jablonski, Czech-German theologian and reformer (died 1741) 1688 – Gyeongjong of Joseon, 20th king of the Joseon Dynasty (died 1724) 1715 – Pierre Charles Le Monnier, French astronomer (died 1799) 1717 – George (Konissky), Orthodox archbishop, preacher, philosopher and theologian (died 1795) 1726 – Oliver Wolcott, American politician (died 1797) 1733 – Philip Schuyler, American general and senator (died 1804) 1737 – José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez, Spanish-Mexican scientist and cartographer (died 1799) 1739 – Jean-François de La Harpe, French writer and literary critic (died 1803) 1748 – Jean-François de Bourgoing, French diplomat, writer and translator (died 1811) 1750 – Tipu Sultan, Indian ruler (died 1799) 1752 – Thomas Chatterton, English poet (died 1770)Wikisource. Retrieved 19 March 2018. 1753 – Louis-Alexandre Berthier, 1st Prince of Wagram (died 1815) 1755 – Stanisław Kostka Potocki, Polish noble, politician and writer (died 1821) 1761 – Pope Pius VIII (died 1830) 1776 – Ignaz Schuppanzigh, Austrian violinist (died 1830) 1781 – Karl Friedrich Eichhorn, German captain and jurist (died 1854) 1781 – Bartolomeo Pinelli, Italian illustrator and engraver (died 1835) 1782 – Georgius Jacobus Johannes van Os, Dutch painter (died 1861) 1783 – Georgios Sinas, Greek entrepreneur and banker (died 1856) 1784 – Marianne von Willemer, Austrian actress and dancer (died 1860) 1787 – Johann Nicolaus von Dreyse, German firearms inventor and manufacturer (died 1867) 1788 – Félix Varela, Cuban-born Roman Catholic priest (died 1853) 1794 – Eduard Rüppell, German naturalist and explorer (died 1884) 1801 – Mungo Ponton, Scottish inventor (died 1880) 1808 – Albert Kazimirski de Biberstein, French orientalist (died 1887) 1813 – Franz Miklosich, Slovenian linguist and philologist (died 1891) 1830 – Mikhail Dragomirov, Russian general (1905) 1834 – Franjo Kuhač, Croatian conductor and composer (died 1911) 1841 – Victor D'Hondt, Belgian mathematician, lawyer, and jurist (died 1901) 1841 – François Denys Légitime, Haitian general (died 1935) 1841 – Wilfrid Laurier, Canadian lawyer and politician, 7th Prime Minister of Canada (died 1919) 1850 – Joseph Samuel Bloch, Austrian rabbi and deputy (died 1923) 1850 – Charlotte Garrigue, wife of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (died 1923) 1851 – Mikhail Albov, Russian writer (died 1911) 1851 – John Merle Coulter, American botanist (died 1928) 1851 – Margherita of Savoy, Italian Queen consort (died 1926) 1853 – Oskar Potiorek, Austro-Hungarian Army officer (died 1933) 1855 – Josiah Royce, American philosopher (died 1916) 1857 – Helena Westermarck, Finnish artist and writer (died 1938) 1858 – Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish author and educator, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1940) 1860 – José Figueroa Alcorta, President of Argentina, (died 1931) 1861 – Camillo Laurenti, Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church (died 1938) 1862 – Georges Palante, French philosopher and sociologist (died 1925) 1862 – Edvard Westermarck, Finnish philosopher and sociologist (died 1939) 1864 – Percy Cox, British Indian Army officer (died 1937) 1866 – Kenesaw Mountain Landis, American lawyer and judge (died 1944) 1866 – Maria Letizia Bonaparte, daughter of Prince Napoléon Bonaparte (died 1926) 1867 – Patrick Joseph Hayes, American Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church (died 1938) 1867 – Gustav Giemsa, German chemist and bacteriologist (died 1948) 1869 – Zinaida Gippius, Russian writer and editor (died 1945) 1869 – Josaphata Hordashevska, Ukrainian Greek-Catholic nun (died 1919) 1871 – William Heard Kilpatrick, American pedagogue (died 1965) 1871 – Augusto Weberbauer, German naturalist (died 1948) 1873 – Ramón Castillo, Argentine politician (died 1944) 1873 – William Coblentz, American physicist (died 1962) 1873 – Georges Caussade, French composer (died 1936) 1873 – Daniel Gregory Mason, American composer and music critic (died 1953)