King Aethelred I of Northumbria is murdered in Corbridge by his ealdormen (noblemen) Ealdred and Wada; the ealdorman
Osbald is crowned, but abdicates 27 days later after being abandoned by the royal household and deserted by the people |
|
796 |
The cornerstone of St. Peter's basilica, in Rome (current building), is laid |
|
1506 |
Martin Luther ends his defence at the Imperial Diet of Worms |
|
1521 |
Shakespeare's first published work – Venus and Adonis – entered in the Stationers'
Register |
|
1593 |
Judge George Jeffreys dies, aged 44, while in the Tower of London awaiting trial |
|
1689 |
Paul Revere rides from Charleston to Lexington to warn Massachusetts colonists of the arrival of British troops |
|
1775 |
William Wilberforce's anti–slave trade campaign defeated in the House of Commons |
|
1791 |
2,000 Guineas first run at Newmarket |
|
1809 |
David Livingstone buried in Westminster Abbey |
|
1874 |
Natural History Museum, Kensington, opened |
|
1881 |
War is declared between Greece and the Ottoman Empire |
|
1897 |
Queen Victoria grants a royal charter to the St. Andrew's Ambulance Association – Scotland's first
ambulance service |
|
1899 |
San Francisco devastated by an earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale; over 3,000 lose their lives |
|
1906 |
Joan of Arc beatified |
|
1909 |
Cunard liner RMS Carpathia brings 705 survivors of the Titanic disaster to New York |
|
1912 |
French aviator Roland Garros is shot down in Flanders, and glides to a landing on the German side of the lines; he
fails to completely destroy his aircraft, which enables the Germans to copy its advanced technology |
|
1915 |
Yankee Stadium opens in New York |
|
1923 |
The BBC announces in its evening report that "there is no news" |
|
1930 |
The first 'washeteria', or launderette, opens in Fort Worth, Texas |
|
1934 |
Lt–Col. James Dolittle leads the first US air raid on Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya |
|
1942 |
Pierre Laval becomes Prime Minister of Vichy France |
|
1942 |
Japanese Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto is killed when his aircraft is shot down by US fighters over Bougainville Island
in the North Solomon Islands (Operation Vengeance) |
|
1943 |
The German North Sea island of Heligoland is rendered uninhabitable by a raid involving over 1,000 RAF bombers |
|
1945 |
League of Nations officially disbanded; assets handed over to the UN |
|
1946 |
The International Court of Justice – the principal judicial organ of the United Nations – sits for the
first time in The Hague |
|
1946 |
USA recognises the People's Republic of Yugoslavia USA recognises the People's Republic of Yugoslavia |
|
1946 |
Republic of Ireland Act comes into force; Eire becomes a republic, renouncing its ties with the British Commonwealth |
|
1949 |
Boy Scout movement holds its first 'Bob–a–job week' |
|
1949 |
Coal and Steel Community (forerunner of the Common Market) founded |
|
1951 |
President Neguib of Egypt resigns; Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser seizes power as Prime Minister and military governor |
|
1954 |
Prince Rainier of Monaco marries US film actress Grace Kelly |
|
1956 |
US writer Ezra Pound is released after thirteen years in a mental asylum |
|
1958 |
London Bridge sold to a US oil company |
|
1968 |
United Arab Republic, Libya and syria form the Federation of Arab Republics |
|
1971 |
Bangladesh admitted to the Commonwealth |
|
1972 |
US senate votes to turn the Panama Canal over to Panama in 1999 |
|
1978 |
Rhodesia gains legal independence as Zimbabwe |
|
1980 |
US embassy in Beirut destroyed by a car bomb; 63 people lose their lives |
|
1983 |
Operation Praying Mantis: US forces destroy two Iranian oil platforms, two frigates and a destroyer in the Persian
Gulf – the largest naval battle since World War II |
|
1988 |
Jose Carreras gives his first concert after three years off with leukaemia, at Covent Garden |
|
1989 |
Robert Maxwell launches Mirror Group Newspapers towards public flotation on May 21 |
|
1991 |
Brian Lara scores 375 for West Indies against England in St. John's, Antigua |
|
1994 |
Muslim militants kill 18 Greek tourists outside a hotel in Cairo |
|
1996 |
Israeli planes shell a UN compound in Qana, Lebanon, killing at least 106 civilian refugees |
|
1996 |
11 buildings are destroyed when the city of Grand Forks, North Dakota is overwhelmed by the Red River flood |
|
1997 |
Armed pro–Indonesian militiamen take control of the East Timorese capital, Dili |
|
1999 |
Stock markets around the world miss a beat when a single–engined aeroplane crashes into the 417ft Pirelli Tower in
Milan – but it appears to have been an accident |
|
2002 |
A panel of 500 international chefs, critics and restaurateurs votes Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck, in Bray,
Berkshire, the best restaurant in the world. Gordon Ramsay, London, is 5th; two other London restaurants come in the top ten,
and there are 11 British restaurants in the top 50 |
|
2005 |
198 people lose their lives, and 251 are injured, in a series of bombings in Baghdad |
|
2007 |
27 people lose their lives, and 65 are injured, by a suicide bombing in a Baghdad café |
|
2013 |
King Mswati III of Swaziland announces that his country is to be renamed Eswatini |
|
2018 |