Henry III lays the foundation stone for a new Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey – the first stage in rebuilding
the 11th century church in gothic style |
|
1220 |
Florence re–establishes itself as a republic, after the Florentines drive out the Medici for a second time |
|
1527 |
Thomas More resigns as chancellor |
|
1532 |
Mary Queen of Scots flees to England after her defeat at Langside, Glasgow |
|
1568 |
Voltaire imprisoned in the Bastille |
|
1717 |
Doctor Samuel Johnson and James Boswell meet for the first time |
|
1763 |
The Dauphin Louis–Auguste, aged 15 (later Louis XVI) marries Marie Antoinette |
|
1770 |
The Batavian Republic is established in Holland |
|
1795 |
The Lombardic Republic is established |
|
1796 |
The French Senate and Tribune proclaim Napoleon as Emperor |
|
1804 |
The Allies (Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom) under General Beresford defeat the French under Marshal Soult
at Albuera, near Badajoz |
|
1811 |
The US warship President attacks a British sloop |
|
1811 |
Imperial Russia signs the Treaty of Bucharest, ending the Russo–Turkish War; the Ottoman Empire cedes
Bessarabia to Russia |
|
1812 |
Edgar Allan Poe marries his 13–year–old cousin |
|
1836 |
US President Andrew Johnson survives impeachment proceedings in the Senate by one vote |
|
1868 |
The world's first electric tram enters public service at Lichterfelde, nr. Berlin |
|
1881 |
Emile Berliner demonstrates the first gramophone record at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia |
|
1888 |
Nikola Tesla delivers a lecture describing the equipment that will allow efficient generation and use of alternating
currents to transmit electric power over long distances |
|
1888 |
Remains of Neanderthal Man are found in Jersey |
|
1911 |
The Zeppelin Deutschland crashes and is wrecked at Dusseldorf |
|
1911 |
The UK and France sign the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement, partitioning former Ottoman territories such as Iraq
and Syria |
|
1916 |
A Curtiss NC–4 seaplane, commanded by Albert Cushing Read, leaves Trepassey, Newfoundland, for Lisbon and the
UK, via the Azores, on the first transatlantic flight (there were six stops along the way, and more than one aircraft was used) |
|
1919 |
Joan of Arc is canonised by Pope Benedict XV |
|
1920 |
The golden age of bullfighting comes to an end as Joselito is gored at Talavera de la Reina |
|
1920 |
The White Star Line's Majestic – the largest ship built to date – reaches New York,
5½ days out from Southampton |
|
1922 |
The first Academy Awards ceremony takes place (renamed the Oscars in 1931, allegedly after Margaret Herrick said
the statuette looked like her Uncle Oscar) |
|
1929 |
Daphne Kearley becomes Britain's first air hostess, in an Avro 642 from Croydon to Le Bourquet, France |
|
1936 |
The Warsaw Ghetto uprising is crushed by the SS, police and Wehrmacht, after 27 days |
|
1943 |
El Al Israel Airlines begins the first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights, between Idlewild (now John F.
Kennedy International) in New York and Heathrow |
|
1951 |
Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser (a ruby laser), at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California |
|
1960 |
The Communist Party of China issues the 'May 16 Notice', marking the beginning of the Cultural Revolution |
|
1966 |
Earthquake in Northern Japan kills 47 and injures 217 |
|
1968 |
Three people lose their lives when one entire corner of Ronan Point, a new block of flats in Newham, in London's
East End, collapses |
|
1968 |
Pete Townshend spends a night in jail in New York for kicking a policeman off stage |
|
1969 |
Israeli planes bomb seven Palestinian refugee camps and villages in southern Lebanon, killing at least 27 people and
leaving 138 injured |
|
1974 |
Josip Broz Tito is elected president for life of Yugoslavia |
|
1974 |
Michael Abdul Malik, Black Power leader, hanged for murder in Trinidad |
|
1975 |
Junko Tabei of Japan becomes the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest |
|
1975 |
Dr. George Nickopoulos indicted in Memphis for over–prescribing drugs to 11 patients, including Jerry Lee Lewis
and Elvis Presley |
|
1980 |
Wheel clamps first used in London |
|
1983 |
Two South Wales miners are jailed for life for the murder of taxi driver David Wilkie, by throwing a block of concrete
on his car from a bridge as he drove a miner to work six months earlier (during the miners' strike) |
|
1985 |
C. Everett Koop, US Surgeon General, reports that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of
heroin and cocaine |
|
1988 |
Eileen Molyneaux, 66, at Brook Hospital, Greenwich, London, becomes the first adult to undergo a successful
hole–in–the–heart operation |
|
1989 |
Christie's, New York, sells Van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet to a Japanese businessman for $82.5 |
|
1990 |
Minister of Agriculture John Gummer invites newspapers and camera crews to photograph him trying to feed a beefburger
to his four–year–old daughter Cordelia, at an event in his Suffolk constituency, as the government tries desperately to convince
the public that British beef is safe |
|
1990 |
Elizabeth II becomes the first British sovereign to address the US Congress |
|
1991 |
Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire, flees the country |
|
1997 |
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is attacked and wrestled to the ground after punching farm worker Craig Evans, who
threw an egg at him as he campaigned in Rhyl, Clwyd, for the general election |
|
2001 |