Events Pre-1600 1047 – Drogo of Hauteville is elected as count of the Apulian Normans during the Norman conquest of Southern Italy. 1112 – Ramon Berenguer III, Count of Barcelona, and Douce I, Countess of Provence, marry, uniting the fortunes of those two states. 1451 – Sultan Mehmed II inherits the throne of the Ottoman Empire. 1488 – Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, becoming the first known European to travel so far south. 1509 – The Portuguese navy defeats a joint fleet of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Venice, the Sultan of Gujarat, the Mamlûk Burji Sultanate of Egypt, the Zamorin of Calicut, and the Republic of Ragusa at the Battle of Diu in Diu, India. 1583 – Battle of São Vicente takes place off Portuguese Brazil where three English warships led by navigator Edward Fenton fight off three Spanish galleons sinking one in the process.
1601–1900 1637 – Tulip Mania collapses within the Dutch Republic. 1639 – The House of Assembly of Barbados meets for the first time. 1690 – The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in the Americas. 1706 – During the Battle of Fraustadt Swedish forces defeat a superior Saxon-Polish-Russian force by deploying a double envelopment. 1716 – The 1716 Algiers earthquake sequence began with an 7.0 mainshock that caused severe damage and killed 20,000 in Algeria. 1781 – American Revolutionary War: British forces seize the Dutch-owned Caribbean island Sint Eustatius. 1783 – Spain–United States relations are first established. 1787 – Militia led by General Benjamin Lincoln crush the remnants of Shays' Rebellion in Petersham, Massachusetts. 1807 – A British military force, under Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Auchmuty captures the Spanish Empire city of Montevideo, now the capital of Uruguay. 1809 – The Territory of Illinois is created by the 10th United States Congress. 1813 – José de San Martín defeats a Spanish royalist army at the Battle of San Lorenzo, part of the Argentine War of Independence. 1830 – The London Protocol of 1830 establishes the full independence and sovereignty of Greece from the Ottoman Empire as the final result of the Greek War of Independence. 1862 – Moldavia and Wallachia formally unite to create the Romanian United Principalities. 1870 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to male citizens regardless of race.
1901–present 1913 – The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax. 1916 – The Centre Block of the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada burns down with the loss of seven lives. 1917 – World War I: The American entry into World War I begins when diplomatic relations with Germany are severed due to its unrestricted submarine warfare. 1918 – The Twin Peaks Tunnel in San Francisco, California begins service as the longest streetcar tunnel in the world at long. 1927 – A revolt against the military dictatorship of Portugal breaks out at Porto.James M. Anderson, The History of Portugal (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000) p. 144-145 1930 – The Communist Party of Vietnam is founded at a "Unification Conference" held in Kowloon, British Hong Kong. 1931 – The Hawke's Bay earthquake, New Zealand's worst natural disaster, kills 258. 1933 – Adolf Hitler announces that the expansion of Lebensraum into Eastern Europe, and its ruthless Germanisation, are the ultimate geopolitical objectives of Nazi foreign policy. 1943 – The is sunk by a German U-boat. Only 230 of 902 men aboard survive. 1944 – World War II: During the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, U.S. Army and Marine forces seize Kwajalein Atoll from the defending Japanese garrison. 1945 – World War II: As part of Operation Thunderclap, 1,000 B-17s of the Eighth Air Force bomb Berlin, a raid which kills between 2,500 and 3,000 and another 120,000. 1945 – World War II: The United States and the Philippine Commonwealth begin a month-long battle to retake Manila from Japan. 1953 – The Batepá massacre occurs in São Tomé when the colonial administration and Portuguese landowners unleash a wave of violence against the native creoles known as forros. 1958 – Founding of the Benelux Economic Union, creating a testing ground for a later European Economic Community. 1959 – Rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson are killed in a plane crash along with the pilot near Clear Lake, Iowa, an event later known as The Day the Music Died. 1959 – Sixty-five people are killed when American Airlines Flight 320 crashes into the East River on approach to LaGuardia Airport in New York City. 1960 – British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan speaks of "a wind of change", signalling that his Government is likely to support decolonisation. 1961 – The United States Air Force begins Operation Looking Glass, and over the next 30 years, a "Doomsday Plane" is always in the air, with the capability of taking direct control of the United States' bombers and missiles in the event of the destruction of the SAC's command post. 1966 – The Soviet Union's Luna 9 becomes the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon, and the first spacecraft to take pictures from the surface of the Moon. 1971 – New York Police Officer Frank Serpico is shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption. 1972 – The first day of the seven-day 1972 Iran blizzard, which would kill at least 4,000 people, making it the deadliest snowstorm in history. 1984 – Doctor John Buster and a research team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in the United States announce history's first embryo transfer, from one woman to another resulting in a live birth. 1984 – Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B is launched using Space Shuttle Challenger. 1989 – After a stroke two weeks previously, South African President P. W. Botha resigns as leader of the National Party, but stays on as president for six more months. 1989 – A military coup overthrows Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay since 1954. 1994 – Space Shuttle program: STS-60 is launched, carrying Sergei Krikalev, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard the Shuttle. 1995 – Astronaut Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 gets underway from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 1998 – Cavalese cable car disaster: A United States military pilot causes the death of 20 people when his low-flying plane cuts the cable of a cable-car near Trento, Italy.John Tagliabue with Matthew L. Wald, "Death in the Alps: a special report.; How Wayward U.S. Pilot Killed 20 on Ski Lift", The New York Times, 18 February 1998. 2005 – One hundred five people are killed when Kam Air Flight 904 crashes in the Pamir Mountains in Afghanistan. 2007 – A Baghdad market bombing kills at least 135 people and injures a further 339. 2014 – A school shooting in Moscow, Russia leaves two people dead and one wounded. 2023 – Ohio train derailment: A freight train containing vinyl chloride and other hazardous materials derails and burns in East Palestine, Ohio, United States, releasing hydrogen chloride and phosgene into the air and contaminating the Ohio River. 2026 – Islamist militants massacred at least 162 while injuring and kidnapping dozens in two villages in Kwara State, Nigeria.
