1095 – Pope Urban II preaches 1st Crusade
1295 – English King Edward I calls what later became known as “The Model Parliament” extending the authorities of its representatives
1493 – Christopher Columbus returns to La Navidad colony, finding it destroyed by the 1st native American uprising against Spanish rule. Taíno cacique Caonabo led his people to attack the settlement after the brutal treatment they received from the garrison who disobeyed Columbus’s orders.
1807 – Portuguese Royal Family and its court of nearly 15,000 people leave Lisbon for their colony of Brazil to escape invading Napoleonic troops
1895 – Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel’s will establishes the Nobel Prize
1983 – The revised Code of Canon Law, signed by Pope John Paul II in January, took effect.
1942 – Tito appoints Anti-fascist Liberation board in Yugoslavia
1966 – Uruguay adopts constitution
1967 – The Beatles release their album “Magical Mystery Tour”
1967 – French President Charles de Gaulle said ‘Non!’ to British entry to the European Common Market for the second time
1994 – Fire in disco in Fuxin, North-China, 233 killed
1999 – New Zealand’s Labour Party defeats the National-led government after 9 years in power, Helen Clark becomes the first elected female Prime Minister in New Zealand’s history
2004 – Pope John Paul II returns the relics of Saint John Chrysostom to the Eastern Orthodox Church
2005 – President El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, in power since 1967 and the longest-serving head of state in the world, is re-elected to his third consecutive seven-year term
2006 – The Canadian House of Commons endorses Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s motion to declare Québécois a nation within a unified Canada.
2017 – Britain’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announce their engagement
2017 – Pope Francis begins a three-day trip to Myanmar, amid the Rohingya refugee crisis
2019 – Ghana celebrates the “year of return” marking 300 years since 1st African slave sold in America, by granting 125 people citizenship in special ceremony
Births & Deaths:
2014 – British mystery novelist P.D. James—who earned the sobriquet “Queen of Crime,” primarily for her 14 novels featuring the fictional detective Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard—died in Oxford, England.
Film & TV:
2013 – “Frozen”, the highest-grossing animated film of all time, starring Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell, is released
Music:
1967 – The Beatles release their album “Magical Mystery Tour”
Sport:
1961 – Gordie Howe becomes 1st to play in 1,000 NHL games
Via Britannica / On This Day
