On this day in History - Mar. 30

• 240 BC - 1st recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.
• 1135 - Moses Maimonides was born. Spanish rabbi and philosopher / Nascimento de Moshé (Moisés) Ben Maimón, médico judeu sefardim, conhecido entre os muçulmanos como Abu Imram Musa ben Maimun Ibn Abdalá, e no ocidente por Maimónides, na Aljama de Córdoba-Espanha. Médico e filósofo.
• 1191 - Celestine III was elected pope.
• 1202 - Joachim Van Fiore dies. Italian, founder of Joachimism.
• 1266 - As Vésperas Sicilianas: o povo de Palermo, capital da Sicília, levanta-se contra Carlos de Anjou, após a cerimónia das Vésperas. A revolta terminará com a coroação do rei de Aragão Pedro III, o Grande, chamado para ocupar o trono.
• 1282 - Rebels in Sicily successful overthrew French rule under Charles of Anjou. The rebel leaders wrote to Pope Martin IV for support, but Martin promised to assist Charles in reclaiming control of the island.
• 1282 - The people of Palermo massacred 2,000 French residents in the Sicilian Vespers, a revolt against the Angevin king Charles I.
• 1296 - Edward I sacks Berwick-upon-Tweed, during armed conflict between the two nations.
• 1326 - Ivan II of Russia was born (d. 1359). Grand Duke of Muscovy.
• 1432 - Mehmed II was born (d. 1481). Ottoman sultan who would succeed in capturing Constantinople.
• 1486 - Thomas Bourchier dies. Archbishop of Canterbury.
  
• 1492 - Ferdinand and Isabella sign a decree aimed at expelling all Jews from Spain unless they convert to Roman Catholicism.
• 1526 - Konrad Mutian dies (b. 1471). German humanist.
• 1533 - Henry VIII divorces his 1st wife, Catherine of Aragon.
• 1533 - Thomas Cranmer becomes Archbishop of Canterbury.
• 1540 - Matthäus Lang von Wellenburg dies (b. 1469). German statesman and Archbishop of Salzburg.
• 1544 - El padre Bartolomé de las Casas es consagrado en Sevilla obispo de la diócesis mexicana de Chiapas.
• 1559 - Adam Ries dies (b. 1492). German mathematician.
• 1587 - Ralph Sadler dies (b. 1507). English statesman.
• 1615 - Se otorga a Cervantes autorización real para la impresión de la segunda parte de "El Quijote".
• 1620 - El Papa Paulo V crea la Diócesis Episcopal de Buenos Aires.
• 1640 - John Trenchard was born (d. 1695). English politican.
• 1662 - François le Netel de Boisrobert dies (b. 1592). French poet.
• 1672 - Peter I "the Great" was born. Romanov great tsar of Russia (1682-1725).
• 1681 - Peeter Snyers “le Saint”, was born (d. 04 May 1752). Flemish painter/engraver.
• 1707 - Vauban dies (b. 1633). French architect.
• 1719 - Sir John Hawkins was born (d. 21 May 1789). English writer in music, author of the first history of music.
• 1739 - Maria Josepha of Bavaria was born (d. 1757). Holy Roman Empire Empress.
• 1745 - Antonio Ribeiro dos Santos was born in Massarelos, Porto (d. 16 Jan. 1818 in Lisbon). Portuguese poet.
• 1746 - Francisco Goya [Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes] was born in Fuentedetodos, Spain (d. 16 Apr 1828). Painter /etcher (Naked Maja).
• 1750 - John Stafford Smith was born (d. 1836). English composer.
• 1764 - Pietro Locatelli dies (b. 1695). Italian violinist and composer.
• 1778 - Playwright Voltaire crowned with laurel wreath Id-al-Adha (Islam).
• 1783 - William Hunter dies (b. 23 May 1718). Scotish anatomist, educator, and medical writer whose high standards of teaching and medical practice took obstetrics from the hands of the midwives and established it as an accepted branch of medicine.
• 1791 - After a proposal by the Académie des sciences (Borda, Lagrange, Laplace, Monge and Condorcet), the French National Assembly finally chose that a metre would be a 1/10 000 000 of the distance between the north pole and the equator.
• 1793 - Juan Manuel de Rosas was born. Argentine politician.
• 1798 - Luise Hensel was born (d. 1876). German poet.
• 1804 - Victor-François, 2nd duc de Broglie dies (b. 1718). Marshal of France.
