Events Pre-1600 1199 – King Richard I of England is wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting in France, leading to his death on April 6. 1387 – English victory over a Franco-Castilian-Flemish fleet in the Battle of Margate off the coast of Margate. 1401 – Turco-Mongol emperor Timur sacks Damascus.
1601–1900 1603 – James VI of Scotland is proclaimed King James I of England and Ireland, upon the death of Elizabeth I. 1603 – Tokugawa Ieyasu is granted the title of shōgun from Emperor Go-Yōzei, and establishes the Tokugawa shogunate in Edo, Japan. 1663 – The Province of Carolina is granted by charter to eight Lords Proprietor in reward for their assistance in restoring Charles II of England to the throne. 1720 – Count Frederick of Hesse-Kassel is elected King of Sweden by the Riksdag of the Estates, after his consort Ulrika Eleonora abdicated the throne on 29 February. 1721 – Johann Sebastian Bach dedicates six concertos to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt, now commonly called the Brandenburg Concertos, BWV 1046–1051. 1765 – Great Britain passes the Quartering Act, which requires the Thirteen Colonies to house British troops. 1794 – In Kraków, Tadeusz Kościuszko announces a general uprising against Imperial Russia and the Kingdom of Prussia, and assumes the powers of the Commander in Chief of all of the Polish forces. 1829 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, allowing Catholics to serve in Parliament. 1832 – In Hiram, Ohio, a group of men beat and tar and feather Mormon leader Joseph Smith. 1854 – President José Gregorio Monagas abolishes slavery in Venezuela. 1860 – Sakuradamon Incident: Japanese chief minister (Tairō) Ii Naosuke is assassinated by rōnin samurai outside the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle. 1869 – The last of Tītokowaru's forces surrender to the New Zealand government, ending his uprising. 1870 – A Chilean prospecting party led by José Díaz Gana discovers the silver ores of Caracoles in the Bolivian portion of Atacama Desert, leading to the last of the Chilean silver rushes and a diplomatic dispute over its taxation between Chile and Bolivia. 1878 – The British frigate sinks, killing more than 300. 1882 – Robert Koch announces the discovery of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis. 1900 – Mayor of New York City Robert Anderson Van Wyck breaks ground for a new underground "Rapid Transit Railroad" that would link Manhattan and Brooklyn. 1900 – Carnegie Steel Company is formed in New Jersey; its capitalization of $160 million is the largest to date.
1901–present 1921 – The 1921 Women's Olympiad begins in Monte Carlo, becoming the first international women's sports event. 1922 – The McMahon killings take place in Belfast. Six Catholic civilians are shot dead, two others wounded and a female family member assaulted. Police were suspected as being responsible, but no one was prosecuted. 1927 – Nanking Incident: Foreign warships bombard Nanjing, China, in defence of the foreign citizens within the city. 1934 – The Tydings–McDuffie Act is passed by the United States Congress, allowing the Philippines to become a self-governing commonwealth. 1939 – The 1939 Liechtenstein putsch takes place; approximately 40 members of the VBDL starting from Nendeln march towards Vaduz with the intention of overthrowing the government and provoking Liechtenstein's annexation into Germany. 1944 – German troops massacre 335 Italian civilians in Rome. 1944 – World War II: In an event later dramatized in the movie The Great Escape, 76 Allied prisoners of war begin breaking out of the German camp Stalag Luft III. 1946 – A British Cabinet Mission arrives in India to discuss and plan for the transfer of power from the British Raj to Indian leadership. 