Events Pre-1600 422 – Election of pope Celestine I following the death of pope Boniface I earlier that month. 506 – The bishops of Visigothic Gaul meet in the Council of Agde. 1089 – The first synod of pope Urban II starts in Melfi, with seventy bishops and twelve abbots in attendance. The synod issues several decrees about church law and deals with the relation with the Greek part of the Church. 1419 – John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy is assassinated by adherents of the Dauphin, the future Charles VII of France. 1509 – An earthquake known as "The Lesser Judgment Day" hits Constantinople. 1515 – Thomas Wolsey is invested as a Cardinal. 1547 – The Battle of Pinkie, the last full-scale military confrontation between England and Scotland, resulting in a decisive victory for the forces of Edward VI. 1561 – Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima: Takeda Shingen defeats Uesugi Kenshin in the climax of their ongoing conflicts. 1570 – Spanish Jesuit missionaries land in present-day Virginia to establish the short-lived Ajacán Mission. 1573 – German pirate Klein Henszlein and 33 of his crew are beheaded in Hamburg.Bottling, Douglas.The Pirates. Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books Inc., 1978. Niehaus, Alisha. Piratepedia. New York: Dorling Kindersley Ltd., 200
1601–1900 1607 – Edward Maria Wingfield is ousted as first president of the governing council of the Colony of Virginia; he is replaced by John Ratcliffe. 1608 – John Smith is elected council president of Jamestown, Virginia. 1622 – Fifty-five Christians are executed in Nagasaki during the Great Genna Martyrdom. 1640 – Reapers' War: Junta de Braços (Assembly of Estates) of the Principality of Catalonia summoned. It assumes the sovereignty and enacts a series of revolutionary measures which will lead to the Catalan Republic. 1724 – Johann Sebastian Bach leads the first performance of Jesu, der du meine Seele, BWV 78, a chorale cantata based on a passion hymn by Johann Rist. 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Nathan Hale volunteers to spy for the Continental Army. 1798 – At the Battle of St. George's Caye, British Honduras defeats Spain. 1813 – The United States defeats a British Fleet at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. 1844 – The treaty of Tangier ends the Franco-Moroccan War, which Morocco lost, and forces it to recognise the French possessions in Algeria. 1846 – Elias Howe is granted a patent for the sewing machine. 1858 – George Mary Searle discovers the asteroid 55 Pandora. 1897 – Lattimer massacre: A sheriff's posse kills 19 unarmed striking immigrant miners in Lattimer, Pennsylvania, United States. 1898 – Empress Elisabeth of Austria is assassinated by Luigi Lucheni.
1901–present 1918 – Russian Civil War: The Red Army captures Kazan. 1919 – The Republic of German-Austria signs the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, ceding significant territories to Italy, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. 1932 – The New York City Subway's third competing subway system, the municipally owned IND, is opened. 1936 – The first world individual Speedway World Championship was held at London's Wembley Stadium. 1937 – Nine nations attend the Nyon Conference to address international piracy in the Mediterranean Sea. 1939 – World War II: The submarine is mistakenly sunk by the submarine near Norway and becomes the Royal Navy's first loss of a submarine in the war. 1939 – World War II: The Canadian declaration of war on Germany receives royal assent. 1942 – World War II: The British Army carries out an amphibious landing on Madagascar to re-launch Allied offensive operations in the Madagascar Campaign. 1943 – World War II: In the course of Operation Achse, German troops begin their occupation of Rome. 1960 – At the Summer Olympics in Rome, Abebe Bikila becomes the first sub-Saharan African to win a gold medal, winning the marathon in bare feet. 1961 – In the Italian Grand Prix, a crash causes the death of German Formula One driver Wolfgang von Trips and 15 spectators who are hit by his Ferrari, the deadliest accident in F1 history. 