- 0475 Byzantine Emperor Zeno is forced to flee his capital at Constantinople.
- 1349 The Jewish population of Basel, Switzerland, believed by the residents to be the cause of the ongoing bubonic plague, is rounded up and incinerated.
- 1431 Judges' investigations for the trial of Joan of Arc begin in Rouen, France, the seat of the English occupation government.
- 1570 Tsar Ivan the terrible kills 1000-2000 residents of Novgorod
- 1613 Samuel de Champlain publishes two volumes of his Voyages, outlining his adventures from 1604 to 1612; with maps of Acadia and the St. Lawrence River
- 1666 New France Governor Daniel de Remy de Courcelle 1626-1698 leads a 500-man military campaign against the Mohawks
- 1760 Afghans defeat Marathas in Battle of Barari Ghat.
- 1768 Philip Astley stages the first modern circus (London).
- 1788 Connecticut becomes 5th state
- 1792 Russia & Turkey sign Peace of Jassy
- 1793 Dutch Prince Willem V establishes 2 brigades Drive Artillery
- 1793 Jean Pierre Blanchard makes first balloon flight in North America (Philadelphia)
- 1799 British Prime Minister William Pitt introduces income tax to raise funds for the war against Napoleon.
- 1799 Income Tax introduced in UK
- 1799 UK hist Pitt brings in 10% income tax, as a wartime financial measure
- 1806 Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson receives a state funeral and is interred at St Paul's Cathedral.
- 1811 The first Women's Golf Tournament held
- 1812 Swedish Pomerania (Germany) seized by Napoleon
- 1816 Sir Humphry Davy tests the Davy lamp for Miners at Hebburn Colliery.
- 1822 The Portuguese prince Pedro I of Brazil decides to stay in Brazil against the orders of the Portuguese king Joo VI, starting the Brazilian independence process.
- 1839 Daguerrotype photo process announced at French Academy of Science
- 1839 The French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process.
- 1839 Thomas Henderson measures first stellar parallax (Alpha Centauri)
- 1847 The first San Francisco newspaper published (California Star)
- 1848 People's uprising in Palermo Sicily
- 1848 The first commercial bank in San Francisco established
- 1854 Astor Library opens in New York City NY
- 1855 The clipper ship Guiding Star disappears in Atlantic, 480 dies
- 1857 7.9 earthquake shakes Fort Tejon CA
- 1857 The Fort Tejon earthquake of California occurs, registering an estimated magnitude of 7.9.
- 1858 Anson Jones, the last President of the Republic of Texas, commits suicide.
- 1861 Mississippi becomes 2nd state to secede
- 1861 The first hostile act of Civil War; Star of the West fired on, Sumter SC
- 1862 In Halifax, Nova Scotia the Grenadier Guards land to garrison the Citadel Fort
- 1863 The first section of the London Underground Railway opens -- between Paddington and Farringdon Street.
- 1866 Fisk University establishes
- 1878 Umberto I becomes King of Italy.
- 1879 Cheyenne prisoners led by Dull Knife revolt at Fort Robinson
- 1879 Kirland Warbler discovered on Andros Island in Bahamas
- 1880 6' (1.8 meters) of snow falls in Seattle in 5 days
- 1880 The Great Gale of 1880 devastates parts of Oregon and Washington with high wind and heavy snow.
- 1882 Oscar Wilde gives his first lecture on "The English Renaissance of Art" in New York.
- 1889 Near Queenston Ontario the Niagara Suspension Bridge collapses during a winter storm
- 1894 "Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze" released in movie theaters
- 1894 New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard in Lexington, Massachusetts.
- 1899 Manitobans suffer record low temperature of -52.8 Celsius (-63 F)0
- 1900 S.S. Lazio is founded in Rome, Italy.
- 1901 New South Wales (918) defeat S Australia (157 & 156) by innings & 605
- 1903 Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson, son of the famous poet Alfred Tennyson, becomes the second Governor-General of Australia.
- 1903 Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota established
- 1905 According to the Julian Calendar which was used at the time, Russian workers stage a march on the Winter Palace that ends in the massacre by Tsarist troops known as Bloody Sunday, setting off the Russian Revolution of 1905.
- 1905 Bloody Sunday-demonstrators fired on by tsarist troops
- 1908 Frans Schollaert succeeds De Trooz as premier of Belgium
- 1908 Muir Woods National Monument, California established
- 1909 Ernest Shackleton reaches 88º23' south
- 1911 Toronto born Mary Pickford (Gladys Smith) appears in her first IMP film, Their First Misunderstanding.
- 1912 US marines invade Honduras
- 1914 Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc. was founded on the campus of Howard University.
- 1916 The Ottoman Empire prevails in the Battle of anakkale, as the last British troops are evacuated.