• 1811 - Robert Wilhelm von Bunsen was born. Chemist and inventor.
• 1811 - El Congreso Constituyente de Colombia, presidido por Jorge Tadeo Lozano, aprueba la Constitución de Cundinamarca.
• 1814 - Napoleonic Wars: Sixth Coalition forces march into Paris, ending a decade of French domination on the Continent.
• 1814 - Neapolitan War: Murat issues the Rimini Declaration which would later inspire Italian Unification.
• 1820 - Anna Sewell was born (d. 1878). British author ( Black Beauty).
• 1822 - Florida Territory created in the United States.
• 1823 - Se establece en México el sistema republicano de Gobierno.
• 1828 - François-Louis-David Bocion was born in Lausanne (d. 13 Dec 1890). Swiss painter.
• 1830 - José da Natividade Saldanha dies in Bogotá, Colombia (b. in Santo Amaro do Jaboatão (PE) 8 Sep 1795). Brazilian poet.
• 1832 - Stephen Groombridge dies (b. 7 Jan 1755).English merchant and astronomer, who compiled of a star catalog known by his name. A Catalog of Circumpolar Stars, Reduced to January 1, 1810 was published posthumously in 1838, edited by G. Biddell Airy.
• 1833 - Charles Victor Thirion was born (d. 27 Apr 1878). French artist.
• 1840 - Beau Brummell dies destitute and mad, in Caen, France. English celebrity and dandy.
• 1842 - Anesthesia is used for the first time in an operation (Dr. Crawford Long performed the operation and ether was used).
• 1842 - Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun dies (b. 16 Apr 1755). French Neoclassical painter specialized in Portraits. Starting in 1835, she wrote Souvenirs, her autobiography.
• 1844 - One of the most important battles of the Dominican War of Independence from Haiti takes place near the city of Santiago de los Caballeros.
• 1844 - Paul Verlaine was born (d. 1896). French lyric poet (Sagesse Bonbeur).
• 1845 - España firma un tratado con Venezuela, por el que reconoce la independencia y soberanía de este país.
• 1852 - James Theodore Bent was born (d. 5 May 1897). British explorer and archaeologist who excavated the magnificent Iron Age ruined city named the Great Zimbabwe, an ancient site in SE Africa that inspired the name of the country Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia).
• 1853 - Vincent van Gogh was born (d. 29 Jul 1890). Dutch Post-Impressionist painter (Irises).
• 1855 - Origins of the American Civil War: Bleeding Kansas - "Border Ruffians" from Missouri invade Kansas and force election of a pro-slavery legislature.
• 1855 - Violence disrupts first Kansas election.
• 1856 - The Treaty of Paris (1856) is signed, ending the Crimean War.
• 1857 - Leon Charles Thevenin was born (d. 1926). French telegraph engineer.
• 1858 - Hymen Lipman patents a pencil with an attached eraser.
• 1859 - Adelino Fontoura was born (d. 1884). Brazilian poet and actor.
• 1863 - Danish prince Wilhelm Georg is chosen as King George of Greece.
• 1863 - Auguste Bravais dies (b. 23 Aug 1811). French physicist and mineralogist, best remembered for his work on the lattice theory of crystals.
• 1863 - Mary Whiton Calkins was born (d. 26 Feb 1930). As an educator and psychologist, she was the first American woman to attain distinction in these fields of study. Calkins studied psychology at Harvard as a "guest," since women could not officially register.
• 1864 - Franz Oppenheimer was born (d. 1943). German sociologist.
• 1866 - Peter Philippi was born (d. 1958). German artist.
• 1867 - Alaska is purchased for $7.2 million, about 2 cent/acre ($4.19/km²), by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward. The news media call this Seward's Folly.
• 1868 - Koloman Moser was born (d. 18 Oct 1918). Austrian painter.
• 1870 - Florida territorial government established.
• 1870 - Texas is readmitted to the Union following Reconstruction.
• 1870 - 15th Amendment passes, guarantees right to vote regardless of race.
• 1872 - Júlio Mário Salusse was born in Bom Jardim (RJ) (d. 30 Jan. 1948). Brazilian poet.
• 1873 - Benedict Augustin Morel dies (b. 22 Nov 1809). Austrian-born French psychologist who introduced the term dementia praecox to refer to a mental and emotional deterioration beginning at the time of puberty. The disorder was renamed schizophrenia in 1908 by the Swiss psychologist Eugen Bleuler. He is the author of "Traité des dégenerescences physiques, intellectuelles et morales de l'espèce humaine" (1857).
