1164: Death of St. Heloise (of Heloise and Abelard)
1198: Coronation of Frederick II, aged 4 years, as King of Sicily
1215: The Barons of England march on John "Lackland," King of England
1242: The landing of Henry III, King of England, in France, to assert his claim to the French Throne
1433: Duke Henry "the Peaceful" abolishes "kurmede" and "merchet"
1490: Albert, last Grand Master of Teutonic Knights, 1st Duke of Prussia born
1510: Death of Botticelli
1532: James V, King of Scotland, founds the Institute of Justice
1536: Sir Francis Weston, alleged paramour of Anne Boleyn, executed
1592: Death of St. Paschal Baylon
1606: Death of the "False Dimitri"
1620: The first merry-go-round seen at a fair (Philippapolis, Turkey)
1630: Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi becomes 1st to see rings on Jupiter
1642: Founding of Montreal, Quebec, Canada 1792 Stock Exchange was founded by brokers meeting under a tree located on what is now Wall Street.
1749: English physician Edward Jenner, developer of the smallpox vaccine born
1792: The New York Stock Exchange was founded by brokers meeting under a tree located on what is now Wall Street.
1803: English writer Robert Surtees born
1803: Beethoven premiered the "Kreutzer" sonata at eight o'clock in the morning.
1814: Norway's constitution was signed, providing for a limited monarchy.
1860: Schuyler Wheeler, inventor of the electric fan born
1866: Composer Erik Satie born
1866: Composer Erik Satie born
1866: Composer Erik Satie born
1875: The first Kentucky Derby was run; the winner was "Aristides." Aristides, covered the 1-mile in about 2.5 minutes and won $2,800. The race was created by Colonel M. Lewis Clark of Louisville, KY.
1877: Edwin T. Holmes of Boston, Massachusetts, installed the first telephone switchboard burglar alarm.
1900: Former Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini was born in Ruhollah Musawi in Persia. (d.1989)
1901: The German composer Werner Egk was born. born
1911: Actress Maureen O'Sullivan born
1912: Former Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox born
1918: Opera singer Birgit Nilsson born
1936: Actor-director Dennis Hopper born
1937: Former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary born
1938: Rhythm-and-blues singer Pervis Jackson (The Spinners) born
1938: The radio quiz show "Information, Please!" made its debut on the NBC Blue Network.
1938: Congress passed the Vinson Naval Act, providing for a two-ocean navy.
1939: Britain's King George VI and Queen Elizabeth arrived in Quebec on the first visit to Canada by reigning British sovereigns.
1939: Station WNBT-TV in New York broadcast the first fashion show to be seen on TV. The show was broadcast from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Manhattan.
1940: The Nazis occupied Brussels, Belgium, during World War Two.
1942: Singer Taj Mahal born
1944: Singer-songwriter Jesse Winchester born
1946: President Truman seized control of the nation's railroads, delaying a threatened strike by engineers and trainmen.
1948: The Soviet Union recognized the new state of Israel.
1954: TV personality Kathleen Sullivan born
1954: The Supreme Court issued its landmark "Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka" ruling which declared that racially segregated public schools were inherently unequal.
1955: Actor Bill Paxton born
1956: Boxer Sugar Ray Leonard born
1956: Actor-comedian Bob Saget born
1956: The first synthetic mica (synthamica) was offered for sale in Caldwell Township, New Jersey. Mica is a crystal-like substance that aids in resisting heat and electricity in electronic applications.
1960: Basketball player Bill Laimbeer born
1961: Singer Enya born
1965: Singer-musician Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) born
1965: Rhythm-and-blues musician O'Dell (Mint Condition) born
1970: Singer Jordan Knight (New Kids on the Block) born
1970: Rhythm-and-blues singer Darnell Van Rensalier (Shai) born
1971: The Musical "Godspell" opened at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City. The shown went on to become the third longest running off-Broadway production - 2,124 performances.
1973: The Senate Watergate Committee opened hearings into the break-in at Democratic National headquarters in Washington, D.C.
1975: NBC TV paid $5,000,000 for the rights to show Gone with the Wind just one time. It was the top price paid for a single opportunity to show a film on television.
1976: Rhythm-and-blues singer Kandi Burruss (Xscape) born
1976: Jockey Steve Cauthen began a win streak, at the age of 16. Cauthen rode his first race at River Downs, Kentucky. He went on to win 94 races, becoming horse racing's most watched jockey.
1978: Philips announced the coming of the compact disc.
1980: Rioting that claimed 18 lives erupted in Miami's Liberty City neighborhood after an all-white jury in Tampa acquitted four former Miami police officers of fatally beating black insurance executive Arthur McDuffie.
