The Republic of Ragusa (centred on Dubrovnik) is founded |
|
1358 |
Henry VI's forces under Stafford are defeated at Sevenoaks by Jack Cade |
|
1450 |
Cornish rebels Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank are executed at Tyburn |
|
1497 |
The thirteen Stratford Martyrs (eleven men and two women) are burned at the stake near London for their Protestant beliefs |
|
1556 |
The Ladies' Mercury – the first women's magazine – first issued |
|
1693 |
Battle of Dettingen: the Pragmatic Army (British, Hanoverians and Hessians) under George II, defeat the French; George is the last reigning British monarch to take part in a battle |
|
1743 |
Bonnie Prince Charlie escapes to Skye, disguised as a maid |
|
1746 |
General James Wolfe begins the siege of Quebec |
|
1759 |
The Liberty Bell is returned to Philadelphia, after being hidden from the British for a year |
|
1778 |
Edward Gibbon completes his monumental work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire |
|
1787 |
During the Napoleonic Wars, British forces take Buenos Aires (as part of a series of unsuccessful attempts to seize control of areas in the Spanish colonial Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata) |
|
1806 |
Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, and his brother Hyrum Smith, are murdered in prison in Carthage, Illinois |
|
1844 |
Japan introduces a new system of currency, based on the yen |
|
1871 |
Joshua Slocum completes the first solo circumnavigation, in 3 years 64 days, at Briar Island, Nova Scotia |
|
1898 |
The Central London Electric Railway (Shepherd's Bush to Bank) opens |
|
1900 |
USA pays $40,000 to France for the rights to the Panama Canal |
|
1902 |
Mutiny erupts on board the Russian battleship Potemkin |
|
1905 |
The first Grand Prix takes place at Le Mans |
|
1906 |
Bell Laboratories in New York gives the first demonstration of colour television |
|
1929 |
Pan–Am inaugurates the first scheduled transatlantic air service – on a 19–seater flying boat |
|
1939 |
In the city of Iași, Romanian authorities launch one of the most violent pogroms in Jewish history, resulting in the murder of at least 13,266 Jews |
|
1941 |
As part of their invasion of Russia (Operation Barbarossa), German troops capture the city of Białystok |
|
1941 |
President Truman orders the US Army and Navy to Korea |
|
1950 |
The world's first nuclear power station opens at Obninsk, 55 miles from Moscow |
|
1954 |
Battle of Berne: referee Arthur Ellis (of England) sends off three players as Hungary beat Brazil 4–2 in the FIFA World Cup quarter–finals |
|
1954 |
Over 400 people lose their lives, mainly in and around Cameron, Louisiana, when Hurricane Audrey makes landfall near the Texas–Louisiana border |
|
1957 |
Arthur Michael Ramsay is enthroned as the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury |
|
1961 |
Barclays Bank installs the first cash dispenser at Enfield – unveiled by Reg Varney, star of TV's On the
Buses |
|
1967 |
Bill Graham's Fillmore East, a major New York rock venue, closes after only three years in business |
|
1971 |
Juan María Bordaberry, President of Uruguay, dissolves Parliament and establishes a dictatorship |
|
1973 |
US President Richard Nixon visits China |
|
1974 |
A French airbus with 216 passengers, flying from Athens, is hi–jacked by six members of the PLO and forced to fly to Entebbe, Kampala |
|
1976 |
Djibouti is proclaimed an independent republic |
|
1977 |
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China lays the blame for the Cultural Revolution on Mao Zedong |
|
1981 |
The space shuttle Columbia is launched from Kennedy Space Center on its fourth and final test flight |
|
1982 |
Miners and supporting trade unionists march through London |
|
1984 |
Fifty–six people lose their lives, and sixty are injured, when an SNCF commuter train headed inbound to Paris's Gare de Lyon terminal crashes into a stationary outbound train |
|
1988 |
Britons Dave Hurst and Alan Matthews are the first blind people to reach the summit of Mont Blanc |
|
1988 |
NASA announces that the Hubble space telescope, launched in April, has a serious design fault |
|
1990 |
Slovenia is invaded by Yugoslav troops, tanks, and aircraft, two days after declaring independence – starting the Ten–Day War |
|
1991 |
Seven people lose their lives, and 660 are injured, when members of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo release sarin gas in the city of Matsumoto |
|
1994 |
Actor Hugh Grant is charged with committing a lewd act with prostitute Divine Brown |
|
1995 |
President Chirac of France alarms Tony Blair by calling for a "two–speed Europe" |
|
2000 |
Gordon Brown becomes Prime Minister following the resignation of Tony Blair |
|
2007 |
In a highly–scrutinised election, Robert Mugabe is re–elected by a landslide as President of Zimbabwe; his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai had withdrawn a week earlier, citing violence against his party's supporters |
|
2008 |
Computer systems around the world are swamped by a series of cyberattacks using the Petya malware. Eighty percent of them are in Ukraine, where authorities blame Russian agents |
|
2017 |