• 1875 - Dalmacio Vélez Sarsfield dies. Argentine statesman and author of the Civil Code (Código Civil).
• 1875 - Jonathan Campbell was born (d. 1942). Film pioneer.
• 1876 - Antoine-Jérôme Balard dies (b. 30 Sept 1802). French chemist who in 1826 discovered the element bromine, determined its properties, and studied some of its compounds. Later he proved the presence of bromine in sea plants and animals.
• 1879 - Coen de Koning was born (d.1954). Dutch speed skater.
• 1879 - Thomas Couture dies (b. 21 Dec 1818). French painter and teacher.
• 1880 - Sean O'Casey was born (d. 1964). Irish dramatist, playwright (Playboy of the Western World).
• 1882 - Melanie Klein was born. Austrian-British psycho analysis.
• 1882 - Ramón Mesonero Romanos dies. Writer.
• 1885 - The Battle for Kushka triggers the Pandjeh Incident which nearly gives rise to war between the British Empire and Russian Empire.
• 1885 - Las tropas invasoras guatemaltecas son derrotadas por las salvadoreñas en una batalla librada en los márgenes del río Coco.
• 1885 - Russian troops inflicted a crushing defeat on Afghan forces Ak Teppe despite orders not to fight.
• 1886 - Edmund Blampied was born (d. 1966). English painter.
• 1886 - Joseph-Alfred Mousseau dies (b. 1838). French Canadian politician.
• 1891 - Arthur William Sidney Herrington was born (d. 6 Sep 1970). American engineer and manufacturer who developed a series of military vehicles, the best known of which was the World War II jeep.
• 1892 - Stefan Banach was born (d. 31 Aug 1945). Polish mathematician who founded modern functional analysis and helped develop the theory of topological vector spaces.
• 1892 - Fortunato Depero was born (d. 1960). Italian artist.
• 1892 - Erhard Milch was born (d. 1972). German field marshal.
• 1894 - Sergey Ilyushin was born (d. 1977). Russian aerospace engineer.
• 1895 - British inventor Birt Acres films Oxford-Cambridge.
• 1895 - Nikolai Bulganin was born (d.1975). Premier of the Soviet Union.
• 1895 - Jean Giono was born (d. 1970). French author.
• 1896 - Charilaos Trikoupis dies (b. 1832). Seven times prime-minister of Greece.
• 1899 - Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay was born (d. 1970). Well known Bengali writer.
• 1900 - El Gobierno argentino decreta la reforma de algunas frases del himno nacional que España podría considerar ofensivas.
• 1902 - Brooke Astor was born. American philanthropist.
• 1902 - Ted Heath was born (d. 1969). British musician and band leader.
• 1903 - Countee Cullen was born (d. 1946). American poet.
• 1903 - Joy Ridderhof was born (d. 1984). American missionary.
• 1904 - Ripper Collins was born (d. 1970). American baseball player.
• 1905 - Albert Pierrepoint was born (d. 1992). English executioner.
  
• 1907 - Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte was born (d. 1994). German Luftwaffe Officer.
• 1909 - The Queensboro Bridge opens, linking Manhattan & Queens.
• 1910 - Mississippi Legislature founded The University of Southern Mississippi.
• 1910 - Josef Marcinkiewicz was born (d. 1940). Polish mathematician.
• 1911 - Lötschberg tunnel in Switzerland (13,735 meter) completed.
• 1911 - Ellen Swallow Richards dies (b. 3 Dec 1842). Ellen Henrietta Swallow was an American chemist and founder of the home economics movement in the United States.
• 1912 - Sultan Abdelhafid signs The Treaty of Fès establishong a France protectorate over Morocco.
• 1912 - Karl May dies (b. 1842). German author, novelist.
• 1913 - Censu Tabone was born. President of Malta.
  
• 1913 - Frankie Laine was born. American singer.
• 1913 - Marc Davis was born (d. 2000). American animator.
• 1913 - Richard Helms was born (d. 2002). American Central Intelligence Agency director.
• 1914 - Sonny Boy Williamson was born in Jackson, Tennessee (d. 1948). American blues vocalist and harmonica virtuoso.
• 1914 - John Henry Poynting dies (b. 9 Sep 1852).British physicist who introduced a theorem (1884-85) that assigns a value to the rate of flow of electromagnetic energy known as the Poynting vector, introduced in his paper "On the Transfer of Energy in the Electromagnetic Field"(1884).
