1066: 18th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet (Yeomans & Kiang)
1212: The Thomasschule of Leipzig was founded. Bach was to work there, 500 years later.
1239: Yet another excommunication of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
1312: Philip IV "the Fair," King of France, arrives in Vienne at the head of an army, which convinces to Pope to condemn the Templars
1345: A triple conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in the 40th degree of Aquarius ocurring on this day is (later) given as the reason for the Black Death
1393: Death of St. John of Nepomuk
1413: England's King Henry the Fourth died; he was succeeded by Henry the Fifth.
1503: The Saragossa Instruction: a series of measures to encourage New World Natives to adopt Christianity and a settled way of life
1565: Contract made by King Philip of Spain for the settlement of Florida
1602: United East India Company was chartered by States-General of Holland. During its 96-year history, it became one of the world's most powerful companies.
1616: Walter Raleigh freed from Tower of London to look for gold in Guiana
1619: Death of Mathias II, Holy Roman Emperor
1619: Etienne Audibert condemned for witchcraft in France
1631: Magdeburg destroyed by Imperial forces, estimated 25,000 dead
1654: The "Committee of Triers" appointed by Cromwell
1727: Physicist, mathematician and astronomer Sir Isaac Newton died in London.
1768: Boccherini played a cello sonata in Paris. The 25-year-old composer's debut concert was not a success.
1784: Holland ceded Nagapatam, Madras, India, to Britain.
1800: The French army under J.B. Kleber defeated the Turks at Helipolis, Turkey, and began advancing toward Cairo, Egypt.
1815: Napoleon Bonaparte entered Paris, beginning his "Hundred Days" rule.
1816: The US Supreme Court, in its "Martin v. Hunter's Lessee" ruling, affirmed its right to review state court decisions.
1820: Adventurer and writer Edward Judson, originator of the dime novel born
1828: Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen born
1833: The United States and Siam (now Thailand) concluded a commercial treaty in Bangkok.
1849: The Second Sikh War between Sikhs and Britain began in India.
1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was published. The book sold 300,000 copies in its first year. It was the first book to sell 1,000,000 copies.
1856: Frederick Winslow Taylor, father of scientific management born
1865: A plan by John Wilkes Booth to abduct President Abraham Lincoln was foiled when Lincoln changed plans and failed to appear at the Soldier's Home near Washington, D.C.
1896: US Marines landed in Nicaragua to protect US citizens in the wake of a revolution.
1896: The first computing scale company, Dayton Scales, was incorporated in Dayton, Ohio.
1896: U.S. Marines landed in Nicaragua to protect U.S. citizens in the wake of a revolution.
1897: The first intercollegiate basketball game that used five players per team was contested in New Haven, Connecticut. Yale defeated Pennsylvania by a score of 32-10.
1899: Martha M. Place of Brooklyn, New York, became the first woman to be put to death by electrocution as she was executed at Sing Sing for the murder of her stepdaughter.
1904: Psychologist B.F. Skinner born
1907: Bandleader-turned-actor Ozzie Nelson was born. He appeared in five movies and the popular "Ozzie & Harriet" TV series with wife, Harriet and sons, David and Rickie.
1911: Actress-dancer Ginger Rogers born
1914: Butterworth's "The Banks of Green Willow" premiered.
1916: The Allies agreed on the partitioning of Turkey.
1918: Game show host Jack Barry born
1920: The first flight between England and South Africa was completed by H.A. van Rejneveld and C.J. Brand.
1922: Producer-director-comedian Carl Reiner born
1922: Actor Jack Kruschen born
1922: Comedian Ray Goulding born
1925: Former Nixon White House aide John Ehrlichman born
1928: Children's TV host Fred Rogers born
1931: Actor Hal Linden born
1933: The first German concentration camp was opened at Dachau.
1934: The first practical tests of radar were carried out at Kiel Harbor, Germany, by Dr. Rudolph Kuenhold.
1936: Actor Ted Bessell (That Girl) born
1937: Singer Jerry Reed born
1939: Former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney born
1939: Country singer Don Edwards born
1942: Former Yale University president Benno C. Schmidt Jr. born
1944: TV producer Paul Junger Witt born
1946: Country singer-musician Ranger Doug (Riders in the Sky) born
1948: Hockey Hall-of-Famer Bobby Orr born
1948: First live televised musical Eugene Ormandy on CBS followed in 90 minutes by second live televised musical Arturo Toscvanni on NBC.
1950: Actor William Hurt born
1950: Rock musician Carl Palmer (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) born
1951: Rock musician Jimmy Vaughan (The Fabulous Thunderbirds) born
1952: Indy 500 driver Geoff Brabham born
1952: South Africa's Supreme Court invalidated race legislation of D.F. Malan.
1954: Country musician Jimmy Seales (Shenandoah) born
1956: France recognized the independence of Tunisia, with Bourguiba as president.
1956: Union workers ended a 156-day strike at Westinghouse Electric Corporation.
1957: Movie director Spike Lee born
1957: Actress Theresa Russell born
1957: Actress Vanessa Bell Calloway born
1957: Britain accepted a NATO offer to mediate in Cyprus but Greece rejected the idea.
