1429 – French national heroine Joan of Arc and her troops entered the besieged city of Orléans during the Hundred Years’ War.
1862 – New Orleans falls to Union forces during US Civil War
1864 – Battle of Gate Pa (Pukehinahina): 1,700 British troops suffer their worst defeat of the New Zealand Wars at the hands of 230 entrenched Maori warriors in Tauranga
1916 – Irish republicans abandon the post office in Dublin and surrender unconditionally, marking the end of the Easter Rising
1945 – US Army liberates 31,601 people from the Dachau Nazi concentration camp in Germany
1975 – Vietnam War: US begins to evacuate its citizens from Saigon in Operation Frequent Wind in response to advancing North Vietnamese forces, bringing an end to US involvement in the war
1990 – Wrecking cranes began tearing down the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate
1991 – Cyclone strikes the Chittagong district in Bangladesh, killing 139,000 people and leaving 10 million homeless
1992 – Riots erupted in Los Angeles in response to the verdict of a highly publicized trial of four white Los Angeles police officers who were acquitted of charges related to the 1991 beating of Rodney King, a black motorist who had resisted arrest.
2002 – The United States is re-elected to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, one year after losing the seat it had held for 50 years
2004 – Dick Cheney and George W. Bush testify before the 9/11 Commission in a closed, unrecorded hearing in the Oval Office
2013 – 7 people are killed after a Boeing 747 crashes in Bagram, Afghanistan
2019 – Over 700 people infected with measles in the US, highest number for 25 years
2020 – UK official death toll reaches 26,000 deaths from COVID-19 as care home and community deaths included
Births & Deaths:
1899 – American composer, bandleader, and pianist Duke Ellington, among the most significant figures in jazz history, was born.
1954 – Comedian Jerry Seinfeld, whose television show Seinfeld was a landmark of American pop culture in the late 20th century, was born in Brooklyn, New York.
Film & TV:
2018 – Animated series “The Simpsons” surpasses 635-episode count of “Gunsmoke”‘; highest number of episodes of any series on TV
Music:
1967 – “Respect” single released by Aretha Franklin (Billboard Song of the Year 1967)
Sport:
1922 – 1st official International Weightlifting Federation Champ in Tallinn, Estonia
2015 – In what was thought to be the lowest-attended baseball game in MLB history, the Baltimore Orioles defeated the Chicago White Sox, 8–2, in an empty Camden Yards, Baltimore; the game was closed to fans because of rioting in the city following the death of an African American man who was fatally injured while in police custody.