• 1916 - El músico Enrique Granados muere a bordo del Sussex, torpedeado por los alemanes.
• 1916 - Pancho Villa killed 172 at the Guerrero garrison in Mexico.
• 1919 - McGeorge Bundy was born (d. 1996). American National Security Advisor.
• 1922 - Gago Coutinho e Sacadura Cabral fazem a primeira travessia aérea do Atlântico Sul.
• 1922 - Turhan Bey was born. Turkish-Czechoslovakian actor.
• 1923 - Milton Acorn was born (d. 1986). Canadian poet.
• 1925 - Stalin supported rights of non-Serbian Yugoslavians.
• 1925 - Rudolf Steiner dies. Austrian philosopher udolf Steiner dies.
• 1926 - Ingvar Kamprad was born. Swedish founder of IKEA.
• 1926 - Thiago de Mello was born. Brazilian poet.
• 1926 - Werner Torkanowsky was born (d. 1992). German conductor.
• 1927 - Se publica en Madrid la "Antología poética en honor de Góngora", recopilada por Gerardo Diego.
• 1927 - Peter Marshall was born. American game show host.
• 1928 - Robert Badinter was born. French politician.
• 1928 - Tom Sharpe was born. English satirical author.
• 1929 - Richard Dysart was born. American actor.
• 1929 - Thomas Tuke dies (b. 12 Jun 1858). British painter .
• 1930 - John Astin was born. American actor.
• 1930 - Rolf Harris was born. Australian artist, entertainer.
• 1930 - Peter Marshall was born. American game show host.
• 1930 - John Astin was born. American actor.
• 1931 - Aleksey Vasilyevich Sorokin was born. Russian cosmonaut.
• 1932 - Amelia Earhart is 1st woman to fly solo cross the Atlantic.
• 1932 - Ted Morgan was born. Swiss-born writer.
• 1933 - Jean-Claude Brialy was born. French actor and director.
• 1935 - Karl Berger was born. German musicologist and musician.
• 1935 - Willie Galimore was born (d. 1964). American football player.
• 1936 - Conchita Supervía dies (b. 1895). Spanish opera singer.
• 1937 - Warren Beatty was born in Richmond VA - USA. Actor and director (actor: Splendor in the Grass, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, Bonnie and Clyde, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Parallax View, Shampoo, Heaven Can Wait, Reds, Dick Tracy, Bulworth, Town and Country; Academy Award-winning director: Reds [1981]; Heaven Can Wait, Dick Tracy, Bulworth; Irving G. Thalberg Memorial [Academy] Award [2000]).
• 1939 - The Heinkel He 100 fighter sets the world airspeed record of 463 mph.
• 1939 - First flight of the Australian C.A.C. CA-16 Wirraway.
• 1940 - The Japanese set up a puppet government called Manchuko in Nanking, China.
• 1940 - Sino-Japanese War: Japan declares Nanking to be the capital of a new Chinese puppet government, nominally controlled by Wang Ching-wei.
• 1940 - Hans Ragnemalm was born. Swedish professor of public law, and judge.
• 1940 - Jerry Lucas was born. American basketball player.
• 1941 - The U.S. seized Italian, German and Danish ships in 16 ports.
• 1941 - Bob Smith was born. American politician.
• 1941 - Graeme Edge was born in Rochester, Staffordshire. Musician (drums: "The Moody Blues" : Nights in White Satin, LP: Kick Off Your Muddy Boots, Long Distance Voyager).
• 1941 - Wasim Sajjad was born. President of Pakistan.
• 1942 - Ruben Kun was born. Nauruan politician and former President of Nauru.
• 1943 - Ken Forssi was born (d. 1998). American musician (Love).
• 1943 - Jan Bytnar dies (b. 1921). Polish activist.
• 1943 - Maciej Aleksy Dawidowski dies (b. 1920). Polish activist.
• 1944 - Sir Charles Vernon Boys dies (b.15 Mar 1855). English physicist and inventor of sensitive instruments.
• 1945 - 289 anti-fascists murdered by Nazis in Rombergpark Dortmund.
• 1945 - World War II: Soviet Union forces invade Austria and take Vienna, Polish and Soviet forces liberate Gdańsk.
• 1945 - World War II: a defecting German pilot delivers a Messerschmitt Me 262A-1 to Americans.