- 1922 Rotterdam metal strike ends
- 1923 Juan de la Cierva makes first autogiro (helicopter) flight, Spain
- 1925 German Postal Minister A Höfle resigns due to corruption
- 1927 Fire in Laurier Palace cinema in Montreal, 78 children died
- 1927 Small fire breaks out in the Laurier Palace movie theatre in Montreal Quebec, firemen arrive within 2 minutes and put out the blaze in 10 minutes, but the children panic to escape; 12 are crushed to death and 64 are asphyxiated at the bases of stairways
- 1933 Amsterdam confectionery worker go on strike against wage reduction
- 1935 Bob Denver actor Gillis, Gilligan’s Island was born
- 1936 Noël Coward's "Astonished Heart," premieres in London
- 1936 Semi-automatic rifles adopted by US army
- 1937 Italian regime bans marriages between Italians & Abyssinians
- 1937 Judith Krantz author: Scruples was born
- 1937 The first issue of Look magazine appears on news stands today.
- 1940 2 German officers make emergency landing in Belgium
- 1940 The Australian Comforts Fund (ACF) is set up again to raise money for comfort parcels for dispatch to service personnel in Australia and overseas
- 1941 6,000 Jews exterminated in pogrom in Bucharest Romania
- 1941 First flight of the Avro Lancaster.
- 1941 Joan Baez singer: The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down; political activist was born
- 1941 Maiden flight by Canada's Avro Lancaster military plane
- 1941 World War II: The Greek Triton (S.112) sinks the Italian submarine Neghelli in Otranto.
- 1942 Joe Louis KOs Buddy Baer in 1 for heavyweight boxing title
- 1942 US Joint Chiefs of Staff created
- 1943 Japanese government in Java limits sale & use of motorcars
- 1945 U.S. forces land on Luzon, Phillipines.
- 1945 The United States invades Luzon in the Philippines.
- 1945 US soldiers led by General Douglas MacArthur invade Philippines
- 1946 Visitor posting - Rosena Bell born January 9,1946 - retired from Shoppers - Sept.27,2008
- 1947 Elizabeth "Betty" Short, the Black Dahlia last seen alive.
- 1951 Life After Tomorrow, first film to receive an "X" rating, premieres
- 1951 United Nations headquarters officially opens in New York City.
- 1952 Belgian Pholien government resigns
- 1952 Karel Sys wins European heavyweight boxing title
- 1953 Korean ferryboat "Chang Tyong-Ho" sank off Pusan killing 249
- 1954 -87ºF (-66ºC), Northice Station, Greenland (Greenland record)
- 1954 Bert Olmstead, Montreal Canadiens, ties NHL record of 8 points in game
- 1956 Abigail Van Buren's "Dear Abby" column first appears in newspapers
- 1956 Samir el-Rifai forms government in Jordan
- 1957 British prime minister Anthony Eden resigns.
- 1957 Checheno-Ingush ASSR reformed in RSFSR
- 1957 Dutch Newspaper Society expels communist daily paper "Truth"
- 1957 Karachayevo-Cherkess Autonomous Region reestablished in RSFSR
- 1959 "Rawhide" with Clint Eastwood premieres on CBS TV
- 1959 Dam across Tera River collapses after heavy winter rains, 135 die
- 1960 Building of Aswan dam in Egypt, begins
- 1962 Visitor posting - Isabelle G. (Serrano) Bell was born
- 1963 Mao Tse-tung writes his poem "Reply to Comrade Kuo Mo-jo"
- 1964 21 Panamanians and three U.S. soldiers die when anti-US rioting erupts in the Panama Canal Zone.
- 1964 Anti-US rioting breaks out in the Panama Canal Zone
- 1964 Martyrs' Day: Several Panamanian youths try to raise the Panamanian flag on the US-controlled Panama Canal Zone,leading to fighting between US military and Panamanian civilians.
- 1965 "Beatles' '65" album goes #1 & stays #1 for 9 weeks
- 1965 Near Hope BC a mountain avalanche kills 4 drivers on highway near Hope.
- 1966 Polish government denies exit visa to Cardinal Wyszynski revisionism
- 1967 Georgia legislature seats Representative Julian Bond
- 1968 Surveyor 7 space probe soft lands on the Moon
- 1968 The U.S. unmanned space probe Surveyor Seven lands on the lunar surface.
- 1968 The first and last time to date snow fell in Mexico City along with days 10 and 11.
- 1969 Concorde jetliner's first test flight (Bristol England)
- 1970 Constitution of Singapore enacted
- 1971 Number one hit on UK music charts - Clive Dunn - Grandad
- 1972 Billionaire Howard Hughes speaks to reporters by phone, stating that a biography of him by author Clifford Irving is phony.
- 1972 Passenger ship Queen Elizabeth destroyed by fire while at anchor in Hong Kong
- 1972 RMS Queen Elizabeth is destroyed by fire in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong.