1983: Israeli and Lebanese negotiators signed the final text of a U.S.-sponsored agreement providing for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon, provided Syria and the PLO withdrew their forces as well.
1984: The U.S. House of Representatives, rejecting President Reagan's claim that it was "absolutely essential" to resume the manufacture of chemical weapons, defeated his proposed purchase of components for nerve gas bombs and shells.
1985: Pilots at United Airlines went on a 29-day strike, forcing the carrier to drastically curtail service.
1985: Bobby Ewing died on the season finale of "Dallas." Bobby, played by actor Patrick Duffy, died in a violent car explosion - only to come back to life the following season.
1986: Actor Tahj Mowry ("Smart Guy") born
1986: Friends and relatives gathered in Oregon for the funerals of two of the nine climbers who diedduring a school outing on Mount Hood.
1987: Thirty-seven American sailors were killed when an Iraqi warplane attacked the US Navy frigate "Stark" in the Persian Gulf. (Iraq and the US called the attack a mistake.)
1988: The Commerce Department reported that a record level of export sales gave the United States its lowest monthly trade deficit in three years in March 1988, totaling $9.7 billion.
1989: More than 1 million people demonstrated for democratic reforms in Beijing.
1989: The government of Poland approved freedom of religion, giving legal status to the Roman Catholic Church.
1989: A court in Frankfort, West Germany, sentenced Mohammed Ali Hamadi to life in prison for his role in the 1985 TWA hijacking.
1990: Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev met in Moscow with Lithuanian Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene, Gorbachev's first face-to-face meeting with a senior official of the defiant Baltic republics.
1991: The Commerce Department reported the U.S. trade deficit had narrowed sharply in March 1991 to $4.05 billion, the lowest level in nearly eight years.
1992: Pro-democracy protests began in Thailand; in four days of clashes with troops, 44 people reportedly were killed, although activists charged that hundreds died.
1992: Orchestra leader Lawrence Welk died in Santa Monica, California, at age 89.
1992: Band leader Lawrence Welk died in Santa Monica, California, at age 89.
1993: Yo-Yo Ma performed the Prokofiev "Sinfonietta concertante" with the Montreal Symphony. Charles Dutoit also conducted two seasonal works, Debussy's "Printemps," and Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring."
1993: President Clinton visited the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, where he promoted his five-year, $20 billion defense-conversion plan.
1994: The U.N. Security Council approved a peacekeeping force and an arms embargo for violence-racked Rwanda.
1994: The Federal Reserve boosted two key interest rates by half a percentage point each.
1995: The Senate Ethics Committee concluded that Sen. Bob Packwood, R-OR, had to face a full-scale Senate investigation of charges that included making improper advances toward women.
1995: Jacques Chirac was sworn in as president of France, ending the 14-year tenure of Socialist Francois Mitterrand.
1996: President Clinton signed a measure requiring neighborhood notification when sex offenders move in. ("Megan's Law," as it's known, is named for Megan Kanka, a seven-year-old New Jersey girl who was raped and slain in 1994.)
1997: Rebel leader Laurent Kabila declared himself president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire.
1997: Russia's "Mir" space station got a new oxygen generator and a fresh American astronaut, courtesy of the space shuttle "Atlantis."
1997: "Silver Charm" won the Preakness, two weeks after winning the Kentucky Derby. (However, Silver Charm failed to win the Belmont Stakes.)
1998: Leaders of the Group of Eight nations ended their summit in Birmingham, England, with a plea to Pakistan not to respond in kind to India's five nuclear explosions.
1998: New York Yankees pitcher David Wells became the 13th player in modern major league baseball history to throw a perfect game as he retired all 27 batters he faced in a 4-to-0 victory over the Minnesota Twins.
1999: The Supreme Court banned states from paying lower welfare benefits to newcomers than to longtime residents.
1999: Labor Party leader Ehud Barak unseated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israeli elections.
1999: Makah Indians in Washington state harpooned a gray whale for the first time in 70 years.
2000: In a big victory for President Clinton and a blow for labor, legislation normalizing trade relations with China overwhelmingly won the support of key committees in the House and Senate. The House Ways and Means Committee approved the measure 34-4 as previously undecided committee members flocked to support the administration.
2000: Two former Ku Klux Klansmen were arrested on murder charges in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four black girls on a Sunday morning - a crime that shocked the nation and galvanized the civil rights movement. Thomas E. Blanton Jr., 61, of Birmingham, and Bobby Frank Cherry, 69, of Mabank, Texas, surrendered on the state charges and were jailed without bail. (Thomas Blanton Junior was convicted and sentenced to life in prison May 1, 2001. Bobby Frank Cherry was indicted in 2000, but his trial was delayed after evaluations raised questions about his mental competency.)