• 1945 - A cidade polaca de Danzig foi tomada pelas tropas soviéticas.
• 1945 - Eric Clapton was born. British guitarist/singer.
• 1945 - Johnnie Walker was born. British DJ.
  
• 1946 - Academy Award radio, an anthology radio show on CBS, debuts on this day.
• 1946 - Doris Day (I) gets married with George Weidler.
• 1947 - Ryszard Kotla was born. Polish travel writer and activist, tour guide, journalist, academic teacher, engineer.
• 1947 - Arthur Machen dies (b. 1863). Author.
• 1947 - Rioting between Hindus and Muslims in Bombay leave 40 dead and more than 100 wounded.
• 1948 - Mervyn King was born. British economist.
• 1948 - Eddie Jordan was born. Former owner of Jordan Grand Prix.
• 1948 - Mahatma Gandhi assassinated in New Delhi.
• 1949 - Riot breaks out in Austurvöllur square in Reykjavík, when Iceland joined NATO.
• 1949 - Lene Lovich was born on Detroit, Michigan. American singer.
• 1949 - Naomi Sims was born. American fashion model and businesswoman.
• 1949 - Liza Frulla was born. Quebec politician.
• 1949 - Friedrich Bergius dies (b 1884). German chemist and entrepreneur Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1931.
• 1949 - Marcia Ball was born. Blues pianist.
• 1949 - José Natividad González Parás was born. Mexican politician.
• 1949 - Friedrich Bergius dies (b. 11 Oct 1884). German chemist, who invented converting coal dust and hydrogen directly into gasoline and lubricating oils without isolating intermediate products, (Stuttgart, 25 June 1921). For his work in developing the chemical high pressure hydrogenation method necessary for this process he shared the 1931 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Carl Bosch of Germany.
• 1950 - The invention of the phototransistor was announced. This was a transistor operated by light rather than electric current, invented by Dr. John Northrup Shive of the Bell Telephonke Laboratories at Murray Hill, N.J. .
• 1950 - Robbie Coltrane was born. Scottish actor and comedian.
• 1950 - Léon Blum dies (b. 1872). French prime minister.
• 1951 - Yves Séguin was born. Quebec politician.
• 1951 - Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.
• 1952 - Peter Knights was born. Australian footballer and coach.
• 1953 - Einstein announced his revised unified field theory.
• 1953 - Cydney Bernard was born. American film producer.
• 1954 - Yonge Street subway line opens in Toronto. It is the first subway in Canada.
• 1954 - Nascimento de Rosi Campos (Rosângela Martins Campos), atriz brasileira, em Bragança Paulista-SP.
• 1954 - Fritz Wolfgang London dies (b. 7 Mar 1900). German-American physicist who, with Walter Heitler, devised the first quantum mechanical treatment of the hydrogen molecule, while working with Schrödinger at the University of Zurich.
• 1955 - 27th Academy Awardst at The RKO Pantages Theater in Los Angeles : "On the Waterfront",(Sam Spiegel, producer) won Oscars for Best Picture, Director (Elia Kazan), Actor (Marlon Brando), Supporting Actress (Eva Marie Saint) and more (art direction, cinematography, film editing, writing). Grace Kelly was voted Best Actress for "The Country Girl" . Best Supporting Actor was Edmond O’Brien for "The Barefoot Contessa" and Best Music/Song Oscars went to Jule Styne (music), Sammy Cahn (lyrics) for "Three Coins in the Fountain" from the flick of the same name.
• 1955 - Randy VanWarmer was born (d. 2004). American singer, guitarist and songwriter
• 1956 - Bill Butler was born. Scottish politician.
• 1957 - Paul Reiser was born. American actor.
• 1958 - Israeli and Syrian troops clash over Israeli reclamation work near the Lake Hula area.
• 1958 - Maurice LaMarche was born. Canadian voice actor.
• 1959 - Peter Ellis was born. New Zealander convicted child abuser.
• 1959 - Sabine Meyer was born. German clarinetist.
• 1959 - Daniil Andreev dies (b. 1906). Russian writer and mystic.
• 1961 - The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed at New York.
• 1961 - Doug Wickenheiser was born (d. 1999). Canadian ice hockey player.
• 1962 - Jack Paar films his last episode of The Tonight Show.
• 1962 - Bil Dwyer was born. American actor.
• 1962 - MC Hammer was born. America rap musician.
