This date in history

[Jimbuna]

1858 "Big Ben", a 13.76 tonne bell, is recast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry.

1887 US President Abraham Lincoln's re-buried with his wife in Springfield, Illinois.

1912 RMS Titanic sets sail from Southampton for her maiden (and final) voyage.

1981 Imprisoned Provisional IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands elected to British Parliament for Northern Ireland county of Fermanagh and South Tyrone.

1998 The Good Friday Agreement [Belfast Agreement] for Northern Ireland is signed by the British and Irish governments.

[Jimbuna]

1783 Hostilities formally cease in the American Revolutionary War.

1814 Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates unconditionally and he is exiled to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean.

1868 The Shogunate is abolished in Japan.

1900 The first modern submarine designed and built by John Philip Holland is purchased by the U.S. Navy.

1912 RMS Titanic leaves Queenstown, Ireland, for NY

1945 Four soldiers in the Sixth Armored Division of the US Third Army liberate the Nazi concentration camp, Buchenwald.

1951 US President Harry Truman relieves General Douglas MacArthur of command in Korea.

[Jimbuna]

1782 Battle at Les Saintes: British fleet under Admiral George Rodney defeats the French fleet under Comte de Grasse off Dominica in the West Indies. Prevents a planned French and Spanish invasion of Jamaica.

1861 Fort Sumter in South Carolina is attacked by the Confederacy, beginning the American Civil War.

1945 Canadian troops liberate Nazi concentration camp Westerbork, Netherlands.

1945 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies in office and Vice President Harry Truman is sworn in as 33rd US President.

1961 Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person to orbit Earth (Vostok 1)

[Jimbuna]

1906 Mutiny on Portuguese battleships Dom Carlos and Vasco da Gama.

1940 Second battle of Narvik; 3 German destroyers and one U-boat sunk by the Royal Navy, 5 more German destroyers scuttled.

1943 Germans discover mass grave of Polish officers near Katyn.

1945 Canadian soldier Léo Major single-handedly liberates Dutch town of Zwolle by fooling Germans into thinking a raid had begun.

[Jimbuna]

1865 US President Abraham Lincoln is shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington; he dies a day later.

1912 RMS Titanic hits an iceberg at 11.40pm off Newfoundland.

1936 French singer Édith Piaf questioned after nightclub owner and her patron Louis Leplée murdered in Paris.

1942 Destroyer Roper sinks German U-85 of US east coast.

1943 A JN-25 decrypt by American intelligence detailing a forthcoming visit by Marshal Admiral Yamamoto to Balalae Island results in his plane shot down 4 days later.

1944 General Eisenhower becomes the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force.

1958 Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 with space dog Laika aboard burns up during reentry into Earth's atmosphere.

1960 First underwater launching of Polaris missile.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1936 French singer Édith Piaf questioned after nightclub owner and her patron Louis Leplée murdered in Paris.

That would put 'paid' to la vie en rose Mon Cherie....

[Jimbuna]

1865 Abraham Lincoln dies 9 hours after he is shot attending the play "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theatre in Washington.

1912 RMS Titanic sinks at 2:27 AM off Newfoundland as the band plays on, with the loss of between 1,490 and 1,635 people.

1942 George VI awards George Cross to people of Malta.

1945 British Army liberates Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen.

1945 US troops occupy POW camp Colditz.

[Jimbuna]

1939 The Soviet Union proposes an alliance with Britain and France to counter Nazi Germany; the Soviets would later sign a secret agreement with the Nazis.

1948 Organization for European Economic Cooperation (EEC) forms in Paris.

2003 Treaty of Accession is signed in Athens admitting 10 new member states to the European Union.

[Jimbuna]

1961 1,400 Cuban exiles land in Bay of Pigs in a doomed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro.

1942 12 Lancasters bomb MAN factory in Augsburg.

1942 Operations begin to destroy Sobibor Concentration Camp.

1943 Marshal Admiral Yamamoto flies from Truk to Rabaul.

1961 Jimmy Stewart accepts an honorary Oscar on behalf of his friend Gary Cooper, who is too ill to attend.

1969 Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating US Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

[Aktungbby]

1906 A devastating earthquake strikes San Francisco, followed by raging fires; estimates of the final death toll range between 3,000 and 6,000...:

[Jimbuna]

1783 Fighting ceases in the American Revolution, eight years to the day when it began.

1915 French pilot Roland Garros is shot down and glides to a landing on the German side of the lines during World War I

1916 US Secretary of State Warns Germany that the USA may break diplomatic relations unless torpedo attacks on unarmed ships stop.

1934 Adolf Hitler names Joachim von Ribbentrop ambassador for disarmament.

1942 James Doolittle bombs Tokyo and other Japanese cities.

1943 Operation Vengeance: US Army Air Force P-38G fighter aircraft from Kukum Field on Guadalcanal ambush and shoot down the transport bomber aircraft of Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy and mastermind behind the Pearl Harbor attack.

2020 French flagship aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle reports over 1,000 cases of COVID-19, prompting an investigation.

2020 Canada's worst modern mass shooting as a gunman kills 18 people, including a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, across Nova Scotia.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

1906 A devastating earthquake strikes San Francisco, followed by raging fires; estimates of the final death toll range between 3,000 and 6,000...:

It was all St. Andreas' fault.

[Jimbuna]

1770 British explorer Captain James Cook first sights Australia.

1775 American Revolution begins in Lexington, Massachusetts. The "Shot Heard Round the World" took place in Concord later that day.

1932 Bonnie Parker is captured in a failed hardware store burglary, and subsequently jailed. A grand jury fails to indict her, however, and she is released a few months later.

1943 Jews refuse to surrender the Warsaw Ghetto to SS officer Jürgen Stroop, who then orders its destruction, beginning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

1951 General Douglas MacArthur ends his military career.

2011 Fidel Castro resigns from the Communist Party of Cuba's central committee after 45 years of holding the title.

[Jimbuna]

1899 David Beatty is appointed executive officer of the HMS Barfleur, a small battleship and flagship of the China Station.

1918 Manfred von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80th victims marking his final victories before his death the following day.

1968 British politician Enoch Powell makes his controversial "Rivers of Blood" speech.

1974 'The Troubles', the Northern Ireland conflict between republican and loyalist paramilitaries, British security forces, and civil rights groups, claims its 1000th victim.

1999 Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School, Colorado.

[Jimbuna]

1916 Ulster Protestant and Irish nationalist Sir Roger Casement lands at Tralee Bay, Ireland from a German submarine; discovered at McKenna's Fort and arrested by the Royal Irish Constabulary.

1916 The Aud, carrying a cargo of 20,000 rifles to assist Irish republicans in staging what would become the 1916 Rising, is captured by the British Navy and forced to sail towards Cork Harbour.

1918 German fighter ace Baron Manfred von Richthofen "The Red Baron", shot down and killed over Vaux sur Somme in France, Canadian pilot Arthur Roy Brown credited with the kill.

1989 Thousands of Chinese crowd into Beijing's Tiananmen Square cheering students demanding greater political freedom.