- 1973 Heather Berson is born in California
- 1973 Luna 21 launched, to Moon
- 1975 600 employees of Royal Canadian Mint go on strike
- 1975 Australia beat England by 171 runs in 4th Test to regain Ashes
- 1976 CW McCall CB song "Convoy" hit #1 on the country music charts
- 1976 Ringo releases "Oh My My" in UK
- 1977 Visitor posting - Alexcia was born
- 1978 Commonwealth of Northern Marianas established
- 1979 K-Mart pulls Steve Martin's "Let's Get Small" for being in "bad taste"
- 1979 Supreme Court strikes down (6-3) PA law requiring doctors performing an abortion to try to preserve lives of potentially viable fetuses
- 1980 63 beheaded in Mecca, Saudi Arabia
- 1980 Saudi Arabia executes 63 people for their part in a raid on Mecca's Grand Mosque the previous November.
- 1981 Francisco Balsamao elected President of Portugal
- 1982 5.9 earthquake in New England & Canada; first since 1855
- 1982 Three moderate earthquakes measuring 5.5 to 4.9 on the Richter scale shake New Brunswick and New England
- 1983 British PM Margaret Thatcher visits the Falkland Islands
- 1984 "TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes" premieres on NBC TV (Whoops)
- 1984 "WHERE’S THE BEEF?" Clara Peller was first seen by TV viewers this day in the famous and successful commercial campaign for Wendy’s fast-food chain
- 1984 EAA moves operations to Oshkosh
- 1984 UK hist FTSE index exceeded 800
- 1985 Calgary Flames set NHL record 264th regular season game without being shut-out
- 1985 The Calgary Flames set NHL record 264th regular season game without being shut-out
- 1986 After 10 years of sales (and a lawsuit from rival Polaroid), Kodak discontinues its line of instant cameras.
- 1986 After losing a patent battle with Polaroid, Kodak leaves the instant camera business.
- 1987 Chinese/Vietnamese border fights, 1500 killed
- 1987 New Nicaraguan constitution takes effect
- 1987 Sir Rudolf Bing (of New York Met Opera) marries Lady Carroll Douglass
- 1988 English Earl of St Andrews marries Sylvana Tomaselli
- 1989 "Pat Sajak Show" premieres on CBS
- 1989 Johnny Bench & Carl Yastrzemski elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
- 1990 64th US manned space mission STS 32 (Columbia 10) launches into orbit
- 1990 The space shuttle Columbia leaves earth on a ten-day mission to, among other things, retrieve a drifting satellite.
- 1991 Baker & Aziz meet in Geneva; talks fail to defuse the gulf crisis
- 1991 Baseball officially bans Pete Rose from being elected to Hall of Fame
- 1991 The Soviets storm Vilnius to stop Lithuanian independence.
- 1992 Visitor posting - Ashley (gigi) was born
- 1993 Visitor posting - Jenna M. Smith is born.
- 1994 Gunda Niemann skates world record (167.282 points)
- 1995 British comedian Peter Cook dies in London at age 57.
- 1995 Ecuador & Peru involve in boundary fight
- 1995 Worker accidentally cuts electrical wires at Newark Airport
- 1997 A Comair Embraer 120 crashes during approach into Detroit Metro Airport, killing 29 people.
- 1997 Former Toronto Argonauts and LA Kings owner Bruce McNall sentenced to five years, 10 months in prison and ordered to repay $5 million for bank fraud
- 1997 Heart attacks sends Frank Sinatra back to hospital
- 1997 Twenty-nine people are killed when a Comair commuter plane crashes 18 miles from the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
- 1998 Anatoly Karpov defeats Viswanathan Anand to retain chess title
- 1998 Anatoly Solovyov & Pavel Vinogradov spacewalk record 3 hours 8 minutes
- 1998 Decapitated head of Danish Little Mermaid is returned
- 1998 Hockey News selects Wayne Gretzky best NHL player ever
- 1998 Over 100 teams of linemen arrive from Detroit and other parts of the US to help clean up after the ice storm; 1.3 million homes still without electricity in Quebec and Eastern Ontario
- 1998 Visitor posting - Meghan Annie Cox Byrne born - London, UK
- 1999 Visitor posting - Isabel birthday - USA
- 2001 Shenzhou 2, an unmanned Chinese spacecraft, was launched.
- 2003 Air Midwest Flight 5481 crashes into hangar on take off in Charlotte, NC. All 19 passengers and 2 crew dead.
- 2005 Elections are held to replace Yasser Arafat as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He is succeeded by Rawhi Fattouh.
- 2005 The signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, commonly known as the Naivasha Agreement between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement rebel group in Naivasha, Kenya
- 2006 The Phantom of the Opera surpasses the record set by Cats for the title of longest running show on Broadway.
- 2006 The first The Howard Stern Show via Sirius Satellite Radio is broadcast.
- 2007 An AerianTur-M Antonov An-26 crashes in Balad, Iraq. The Islamic Army in Iraq claims to have shot it down.
- 2007 Apple CEO Steve Jobs announces the iPhone at Macworld San Francisco, also announcing the renaming of 'Apple Computer Inc.' to 'Apple Inc.'
- 2008 US President Bush arrived in Israel today.
More historical events added daily - keep checking back