1961 – A President Airlines Douglas DC-6 crashes just after takeoff from Shannon Airport, Ireland. All 83 passengers and crew are killed. 1967 – The people of Gibraltar vote to remain a British dependency rather than becoming part of Spain. 1974 – Guinea-Bissau gains independence from Portugal. 1976 – A British Airways Hawker Siddeley Trident and an Inex-Adria DC-9 collide near Zagreb, Yugoslavia, killing 176. 1976 – TWA Flight 355 is hijacked by five Croatian nationalists. The hijackers surrender upon landing in Paris. 1976 – An Indian Airlines flight is hijacked by six Kashmiri separatists and diverted to Lahore International Airport, where the passengers and crew are released. 1977 – Hamida Djandoubi, convicted of torture and murder, is the last person to be executed by guillotine in France. 2000 – Operation Barras successfully frees six British soldiers held captive for over two weeks and contributes to the end of the Sierra Leone Civil War. 2001 – Antônio da Costa Santos, mayor of Campinas, Brazil is assassinated. 2001 – During his appearance on the British TV game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, contestant Charles Ingram reaches the £1 million top prize, but it was later revealed that he had cheated to the top prize by listening to coughs from his wife and another contestant. 2002 – Switzerland, traditionally a neutral country, becomes a full member of the United Nations. 2007 – Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif returns to Pakistan after seven years in exile, following a military coup in October 1999. 2008 – The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, described as the biggest scientific experiment in history, is powered up in Geneva, Switzerland. 2017 – Hurricane Irma makes landfall on Cudjoe Key, Florida as a Category 4, after causing catastrophic damage throughout the Caribbean. Irma resulted in 134 deaths and $77.2 billion (2017 USD) in damage. 2024 – Polaris Dawn, the first private crewed spaceflight to involve a spacewalk, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 2025 – American right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk is assassinated while onstage at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. 2025 – A liquefied petroleum gas tank truck overturns and explodes in Iztapalapa, Mexico City, killing 32 people and injuring 90 others.
Births Pre-1600 877 – Eutychius, patriarch of Alexandria (died 940) 904 – Guo Wei, posthumously known as Emperor Taizu of Later Zhou 1423 – Eleanor, Princess of Asturias (died 1425)Enrique Flórez, Manuel Risco: España sagrada: De la Iglesia Exenta de Oviedo desde el medio del siglo XIV hasta fines del siglo XVIII; En la Oficina de la Viuda e Hijo de Marín, 1795 1487 – Pope Julius III (died 1555) 1497 – Wolfgang Musculus, German theologian (died 1563) 1547 – George I, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (died 1596) 1550 – Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia, Spanish general (died 1615) 1561 – Hernando Arias de Saavedra, Paraguayan-Argentinian soldier and politician (died 1634) 1588 – Nicholas Lanier, English singer-songwriter and lute player (died 1666)
1601–1900 1624 – Thomas Sydenham, English physician and author (died 1689) 1638 – Maria Theresa of Spain (died 1683) 1655 – Caspar Bartholin the Younger, Danish anatomist (died 1738) 1659 – Henry Purcell, English organist and composer (died 1695) 1714 – Niccolò Jommelli, Italian composer (died 1774) 1753 – John Soane, English architect and academic, designed the Royal Academy and Freemasons' Hall (died 1837) 1758 – Hannah Webster Foster, American author (died 1840) 1786 – Nicolás Bravo, Mexican soldier and politician, 11th President of Mexico (died 1854) 1786 – William Mason, American surgeon and politician (died 1860) 1787 – John J. Crittenden, American statesman and politician (died 1863) 1787 – Justina Jeffreys, Jamaican-born British gentlewoman (died 1869) 1788 – Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes, French archaeologist and author (died 1868) 1793 – Harriet Arbuthnot, English diarist (died 1834) 1801 – Marie Laveau, American voodoo practitioner (died 1881) 1821 – William Jervois, English captain, engineer, and politician, 10th Governor of South Australia (died 1897) 1836 – Joseph Wheeler, American general and politician (died 1906) 1839 – Isaac K. Funk, American minister and publisher, co-founded Funk & Wagnalls (died 1912) 1839 – Charles Sanders Peirce, American mathematician, statistician, and philosopher (died 1914) 1844 – Abel Hoadley, English-Australian confectioner, created the Violet Crumble (died 1918) 1852 – Hans Niels Andersen, Danish businessman, founded the East Asiatic Company (died 1937) 1852 – Alice Brown Davis, American tribal chief (died 1935) 1857 – James Edward Keeler, American astronomer (rings of Saturn) (died 1900) 1860 – Marianne von Werefkin, Russian-Swiss painter (died 1938) 1864 – Carl Correns, German botanist and geneticist (died 1933) 1866 – Jeppe Aakjær, Danish author and poet (died 1930) 1871 – Charles Collett, English engineer (died 1952) 1872 – Ranjitsinhji, Indian cricketer (died 1933) 1874 – Mamie Dillard, African American educator, clubwoman and suffragist (died 1954) 1875 – George Hewitt Myers, American forester and philanthropist (died 1957) 1875 – Nicolás Zamora, First Filipino to be ordained as Protestant minister (died 1914)Trinidad, R. F. A Monument to Religious Nationalism: History and Polity of the IEMELIF Church. Quezon City: Evangelical Methodist Church in the Philippines, 1999. 1876 – Hugh D. McIntosh, Australian businessman (died 1942) 1880 – Georgia Douglas Johnson, American poet and playwright (died 1966) 1880 – Laura Cornelius Kellogg, Native American activist (died 1947) 1884 – Herbert Johanson, Estonian architect (died 1964) 1885 – Johannes de Jong, Dutch cardinal (died 1955) 1885 – Carl Clinton Van Doren, American critic and biographer (died 1950) 1886 – H.D., American poet, novelist, and memoirist (died 1961) 1887 – Giovanni Gronchi, Italian soldier and politician, 3rd President of the Italian Republic (died 1978) 1887 – Kenneth Mason, English soldier and geographer (died 1976) 1887 – Govind Ballabh Pant, Indian lawyer and politician, 1st Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (died 1961) 1888 – Israel Abramofsky, Russian-American painter (died 1976) 1889 – Ivar Böhling, Finnish wrestler (died 1929) 1890 – Bob Heffron, New Zealand-Australian miner and politician, 30th Premier of New South Wales (died 1978) 1890 – Elsa Schiaparelli, Italian-French fashion designer (died 1973) 1890 – Franz Werfel, Austrian-Bohemian author, poet, and playwright (died 1945) 1890 – Mortimer Wheeler, British archaeologist and officer (died 1976) 1892 – Arthur Compton, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1962) 1894 – Alexander Dovzhenko, Soviet screenwriter/producer/director of Ukrainian origin (died 1956) 1895 – Viswanatha Satyanarayana, Indian poet and author (died 1976) 1896 – Adele Astaire, American actress and dancer (died 1981) 1896 – Robert Taschereau, Canadian lawyer, judge, and politician, 11th Chief Justice of Canada (died 1970) 1896 – Ye Ting, Chinese general (died 1946) 1897 – Georges Bataille, French philosopher, novelist, and poet (died 1962) 1897 – Hilde Hildebrand, German actress and singer (died 1976) 1898 – Bessie Love, American actress (died 1986) 1898 – Waldo Semon, American chemist and engineer (died 1999)
1901–present 1903 – Cyril Connolly, English author and critic (died 1974) 1904 – Honey Craven, American horse rider and manager (died 2003) 1904 – Max Shachtman, American theorist and politician (died 1972) 1906 – Karl Wien, German geographer, academic, and mountaineer (died 1937) 1907 – Alva R. Fitch, American general (died 1989) 1907 – Dorothy Hill, Australian geologist and palaeontologist (died 1997) 1908 – Angus Bethune, Australian soldier and politician, 33rd Premier of Tasmania (died 2004) 1908 – Raymond Scott, American pianist, composer, and bandleader (died 1994)