• 1963 - Eli-Eri Moura was born. Brazilian composer, conductor and music theorist.
• 1964 - Merv Griffin's game show Jeopardy! makes its debut on television. Art Fleming hosts the first version, on NBC.
• 1964 - Tracy Chapman was born. Grammy Award-winning folk, pop singer-songwriter Singer (Freedom Now, I Got a Fast Car).
• 1964 - Ian Ziering was born. American actor.
• 1964 - Dave Ellett was born. Canadian hockey player.
• 1964 - Vlado Bozinovski was born. Australian former footballer.
• 1964 - Nascimento de Vera Zimmermmann (Vera Alice Santos Zimmermann), atriz brasileira, em Santos-SP.
• 1965 - Vietnam War: A car bomb explodes in front of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, killing 22 and wounding 183 others.
• 1965 - Piers Morgan was born. British journalist.
• 1965 - Philip Showalter Hench dies (b. 28 Feb 1896). American physician who was one of the leaders in American rheumatology. He shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1950(with Edward C. Kendall and Tadeus Reichstein of Switzerland) for discoveries relating to the hormones of the adrenal cortex, their structure and biological effects.
• 1966 - Joey Castillo was born. American drummer (Queens of the Stone Age).
• 1966 - Efstratios Grivas was born. Greek chess grandmaster and author.
• 1966 - Maxfield Parrish dies (b. 1870). American artist.
• 1966 - Newbold Morris dies (b. 1902). American politician.
• 1967 - Christopher Bowman was born (d. 2008). American figure skater.
• 1967 - Hayashibara Megumi was born. Japanese voice actress and singer
• 1967 - Jean Toomer dies (b. 1894). American writer.
• 1968 - General Ludvik Svoboda was elected president of Czechoslovakia.
• 1968 - Céline Dion was in Québec. Canadian singer (I'm Your Woman).
• 1968 - Donna D'Errico was born. Actress (Baywatch) model, playmate (September 1995).
• 1968 - Bobby Driscoll dies (b. 1937). American actor.
• 1970 - Secretariat was born (d. 1989). Triple Crown -winning race horse.
• 1970 - Heinrich Brüning dies (b. 1885). Chancellor of Germany.
• 1971 - Adam Bennett was born. Canadian ice hockey player.
• 1971 - Mari Holden was born. American cycle racer.
• 1971 - Mark Consuelos was born. American actor.
• 1972 - Vietnam War: The Eastertide Offensive begins after North Vietnamese forces cross into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) of South Vietnam.
• 1972 - Northern Ireland's provincial government and parliament were suspended and Britain imposed direct rule from London for one year.
• 1972 - Mili Avital was born. Israeli-American actress.
• 1972 - Karel Poborský was born. Czeck footballer.
• 1972 - Gabriel Heatter dies (b. 1890). American radio commentator.
• 1973 - Ellsworth Bunker resigned as U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, and was succeeded by Graham A. Martin.
• 1973 - Jan Koller was born. Czech footballer.
• 1973 - Matthew Pritchard was born. Welsh Stuntman.
• 1974 - The Ramones play their first ever gig as a trio at CBGB's in New York City.
• 1975 - Da Nang fell as 100,000 South Vietnamese soldiers surrender after being abandoned by their commanding officers. As the North Vietnamese forces moved toward Saigon, desperate South Vietnamese soldiers mobbed rescue jets. General Vo Nguyen Giap masterminded the North Vietnamese victory.
• 1975 - Bahar Soomekh was born. American actress.
• 1976 - España: se emplea el vasco en el Ayuntamiento de San Sebastián, después de 40 años.
• 1976 - Mark McClelland was born. Northern Irish musician (Degrassi).
• 1976 - Obadele Thompson was born. Barbadian athlete.
• 1976 - Ty Conklin was born. American ice hockey player.
• 1977 - Trans World Airlines v. Hardison: The Supreme Court decided 7-2 that TWA went far enough in attempting to accommodate Hardison's religious beliefs and that the company was justified in firing him when he refused to comply with his work assignments.
• 1977 - Abdel Halim Hafez dies (b. 1929). Egyptian singer and actor.
• 1977 - Sergey Ilyushin dies (b. 1894). Russian aerospace engineer.
• 1978 - Chris Paterson was born. Scottish rugby player.
• 1978 - Fabian Basabe was born. American reality series star.
• 1979 - Airey Neave, a British politician, is killed by a car bomb as he exits the Palace of Westminster. The Irish National Liberation Army claims responsibility.
