307 – Jin Huidi, Chinese Emperor of the Jin Dynasty, was poisoned and succeeded by his son Jin Huaidi.
871 – Alfred the Great led a West Saxon army to repel an invasion by Danelaw Vikings.
1297 – François Grimaldi, disguised as a monk, led his men to capture the fortress protecting the Rock of Monaco, establishing his family as the rulers of Monaco.
1455 – The Romanus Pontifex was written.
1499 – Louis XII of France married Anne of Brittany.
1697 – Last execution for blasphemy in Britain; of Thomas Aikenhead, student, at Edinburgh.
1734 Premiere of George Frideric Handel’s Ariodante at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
1746 Second Jacobite Rising: Bonnie Prince Charlie occupied Stirling.
1835 The United States national debt was 0 for the only time.
1838 – Alfred Vail demonstrated a telegraph system using dots and dashes ( the forerunner of Morse code).
1862 Frank Nelson Doubleday, American publisher, was born (d. 1934).
1863 Geologist Julius von Haast led an exploratory expedition in search of a route from the east to the west coasts of the South Island.
1867 African American men were granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C.
1867 Emily Greene Balch, American writer and pacifist, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was born (d. 1961).
1877 – Crazy Horse and his warriors fought their last battle with the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain (Montana Territory).
1900 Dame Merlyn Myer, Australian philanthropist, was born (d. 1982).
1908 – William Hartnell, British actor, was born(d. 1975)
1911 – Gypsy Rose Lee, American actress and entertainer, was born (d. 1970).
1912 The African National Congress was founded.
1926 Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud became the King of Hejaz and renamed it Saudi Arabia.
1926 Soupy Sales, American comedian, was born(d. 2009).
1935 Elvis Presley, American singer, was born (d. 1977).v>1937 Dame Shirley Bassey, Welsh singer, was born.
1937 – Dame Shirley Bassey, Welsh singer, was born.
1940 Britain introduced food rationing.
1941 Graham Chapman, British comedian, was born (d. 1989).
1946 Robby Krieger, American musician (The Doors), was born.
1947 David Bowie, English musician, was born.
1959 – Fidel Castro‘s Cuban Revolution was completed with the take over of Santiago de Cuba.
1959 Paul Hester, Australian drummer (Crowded House), was born (d. 2005).
1962 – The Harmelen train disaster killed 93 people in The Netherlands.
1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a “War on Poverty” in the United States.
1973 – Soviet space mission Luna 21 was launched.
1973 – Watergate scandal: The trial of seven men accused of illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters at Watergate begins.
1975 Ella Grasso became Governor of Connecticut, becoming the first woman to serve as a Governor in the United States other than by succeeding her husband .
1994 Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov on Soyuz TM-18 left for the space station Mir. He stayed on the space station until March 22, 1995, for a record 437 days in space.
2004 The RMS Queen Mary 2, the largest passenger ship ever built, was christened by her namesake’s granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.
2005 – The nuclear sub USS San Francisco collided at full speed with an undersea mountain south of Guam. One man was killed, but the sub surfaces and was repaired.
2010 – Gunmen from an offshoot the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda attacked the bus carrying the Togo national football team on its way to the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, killing three.
2011 – An attempted assassination of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and subsequent shooting in Casas Adobes, Arizona at a Safeway grocery store killed 6 people and wounded 13, including Giffords.
Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.
Posted by homepaddock 