1949 – Hanns Albin Rauter, a chief SS and Police Leader in the Netherlands, is convicted and executed for crimes against humanity.Trial of Hanns Albin Rauter in the Hague, Netherlands 1972 – Direct rule is imposed on Northern Ireland by the Government of the United Kingdom under Edward Heath.Collapse of Stormont 1972: Unionism rallied when Westminster said ‘direct rule’ 1976 – In Argentina, the armed forces overthrow the constitutional government of President Isabel Perón and start a seven-year dictatorial period self-styled the National Reorganization Process. 1977 – Morarji Desai becomes the prime minister of India, the first prime minister not to belong to Indian National Congress. 1980 – El Salvadorian Archbishop Óscar Romero is assassinated while celebrating Mass in San Salvador. 1982 – Bangladeshi President Abdus Sattar is deposed in a bloodless coup led by Army Chief Lieutenant general Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who suspends the Constitution and imposes martial law. 1986 – The Loscoe gas explosion leads to new UK laws on landfill gas migration and gas protection on landfill sites. 1989 – In Prince William Sound in Alaska, the Exxon Valdez spills of crude oil after running aground. 1990 – Indian intervention in the Sri Lankan Civil War ends with the last ship of Indian Peace Keeping Force leaving Sri Lanka.Last Indian Troops Leave Sri Lanka 1992 – Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on STS-45. 1998 – Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden, aged 11 and 13 respectively, open fire upon teachers and students at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas; five people are killed and ten are wounded. 1998 – A tornado sweeps through Dantan in India, killing 250 people and injuring 3,000 others. 1998 – Dr. Rüdiger Marmulla performs the first computer-assisted Bone Segment Navigation at the University of Regensburg, Germany.Marmulla, Rüdiger (inventor), Carl Zeiss (submitter): System and method for bone segment navigation. United States Patent 6.241.735, 2001Marmulla R, Niederdellmann H: Computer-assisted Bone Segment Navigation. J Craniomaxillofac Surg 26: 347–359, 1998 1999 – Kosovo War: NATO begins attacks on Yugoslavia without United Nations Security Council (UNSC) approval, marking the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign country. 1999 – A lorry carrying margarine and flour catches fire inside the Mont Blanc Tunnel, creating an inferno that kills 39 people. 2008 – Bhutan officially becomes a democracy, with its first ever general election. 2015 – Germanwings Flight 9525 crashes in the French Alps in an apparent pilot mass murder-suicide, killing all 150 people on board. 2018 – Syrian civil war: The Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) and Syrian National Army (SNA) take full control of Afrin District, marking the end of the Afrin offensive. 2018 – Students across the United States stage the March for Our Lives demanding gun control in response to the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. 2023 – An EF4 tornado strikes the towns of Rolling Fork and Silver City, Mississippi, causing mass destruction. 2024 – The 2024 Senegalese presidential election is held following anti-government protests. 2026 – OpenAI announces that their flagship Sora app and API are shutting down.
Births
Pre-1600 1103 – Yue Fei, Chinese military general (died 1142) 1441 – Ernest, Elector of Saxony, German ruler of Saxony (died 1486) 1494 – Georgius Agricola, German mineralogist and scholar (died 1555) 1577 – Francis, Duke of Pomerania-Stettin, Bishop of Cammin (died 1620)
1601–1900 1607 – Michiel de Ruyter, Dutch admiral (died 1667) 1628 – Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg (died 1685) 1657 – Arai Hakuseki, Japanese academic and politician (died 1725) 1693 – John Harrison, English carpenter and clock-maker, invented the Marine chronometer (died 1776) 1725 – Samuel Ashe, American lawyer and politician, 9th governor of North Carolina (died 1813) 1725 – Thomas Cushing, American lawyer and politician, 1st lieutenant governor of Massachusetts (died 1788) 1755 – Rufus King, American lawyer and politician, United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom (died 1827) 1762 – Marcos Portugal, Portuguese organist