• 1979 - Norah Jones was born. American singer and pianist.
• 1979 - Simon Webbe was born. English singer.
• 1979 - José María Velasco Ibarra dies. Equatorian politic.
• 1980 - Se constituye en la ciudad de Guernica el Parlamento Vasco.
• 1980 - Paul Wall was born. American rapper.
• 1980 - Ricardo Osorio was born. Mexican footballer.
• 1980 - Yalin was born. Turkish singer and songwriter.
• 1981 - President Ronald Reagan is shot in the chest outside a Washington, D.C. hotel by John Hinckley, Jr., family friend of the Vice President.
• 1981 - DeWitt Wallace dies (b. 1889). American publisher.
• 1982 - Space Shuttle program: STS-3 Mission completed with the landing of Columbia at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.
• 1982 - Pitbull was born. American latin rapper.
• 1982 - Jason Dohring was born. American actor.
• 1983 - The 5-day workweek and 8-hour day are officially established in Greece.
• 1983 - Davis Romero was born. Panamanian baseball player.
• 1983 - Hebe Tian was born. Taiwanese singer (S.H.E).
• 1983 - Jérémie Aliadière was born. French footballer.
• 1983 - Scott Moffatt was born. Canadian singer and songwriter.
• 1983 - Zach Gowen was born. American professional wrestler.
• 1984 - Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School v. Grumet: The Supreme Court found that a school district boundary was unconstitutionally drawn to deliberately aid a particular religious group.
• 1984 - Anna Nalick was born. American singer and songwriter.
• 1984 - Karl Rahner dies (b. 1904). German theologian.
• 1984 - Mario Ancic was born. Croatian tennis player.
• 1984 - Samantha Stosur was born. Australian tennis player.
• 1985 - Harold Peary dies (b. 1908). American actor and singer.
• 1986 - Una mujer sometida en Londres a fecundación "in vitro", Linda Jacobsen, da a luz quintillizos.
• 1986 - Beni Arashiro was born. Japanese singer.
• 1986 - Sergio Ramos was born. Spanish footballer.
• 1986 - James Cagney dies at his Stanfordville NY farm (b. 1899); American Academy Award actor (Public Enemy, Angels With Dirty Faces, Yankee Doodle Dandy ...).
• 1987 - 59th Academy Awards Cerimony took place at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Los Angeles Music Center. Chevy Chase, Goldie Hawn and Paul Hogan ("Crocodile Dundee") hosted. : Best Picture "Platoon" (Arnold Kopelson, producer); Best Director: Oliver Stone for "Platoon"; Best Actor : Paul Newman ( for "The Color of Money"); Best Actress: Marlee Matlin for "Children of a Lesser God"; Best Supporting Actor: Michael Caine for "Hannah and Her Sisters"; Best Supporting Actress: Dianne Wiest for "Hannah and Her Sisters" and Best Music/Song: Giorgio Moroder (music), Tom Whitlock (lyrics) for "Take My Breath Away" from "Top Gun". And HBO (Home Box Office) earned its first Oscar as "Down and Out in America" tied for Best Documentary feature.
• 1987 - Vincent Van Gogh's painting "Sunflowers" is bought for $39.85 million.
• 1988 - Stephen McLeod Blythe was born. Scottish singer (The RipOffs).
• 1988 - Edgar Faure dies (b. 1908). French politician.
• 1989 - Sreya was born. Indian actress.
• 1992 - Dimite el Gobierno brasileño por denuncias de corrupción del presidente, Fernando Collor.
• 1992 - 64th Academy Awards. Billy Crystal was host. "The Silence of the Lambs" won five Oscars, including Best Picture, the Best Director Oscar for Jonathan Demme, the Best Actor for Anthony Hopkins and the Best Actress for Jodie Foster. Jack Palance won Best Supporting Actor for playing Curly in "City Slickers" and the Best Supporting Actress Oscar was claimed by Mercedes Ruehl for "The Fisher King".
• 1992 - Incorporação no Exército das primeiras mulheres.
• 1992 - Manolis Andronikos dies (b. 23 Oct 1919). Greek archaeologist who discovered ancient royal tombs in northern Greece, possibly belonging to the Macedonian King Philip II, the father of Alexander III the Great.
• 1993 - In Sarajevo, two Serb militiamen were sentenced to death for war crimes committed in Bosnia.
