Events

• 1431 - Joan of Arc is handed over to the Bishop Pierre Cauchon.
• 1496 - Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine.
• 1521 - Pope Leo X excommunicates Martin Luther in the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.
• 1749 - Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont.
• 1777 - American general George Washington defeats British general Charles Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.
• 1815 - Austria, the United Kingdom, and France form a secret defensive alliance treaty against Prussia and Russia.
• 1823 - Stephen F. Austin receives a grant of land in Texas from the government of Mexico.
• 1834 - The government of Mexico imprisons Stephen F. Austin in Mexico City.
• 1848 - Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first president of the independent African Republic of Liberia.
• 1861 - American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the United States.
• 1868 - Meiji Restoration in Japan: The Tokugawa shogunate is abolished; agents of Satsuma and Chōshū seize power.
• 1870 - The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins.
• 1888 - The refracting telescope at the Lick Observatory, measuring 91 cm in diameter, is used for the first time. It was the largest telescope in the world at the time.
• 1899 - The first known use of the word automobile, was seen in an editorial in The New York Times.
• 1921 - Turkey makes peace with Armenia.
• 1924 - English explorer Howard Carter discovers the sarcophagus of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt.
• 1925 - Benito Mussolini announces he's taking dictatorial powers over Italy.
• 1932 - Martial law is declared in Honduras to stop revolt by banana workers fired by United Fruit.
• 1933 - Minnie D. Craig becomes the first female elected as Speaker of the North Dakota House of Representatives, the first female to hold a Speaker position anywhere in the United States.
• 1938 - The March of Dimes is established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• 1944 - World War II: Top Ace Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington is shot down in his Corsair by Captain Masajiro Kawato flying a Zero.
• 1945 - World War II: Admiral Chester W Nimitz is placed in command of all U.S. Naval forces in preparation for planned assaults against Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Japan.
• 1947 - Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time.
• 1953 - Frances Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, become the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress.
• 1956 - A fire damages the top part of the Eiffel Tower.
• 1957 - The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.
• 1958 - The West Indies Federation is formed.
• 1959 - Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. State.
• 1961 - The United States severs diplomatic relations with Cuba.
• 1961 - The SL-1, a government-run reactor near Idaho Falls, Idaho, leaks radiation, killing three workers.
• 1962 - Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro.
• 1977 - Apple Computer is incorporated.
• 1988 - Margaret Thatcher becomes the longest-serving British Prime Minister in the 20th Century.
• 1990 - Former leader of Panama Manuel Noriega surrenders to American forces.
• 1993 - In Moscow, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
• 1994 - An Aeroflot Tupolev TU-154 crashes and explodes after takeoff from Irkutsk, Russia, killing 125 people including one on the ground.
• 1997 - The People's Republic of China announces it'll spend $27.7 billion USD to fight erosion and pollution in the Yangtze and Yellow river valleys.
• 1999 - The Mars Polar Lander was launched.
• 1999 - Israel detains, and later expels, 14 members of Concerned Christians.
• 2004 - Flight 604, a Boeing 737 owned by Flash Airlines, an Egyptian airliner, plunges into the Red Sea, killing all 148 people on board.
• 2007 - National Express has its worst ever coach crash just outside Heathrow Airport.

Births