588BC – Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon lays siege to Jerusalem under Zedekiah’s reign. The siege lasts until July 23, 586 BC.
1535 – Henry VIII declares himself head of the Church in England
1559 – Elizabeth I crowned Queen of England in Westminster Abbey
1759 – British Museum opens in Montague House, London
1902 – Abdulaziz Ibn Saud leads 40 men over the walls of Riyadh and takes the city, marking the beginning of the Third Saudi State
1919 – Polish-born German revolutionary and agitator Rosa Luxemburg, cofounder of the German Communist Party, was arrested and murdered in Berlin for fomenting a communist uprising known as the Spartacus Revolt.
1922 – Arthur Griffith is elected president of the Irish Free State after Eamon de Valera resigns in opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty (De Valera will lead a military opposition seeking a unified and independent Ireland)
1934 – 8.4 earthquake in India/Nepal, 10,700 die
1944 -European Advisory Commission decides to divide Germany
1947 – The brutalized corpse of Elizabeth Short (“The Black Dahlia”) found in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, California
1965 – Soviet underground nuclear test creates the atomic lake Chagan, Kazakhstan
1970 – Muammar Gaddafi is proclaimed premier of Libya
1973 – US President Richard Nixon suspends all US offensive action in North Vietnam
1975 – Portugal signs accord for Angola’s independence
1982 – Mark Thatcher, son of UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, makes his way home after 6 days missing in the Sahara
1991 – Elizabeth II signs letters patent that allows Australia to institute its own Victoria Cross, the first Commonwealth realm to do so
1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales, calls for an international ban on landmines, angering ministers in the UK
2001 – Wikipedia a free Wiki or content encyclopedia is launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger
2009 – US Airways flight 1549, piloted by Captain Chesley (“Sully”) Sullenberger III, landed in the Hudson River after the plane flew into a flock of Canada geese shortly after takeoff, resulting in severe damage to the plane’s engines; there were no fatalities.
2013 – 83 people are killed and 150 are injured in a rocket attack on Aleppo University, Syria
2018 -Protests against the current government turn violent in Tunis, Tunisia marking the seventh anniversary of the revolution
2018 – Pope Francis arrives in Chile for a three-day visit amid child sexual abuse claims against church clergy
2019 – LGBTQ activists accuse the Russian republic of Chechnya of a new gay purge with 40 detained and two killed
2019 – Theresa May’s Brexit deal with the EU is rejected by UK parliament 432 votes to 202, largest parliamentary defeat in its democratic era
2019 – Witness in El Chapo trial claims former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto accepted $100 million bribe from the drug cartel head
2019 – Plastic will outweigh fish in the world’s oceans by 2050 according to report by the World Economic Forum
Film & TV:
1974 – The American television series Happy Days, a nostalgic comedy set during the 1950s and ’60s, premiered on ABC.