and composer (died 1830) 1775 – Muthuswami Dikshitar, Indian poet and composer (died 1835) 1782 – Orest Kiprensky, Russian-Italian painter (died 1836) 1796 – Zulma Carraud, French author (died 1889) 1796 – John Corry Wilson Daly, Canadian businessman and politician (died 1878) 1803 – Egerton Ryerson, Canadian minister, educator, and politician (died 1882) 1808 – Maria Malibran, Spanish-French soprano (died 1836) 1809 – Mariano José de Larra, Spanish journalist and author (died 1837) 1809 – Joseph Liouville, French mathematician and academic (died 1882) 1816 – Pelagio Antonio de Labastida y Dávalos, Mexican politician and Roman Catholic archbishop, regent during the Second Mexican Empire (died 1891) 1820 – Edmond Becquerel, French physicist and academic (died 1891) 1820 – Fanny Crosby, American poet and composer (died 1915) 1823 – Thomas Spencer Baynes, English philosopher and critic (died 1887) 1826 – Matilda Joslyn Gage, American activist and author (died 1898) 1828 – Horace Gray, American lawyer and jurist (died 1902) 1829 – George Francis Train, American businessman (died 1904) 1829 – Ignacio Zaragoza, Mexican general (died 1862) 1830 – Robert Hamerling, Austrian poet and playwright (died 1889) 1834 – William Morris, English textile designer, poet, and author (died 1896) 1834 – John Wesley Powell, American soldier, geologist, and explorer (died 1902) 1835 – Joseph Stefan, Slovene physicist, mathematician, and poet (died 1893) 1848 – Honoré Beaugrand, Canadian journalist and politician, 18th mayor of Montreal (died 1906) 1850 – Silas Hocking, English minister and author (died 1935) 1854 – Henry Lefroy, Australian politician, 11th premier of Western Australia (died 1930) 1855 – Andrew W. Mellon, American banker, financier, and diplomat, 49th United States Secretary of the Treasury (died 1937) 1855 – Olive Schreiner, South African author and activist (died 1920) 1862 – Frank Weston Benson, American painter and educator (died 1951) 1869 – Émile Fabre, French author and playwright (died 1955) 1871 – Alec Hurley, English music hall singer (died 1913) 1874 – Luigi Einaudi, Italian economist and politician, 2nd president of the Italian Republic (died 1961) 1874 – Harry Houdini, Hungarian-American magician and actor (died 1926) 1875 – William Burns, Canadian lacrosse player (died 1953) 1879 – Neyzen Tevfik, Turkish philosopher, poet, and composer (died 1953) 1882 – Marcel Lalu, French gymnast (died 1951) 1882 – George Monckton-Arundell, 8th Viscount Galway, English politician, 5th governor-general of New Zealand (died 1943) 1883 – Dorothy Campbell, Scottish-American golfer (died 1945) 1884 – Peter Debye, Dutch-American physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1966) 1884 – Chika Kuroda, Japanese chemist (died 1968) 1884 – Eugène Tisserant, French cardinal (died 1972) 1885 – Charles Daniels, American swimmer (died 1973) 1885 – Dimitrie Cuclin, Romanian violinist and composer (died 1978) 1886 – Edward Weston, American photographer (died 1958) 1886 – Robert Mallet-Stevens, French architect and designer (died 1945) 1887 – Roscoe Arbuckle, American actor, director, and screenwriter (died 1933) 1888 – Viktor Kingissepp, Estonian politician (died 1922) 1889 – Albert Hill, English-Canadian runner (died 1969) 1890 – Agnes Macphail, Canadian educator and politician (died 1954) 1891 – Sergey Ivanovich Vavilov, Russian physicist and academic (died 1951) 1892 – Marston Morse, American mathematician and academic (died 1977) 1893 – Walter Baade, German astronomer and author (died 1960) 1893 – George Sisler, American baseball player and scout (died 1973) 1897 – Wilhelm Reich, Austrian-American psychotherapist and academic (died 1957)
1901–present 1901 – Ub Iwerks, American animator, director, and producer, co-created Mickey Mouse (died 1971) 1901 – José Nasazzi, Uruguayan footballer (died 1968) 1902 – Thomas E. Dewey, American lawyer and politician, 47th governor of New York (died 1971) 1903 – Adolf Butenandt, German biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1995)