1958: Actress Holly Hunter born
1961: Rock musician Slim Jim Phantom (The Stray Cats) born
1961: Actor-auto racer John Clark Gable born
1963: A volcano on the island of Bali in the East Indies began erupting. The eventual death toll exceeded 1,500.
1969: John Lennon married Yoko Ono in Gibraltar.
1971: Actor Alexander Chaplin born
1972: Nineteen mountain climbers were killed on Japan's Mount Fuji during an avalanche.
1976: San Francisco newspaper heiress Patty Hearst was found guilty of bank robbery.
1977: Voters in Paris chose former French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac to be the French capital's first mayor in more than a century.
1985: Libby Riddles of Teller, Alaska, became the first woman to win the Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race, covering the distance from Anchorage to Nome in nearly 18 days.
1985: For the first time in its 99-year history, Avon representatives began receiving a salary. Up to this time, the Avon lady was paid on a commission basis only.
1986: The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 1800 for the first time.
1987: The Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of AZT, a drug shown to prolong the lives of some AIDS patients.
1988: Eight-year-old DeAndra Anrig found herself airborne when the string of her kite was snagged by an airplane flying over Shoreline Park in Mountain View, California. (DeAndra was lifted ten feet off the ground and carried 100 feet until she let go; she was not seriously hurt.)
1989: Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat blamed the Israeli government for escalating violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
1989: Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth confirmed that his office was investigating "serious allegations" involving Cincinnati Reds Manager Pete Rose. (Ueberroth's successor, A. Bartlett Giamatti, later banned Rose from baseball for betting on games.)
1990: Namibia became an independent nation as the former colony marked the end of 75 years of South African rule.
1991: Eric Clapton's 4-year-old son Conor died after falling out of a 53rd story window of his mother's apartment in New York City. The tragedy inspires Clapton's song "Tears in Heaven."
1991: A US jet fighter shot down an Iraqi warplane in the first air attack since the Gulf War cease-fire.
1991: April Glaspie, the US ambassador to Iraq, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Saddam Hussein had lied to her by denying he would invade Kuwait.
1991: The Supreme Court ruled employers could not adopt "fetal protection" policies barring women of child-bearing age from certain hazardous jobs.
1992: Iraq backed down under the threat of possible air raids and admitted to a far larger ballistic and chemical arsenal than it had previously disclosed.
1992: Congress passed, and President Bush immediately vetoed, a Democratic tax cut for the middle class that would have been funded by a tax hike on the rich.
1993: Russian President Boris Yeltsin declared emergency rule, setting a referendum on whether the people trusted him or the hard-line Congress to govern.
1993: An Irish Republican Army bomb exploded in Warrington, England, killing three-year-old Johnathan Ball and 12-year-old Tim Parry.
1994: El Salvador held its first presidential election following the country's 12-year-old civil war. Armando Caleron Sol of the ARENA party led the vote, but needed to win a run-odd to achieve the presidency.
1995: In Tokyo, 12 people were killed, more than 5,500 others sickened when packages containing the poisonous gas sarin leaked
1995: Commentator Pat Buchanan formally launched his presidential campaign in New Hampshire
1996: The British government said that a rare brain disease that had killed 10 people was probably linked to so-called "mad cow disease."
1996: A jury in Los Angeles convicted Erik and Lyle Menendez of first-degree murder in the shotgun slayings of their millionaire parents.
1997: President Clinton and Boris Yeltsin opened talks in Helsinki, Finland, on the issue of NATO expansion.
1997: Liggett Group, the maker of Chesterfield cigarettes, settled 22 state lawsuits by agreeing to warn on every pack that smoking is addictive and admitting the industry markets cigarettes to teen-agers.
1998: Independent counsel Kenneth Starr and White House lawyers squared off over the invoking of executive privilege to block the testimony of key presidential aides in the White House sex scandal.
1998: President Clinton's lawyer, appearing before a federal court in Little Rock, Arkansas, declared that Paula Jones' evidence of sexual harassment was "garbage" unworthy of a trial.
1998: A tornado in rural northeast Georgia killed at least 13 people and injured 100.
1998: President Clinton slightly relaxed the U.S. attempt to isolate Cuba. He said would support humanitarian needs of the Cuban people and prepare them for democracy. Clinton would permit a resumption of direct humanitarian charter flights to the communist-ruled island, allow persons in the U.S. to send $1,200 per year to relatives in Cuba and expedite procedures for sales of medicine and medical supplies.
1999: The Yugoslav army, taking advantage of the departure of international monitors from Kosovo, launched a furious offensive against outgunned ethnic Albanian rebels.
1999: Bertrand Piccard of Switzerland and Brian Jones of Britain became the first aviators to fly a hot-air balloon around the world nonstop.
2000: Pope John Paul the Second embarked on a strenuous and spiritual tour of the Holy Land, beginning with a stop in Jordan.
2000: President Clinton arrived in Bangladesh on the first such visit by an American president.
2000: Former Black Panther Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, once known as H. Rap Brown, was captured in Alabama; he was wanted in the fatal shooting of a Fulton County, Georgia, sheriff's deputy. (Al-Amin maintains his innocence.)
