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- 0326 The old St. Peter's Basilica is consecrated.
- 1095 The Council of Clermont, called by Pope Urban II to discuss sending the First Crusade to the Holy Land, begins.
- 1302 Pope Boniface VIII issues the Papal bull Unam sanctam (The One Holy).
- 1307 According to legend, William Tell shoots an apple off of his son's head.
- 1307 William Tell shoots apple off his son's head
- 1421 A seawall at the Zuiderzee dike breaks, flooding 72 villages and killing about 10,000 people in the Netherlands.
- 1421 Zuider Zee floods 72 villages, killing an estimated 10,000 in Netherlands
- 1477 The First English Printing press
- 1477 William Caxton produces Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, the first book printed on a printing press in England.
- 1497 Bartolomeu Dias discovers Cape of Good Hope
- 1626 St. Peter's Basilica is consecrated.
- 1686 Charles Francois Felix operates on King Louis XIV of France's anal fistula after practicing the surgery on several peasants.
- 1755 Worst quake Massachusetts Bay area strikes Boston; no deaths report
- 1803 Battle of Vertieres, in which Haitians defeat French
- 1803 The Battle of Vertires, the last major battle of the Haitian Revolution, is fought, leading to the establishment of the Republic of Haiti, the first black republic in the Western Hemisphere.
- 1820 US Navy Captain Nathaniel B Palmer discovers Antarctica
- 1852 Rose Philippine Duchesne dies in St. Charles, Missouri. She would be canonized on July 3, 1988 by Pope John Paul II.
- 1863 King Christian IX of Denmark decided to sign the november constitution, which declared Schleswig as part of Denmark, what was seen by the German Confederation as a violation of the London Protocol and lead to the GermanDanish war of 1864.
- 1865 Mark Twain's story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is published in the New York Saturday Press.
- 1883 American and Canadian railroads institute five standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times.
- 1883 Standard time zones established by railroads in US and Canada
- 1889 Oahu Railway begins public service in Hawaii
- 1903 Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty gives US exclusive canal rights in Panama
- 1903 The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed by the United States and Panama, giving the Americans exclusive rights over the Panama Canal Zone.
- 1904 General Esteban Huertas steps down after the government of Panama fears he wants to stage a coup.
- 1905 Prince Carl of Denmark becomes King Haakon VII of Norway
- 1909 Two United States warships are sent to Nicaragua after 500 revolutionaries (including two Americans) are executed by order of Jos Santos Zelaya.
- 1909 US invades Nicaragua, later overthrows President Zelaya
- 1911 Britain's first seaplane flies
- 1912 Albania declares independence from Turkey
- 1917 Sigma Alpha Rho, a Jewish high school fraternity, is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
- 1918 Latvia declares independence from Russia
- 1918 Latvia declares its independence from Russia.
- 1923 Alan Shepard, Jr. first American in space is born
- 1926 George Bernard Shaw refuses to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, "I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."
- 1927 CBC boradcaster Knowlton Nash is born
- 1928 Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse debuts in NY in"Steamboat Willie"
- 1929 1929 Grand Banks earthquake: Off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean, a Richter magnitude 7.2 submarine earthquake, centered on Grand Banks, breaks 12 submarine transatlantic telegraph cables and triggers a tsunami that destroys many south coast communities in the Burin Peninsula area.
- 1929 Large quake in Atlantic breaks Transatlantic cable in 28 places
- 1936 Germany and Italy recognized Spanish government of Francisco Franco
- 1936 Main span of Golden Gate Bridge joined
- 1938 Trade union members elect John L. Lewis as the first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
- 1940 George Matesky Mad Bomber's first time bomb
- 1940 New York City's Mad Bomber places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison.
- 1942 Holocaust: German SS carry out selection of Jewish ghetto in Lviv, western Ukraine, arresting 5.000 "unproductive Jews". All get deported to the Belzec death camp.
- 1943 Holocaust: Aktion Emtefest: Nazis liquidate Janowska concentration camp in Lviv, western Ukraine, murdering at least 6.000 surviving Jews.German SS leader Fritz Katzman declares Lviv (Lemberg) to be Judenfrei (free from the Jews).
- 1952 The feasibility of using a helicopter as an aerial minesweeper was demonstrated in the first of a series of tests conducted by VX-1 pilots flying an HRP-1 helicopter off~ Panama City, Fla.