• 1993 - Jamaican premier Percival Patterson wins parliamentary election.
• 1994 - Serbs and Croats signed a cease-fire to end their war in Croatia while Bosnian Muslims and Serbs continued to fight each other.
• 1995 - Pope John Paul II issued the 11th encyclical of his papacy in which he condemned abortion and euthanasia as crimes that no human laws could legitimize.
• 1997 - Television channel Five (TV) is launched by the Spice Girls as the fifth British terrestrial TV channel.
• 1997 - José Rovirosa dies. Mexican film director and producer.
• 1997 - Steve Elkington wins Golf's Players Championship.
• 1998 - Armenia: Prime Minister Robert Kocharian won the runoff vote with 59%.
• 1998 - In Britain the Rolls-Royce company of Vickers PLC was sold to BMW of Germany for $570 million.
• 1998 - El tenista chileno Marcelo Ríos se ubica primero en la clasificación de la ATP.
• 1999 - Michel Etcheverry dies (b. 16 Dec 1919). French actor.
• 1999 - Gary Morton dies (b. 1924). American film and television producer.
• 1999 - A jury in Portland, Oregon orders Phillip Morris to pay $81,000,000 to the family of a man who died of lung cancer after smoking Marlboros for four decades.
• 2001 - Tribes 2 is released for the PC.
• 2001 - David Waters is sentenced for the murders of Madalyn Murray O'Hair, her son Jon Garth, and her granddaughter Robin O'Hair.
• 2002 - A suicide bomber, Mohammad Salahat (22), struck in Tel Aviv and 32 people were injured. Israeli troops sealed Arafat in his Ramallah compound. A Hamas suicide bomber killed 15 Israelis at the Matza restaurant in Haifa.
• 2002 - The Angola government and Unita signed a preliminary cease-fire agreement. The deal carved up the nation’s diamond mines among officials in Luanda and the rebels.
• 2002 - Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon dies (b. 1900). Queen Mother of the United Kingdom.
• 2002 - Søren Nystrøm Rasted dies (b. 1969). Danish Musician, husband of Lene.
• 2003 - A law banning cigarette smoking in all places of employment, including restaurants and bars, went into effect in New York City.
• 2003 - In Netanya, Israel, Rami Ghanem (20), a Palestinian suicide bomber, exploded near the London Café and at least 30 people were injured. The Islamic Jihad called the attack "Palestine's gift to the heroic people of Iraq".
• 2003 - Rudolf Walter Leonhardt dies. German journalist.
• 2003 - Valentin Pavlov dies (b. 1937). Prime minister of the Soviet Union.
• 2003 - Michael Jeter dies (b. 1952). American actor.
• 2004 - Hubert Gregg dies (b. 1914). British broadcaster.
• 2004 - Michael King dies (b. 1945). New Zealand historian.
• 2004 - Timi Yuro dies (b. 1940). American singer.
• 2004 - Alistair Cooke dies (b. 1908). English-born journalist, television host and author. His books included "Alistair Cooke's America" (1972).
• 2004 - A boat carrying 107 people sank during the crossing from Somalia to Yemen and only four other people, including two crew members, were rescued.
• 2005 - Robert Creeley dies in Odessa (b. 1926). American poet.
• 2005 - Milton Green dies (b. 1913). American athlete.
• 2005 - Fred Korematsu dies (b. 1919). American civil rights activist.
• 2005 - O. V. Vijayan dies (b. 1930). Indian author and cartoonist.
• 2005 - Derrick Plourde dies (b. 1971). American punk drummer.
• 2006 - Ugadi: Hindu New Years Day. Many believe that Brahma started the creation on this day.
• 2006 - Marcos Pontes is the first Brazilian astronaut in space.
• 2006 - UK Terrorism Act 2006 becomes law.
• 2006 - Ana Montenegro dies (b. 1915). Braziilian journalist and poet.
• 2006 - Red Hickey dies (b. 1917). American football coach.
• 2008 - David Leslie dies (b. 1953). Touring Car Driver.
• 2008 - Dith Pran dies (b. 1942). Cambodjan photojournalist, the subject of the Academy Award-winning film The Killing Fields.
  
• 2008 - Richard Lloyd dies (b. 1945). Racing Car Driver.
• Roman Empire - Festival devoted to Salus.
• United States - National Doctors' Day.
• Land Day.
• Spiritual Baptist/Shouter Liberation Day - Public holiday in Trinidad and Tobago.