Events

• 630 - Byzantine emperor Heraclius restores the True Cross to Jerusalem.
• 717 - Battle of Vincy between Charles Martel and Ragenfrid.
• 1188 - Accession to the throne of Japan by emperor Antoku.
• 1413 - Henry V becomes King of England.
• 1556 - In Oxford, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer is burned at the stake.
• 1788 - A fire in New Orleans leaves most of the town in ruins.
• 1800 - With the church leadership driven out of Rome during an armed conflict, Pius VII is crowned Pope in Venice with a temporary papal tiara made of papier-mâché.
• 1801 - The Battle of Alexandria is fought between British and French forces near the ruins of Nicopolis in Egypt.
• 1804 - Code Napoléon is adopted as French civil law.
• 1821 - First revolutionary act in Monastery of Agia Lavra, Kalavryta, Greek War of Independence.
• 1844 - The Bahá'í calendar begins. This is the first day of the first year of the Bahá'í calendar. It is annually celebrated by members of the Bahá'í Faith as the Bahá'í New Year or Náw-Rúz.
• 1844 - The original date predicted by William Miller for the return of Christ.
• 1857 - An earthquake in Tokyo, Japan kills over 100,000.
• 1859 - Zoological Society of Philadelphia, 1st in US, incorporated
• 1871 - Otto von Bismarck is appointed Chancellor of the German Empire.
• 1871 - Journalist Henry Morton Stanley begins his trek to find the missionary and explorer David Livingstone.
• 1913 - Over 360 are killed and 20,000 homes destroyed in the Great Dayton Flood in Dayton, Ohio.
• 1918 - World War I: Second Battle of the Somme begins.
• 1928 - Charles Lindbergh is presented the Medal of Honor for his first trans-Atlantic flight.
• 1933 - Construction of Dachau, the first Nazi Germany concentration camp, is completed.
• 1935 - Shah Reza Pahlavi formally asks the international community to call Persia by its native name, Iran, which means 'Land of the Aryans'.
• 1937 - Ponce Massacre: 18 people and a 7-yr-old girl in Ponce, Puerto Rico are gunned down by a police squad acting under orders of US-appointed PR Governor, Blanton C. Winship.
• 1943 - Massacre of the town of Kalavryta, Greece by German Nazi troops.
• 1945 - World War II: British troops liberate Mandalay, Burma.
• 1952 - Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio.
• 1960 - Apartheid: Massacre in Sharpeville, South Africa: Police open fire on a group of unarmed black South African demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding 180.
• 1963 - Alcatraz, a federal penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay, closes.
• 1964 - In Copenhagen, Denmark, Gigliola Cinquetti wins the ninth Eurovision Song Contest for Italy singing "Non ho l'età" ("I'm not old enough").
• 1965 - Ranger program: NASA launches Ranger 9 which is the last in a series of unmanned lunar space probes.
• 1965 - Martin Luther King Jr leads 3,200 people on the start of the third and finally successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
• 1968 - Battle of Karameh in Jordan between Israeli Defense Forces and Fatah.
• 1970 - The first Earth Day proclamation is issued by San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto.
• 1970 - Vinko Bogataj crashes during a ski-jumping championship in Germany; his image becomes that of the "agony of defeat guy" in the opening credits of ABC's Wide World of Sports.
• 1980 - US President Jimmy Carter announces a United States boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.
• 1980 - On the season finale of the soap opera Dallas, the infamous character J.R. Ewing is shot by an unseen assailant, leading to the catchphrase "Who Shot JR?"
• 1985 - Canadian paraplegic athlete and humanitarian Rick Hansen begins his circumnavigation of the globe in a wheelchair in the name of spinal cord injury medical research.
• 1989 - Sports Illustrated reports allegations tying baseball player Pete Rose to baseball gambling.
• 1990 - Namibia becomes independent after 75 years of South African rule.
• 1998 - Good Friday Agreement signed in Northern Ireland.
• 1999 - Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones become the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a hot air balloon.
• 2002 - In Pakistan, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh along with three other suspects are charged with murder for their part in the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
• 2002 - British schoolgirl Amanda Dowler is abducted in broad daylight on her way home from Heathside School in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.
• 2004 - In Malaysia, the 11^th Federal and State elections are held, returning the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional to power with an increased majority.
• 2006 - Immigrant workers constructing the Burj Dubayy in Dubai, The United Arab Emirates and a new terminal of Dubai International Airport join together and riot, causing $1M in damage.

Births