Births Pre-1600 1338 – Joanna of Bourbon (died 1378) 1393 – Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland, English nobleman and military commander (died 1455) 1428 – Helena Palaiologina, Queen of Cyprus (died 1458) 1478 – Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham (died 1521) 1504 – Scipione Rebiba, Italian cardinal (died 1577)
1601–1900 1677 – Jan Santini Aichel, Czech architect, designed the Karlova Koruna Chateau (died 1723) 1689 – Blas de Lezo, Spanish admiral (died 1741) 1721 – Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz, Prussian general (died 1773) 1736 – Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Austrian composer and theorist (died 1809) 1747 – Samuel Osgood, American soldier and politician, 1st United States Postmaster General (died 1813) 1757 – Joseph Forlenze, Italian ophthalmologist and surgeon (died 1833) 1763 – Caroline von Wolzogen, German author (died 1847) 1777 – John Cheyne, Scottish physician and author (died 1836) 1780 – Mihail G. Boiagi, Aromanian grammarian and professor (died uncertain) 1790 – Gideon Mantell, English scientist (died 1852) 1795 – Antonio José de Sucre, Venezuelan general and politician, 2nd President of Bolivia (died 1830) 1807 – Joseph E. Johnston, American general and politician (died 1891) 1809 – Felix Mendelssohn, German pianist, composer, and conductor (died 1847) 1811 – Horace Greeley, American journalist and politician (died 1872) 1816 – Ram Singh Kuka, Indian credited with starting the Non-cooperation movement 1815 – Edward James Roye, 5th President of Liberia (died 1872) 1817 – Achille Ernest Oscar Joseph Delesse, French geologist and mineralogist (died 1881) 1817 – Émile Prudent, French pianist and composer (died 1864) 1821 – Elizabeth Blackwell, American physician and educator (died 1910) 1824 – Ranald MacDonald, American explorer and educator (died 1894) 1826 – Walter Bagehot, English journalist and businessman (died 1877) 1830 – Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1903) 1840 – Allan McLean, Scottish-Australian politician, 19th Premier of Victoria (died 1911) 1842 – Sidney Lanier, American composer and poet (died 1881) 1843 – William Cornelius Van Horne, American-Canadian businessman (died 1915) 1857 – Giuseppe Moretti, Italian sculptor, designed the Vulcan statue (died 1935) 1859 – Hugo Junkers, German engineer, designed the Junkers J 1 (died 1935) 1862 – James Clark McReynolds, American lawyer and judge (died 1946) 1867 – Charles Henry Turner, American biologist, educator and zoologist (died 1923) 1872 – Lou Criger, American baseball player and manager (died 1934) 1874 – Gertrude Stein, American novelist, poet, playwright, (died 1946) 1878 – Gordon Coates, New Zealand soldier and politician, 21st Prime Minister of New Zealand (died 1943) 1878 – Grigory Petrovsky, Ukrainian Soviet revolutionary and politician (died 1958) 1887 – Georg Trakl, Austrian pharmacist and poet (died 1914) 1889 – Artur Adson, Estonian poet, playwright, and critic (died 1977) 1889 – Carl Theodor Dreyer, Danish director and screenwriter (died 1968) 1889 – Risto Ryti, Finnish lawyer, politician and the Governor of the Bank of Finland; 5th President of Finland (died 1956) 1892 – Juan Negrín, Spanish physician and politician, 67th Prime Minister of Spain (died 1956) 1893 – Gaston Julia, Algerian-French mathematician and academic (died 1978) 1894 – Norman Rockwell, American painter and illustrator (died 1978) 1898 – Alvar Aalto, Finnish architect, designed the Finlandia Hall and Aalto Theatre (died 1976) 1899 – Café Filho, Brazilian journalist, lawyer, and politician, 18th President of Brazil (died 1970) 1900 – Mabel Mercer, English-American singer (died 1984)
1901–present 1903 – Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton, Scottish soldier, pilot, and politician (died 1973) 1904 – Pretty Boy Floyd, American gangster (died 1934) 1905 – Paul Ariste, Estonian linguist and academic (died 1990) 1905 – Arne Beurling, Swedish-American mathematician and academic (died 1986) 1906 – George Adamson, Indian-English author and activist (died 1989) 1907 – James A. Michener, American author and philanthropist (died 1997) 1909 – André Cayatte, French lawyer and director (died 1989) 1909 – Simone Weil, French mystic and philosopher (died 1943) 1911 – Jehan Alain, French organist and composer (died 1940) 1912 – Jacques Soustelle, French anthropologist and politician (died 1990) 1914 – Mary Carlisle, American actress, singer, and dancer (died 2018) 1915 – Johannes Kotkas, Estonian wrestler and hammer thrower (died 1998)