- 1954 Visitor posting - Clark Carroll Jr. was born third child of Clark Carroll and Florence Augusta Wright Carroll on this day - USA
- 1956 Visitor posting - George Vreeland Hill is born. - USA
- 1958 Visitor posting - Arlean & Joseph Richardson gave birth to Linda Marie
- 1960 Copyright office issues its 10 millionth registration
- 1961 US Ranger 2 launched to Moon; failed
- 1964 J Edgar Hoover describes Martin Luther King as "most notorious liar"
- 1966 Sandy Koufax announced his retirement from baseball.
- 1967 British government devalues œ from US equivalent of $2.80 to $2.40
- 1970 Russia lands self propelled rover on the Moon
- 1973 Visitor posting - Master Frank Neiberger is born. - USA
- 1976 Spain's parliament establishes democracy after 37 years of dictatorship
- 1976 Visitor posting - Wendy D Fischer of Ontario Canada is Born
- 1978 Jonestown incident: In Guyana, Jim Jones leads his Peoples Temple cult in a mass murder-suicide that claims 918 lives in all, 909 of them at Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo J. Ryan is assassinated by members of Peoples Temple shortly beforehand.
- 1978 Mass suicide in Peoples temple in Jonestown Guyana
- 1978 Number one hit on UK music charts - Boomtown Rats - Rat Trap
- 1980 Conn Smythe founder o fthe NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs dies at age 85
- 1982 Duk Koo Kim dies unexpectedly from injuries sustained during a 14-round match against Ray Mancini in Las Vegas, Nevada, prompting reforms in the sport of boxing.
- 1985 The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes debuts.
- 1987 31 die in a fire at King's Cross, London's busiest subway station
- 1987 King's Cross fire: In London, 31 people die in a fire at the city's busiest underground station at King's Cross St Pancras.
- 1988 Visitor posting - Boehmk3 was born ... 10:23am - USA
- 1988 War on Drugs: U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill into law allowing the death penalty for murder in regards to drug traffickers.
- 1990 Saddam offers to free an estimated 2,000 men held in Kuwait
- 1991 After the siege of Vukovar, the Croatian city of Vukovar capitulates to besieging Yugoslav People's Army and allied Serb paramilitary forces.
- 1991 France deports Marlon's daughter Cheyenne Brando to Tahiti
- 1991 Muslim Shites release hostages Terry Waite and Thomas Sutherland
- 1991 Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon set Anglican Church envoys Terry Waite and Thomas Sutherland free.
- 1993 In South Africa, 21 political parties approve a new constitution.
- 1995 Visitor posting - Brittany was born!! - USA
- 1996 Visitor posting - Alex Nicholson was born - USA
- 1999 In College Station, Texas, 12 are killed and 27 injured at Texas A&M University when a massive bonfire under construction collapses.
- 2000 A major fire at the 350 room Marriot Mountain REsort in Vale Colorado starts no deaths
- 2004 Russia officially ratifies the Kyoto Protocol.
- 2007 Jimmie Johnson wins the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup Championship.
- 2009 According to the 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index, Somalia is the most corrupt of 180 countries surveyed, and New Zealand is the least corrupt.
- 2009 Four people are killed after a bomb left over from the Vietnam War explodes as they try to remove explosive material in southern Tay Ninh Province.
- 2009 Iraqi Vice President Tariq Al-Hashimi vetos part of the country's new election law, putting the scheduled January 2009 elections in doubt.
- 2009 Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd announces that he will consider a probe of the Church of Scientology in Australia after an attack on the organization by independent parliamentarian Nick Xenophon.
- 2009 Queen Elizabeth II officially opens the Parliament of the United Kingdom and delivers Her Majesty's Most Gracious Address.
- 2009 Senator and President pro tempore of the United States Senate Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia becomes the longest serving member in the history of the United States Congress.
- 2009 Taiwanese universities announce they will admit mainland Chinese students for the first time next year.
- 2009 The France national football team beat the Republic of Ireland at the Stade de France to qualify for the 2009 FIFA World Cup finals in South Africa, with Thierry Henry admitting after the game that he committed handball in the move leading to the decisive goal.
- 2009 The Government of Hong Kong unveils a new democratic political reform plan, which includes the expansion of the Legislative Council. (
- 2009 The population of Africa reaches one billion
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