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# 1124 - David I becomes King of Scots.
# 1296 - Battle of Dunbar: The Scots are defeated by Edward I of England.
# 1509 - Pope Julius II places the Italian state of Venice under interdict.
# 1521 - Battle of Mactan: Explorer Ferdinand Magellan is killed by natives in the Philippines led by chief Lapu-Lapu.
# 1578 - Duel of the Mignons claims the lives of two favourites of Henry III of France and two favorites of Henry I, Duke of Guise.
# 1650 - The Battle of Carbisdale: A Royalist army invades mainland Scotland from Orkney Island but is defeated by a Covenanter army.
# 1667 - The blind and impoverished John Milton sells the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10.
# 1749 - First performance of Handel's Fireworks Music in Green Park, London.
# 1773 - The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade.
# 1777 - American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Ridgefield: A British invasion force engages and defeats Continental Army regulars and militia irregulars at Ridgefield, Connecticut.
# 1805 - First Barbary War: United States Marines and Berbers attack the Tripolitan city of Derna (The "shores of Tripoli" part of the Marines' hymn).
# 1810 - Beethoven composes his famous piano piece, Für Elise.
# 1813 - War of 1812: United States troops capture the capital of Upper Canada, York (present day Toronto, Canada).
# 1840 - Foundation stone for new Palace of Westminster, London, is laid by wife of Sir Charles Barry.
# 1861 - President of the United States Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus.
# 1865 - The steamboat SS Sultana, carrying 2,400 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,700, most of whom were Union survivors of the Andersonville and Cahaba Prisons.
# 1959 - The last Canadian missionary leaves the People's Republic of China.
# 1960 - Togo gains independence from French-administered UN trusteeship.
# 1961 - Sierra Leone is granted its independence from the United Kingdom, with Milton Margai as the first Prime Minister.
# 1972 - Constructive Vote of No Confidence against German Chancellor Willy Brandt fails under obscure circumstances.
# 1974 - 10,000 march in Washington, D.C., calling for the impeachment of US President Richard Nixon
# 1977 - 28 people are killed in the Guatemala City air disaster.
# 1978 - Former United States President Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman is released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months for Watergate-related crimes.
# 1981 - Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse.
# 1987 - The U.S. Department of Justice bars the Austrian President Kurt Waldheim from entering the United States, saying he had aided in the deportation and execution of thousands of Jews and others as a German Army officer during World War II.
# 1992 - The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising Serbia and Montenegro, is proclaimed.
# 1992 - Betty Boothroyd becomes the first woman to be elected Speaker of the British House of Commons in its 700-year history.
# 1992 - Russia and 12 other former Soviet republics become members of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
# 1993 - All members of the Zambia national football team lose their lives in a plane crash off Libreville, Gabon in route to Dakar, Senegal to play a 1994 FIFA World Cup qualifying match against Senegal.
# 1994 - South African general election, 1994: The first democratic general election in South Africa, in which black citizens could vote.
# 1996 - The 1996 Lebanon war ends.
# 2002 - The last successful telemetry from the NASA space probe Pioneer 10.
# 2005 - The Superjumbo jet aircraft Airbus A380 makes its first flight from Toulouse, France.
# 2006 - Construction begins on the Freedom Tower for the new World Trade Center in New York City.
# 2007 - Estonian authorities remove the Bronze Soldier, a Soviet Red Army war memorial in Tallinn, amid political controversy with Russia.

May 2nd

# 1536 - Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, is arrested and imprisoned on false charges of adultery, incest, treason and witchcraft.
# 1559 - John Knox returns from exile to Scotland to become the leader of the beginning Scottish Reformation.
# 1568 - Mary I of Scotland escapes from Loch Leven Castle.
# 1670 - King Charles II of England grants a permanent charter to the Hudson's Bay Company to open up the fur trade in North America.
# 1808 - Outbreak of the Peninsular War: The people of Madrid rise up in rebellion against French occupation. Francisco de Goya later memorializes this event in his painting The Second of May 1808.
# 1829 - After anchoring nearby, Captain Charles Fremantle of the HMS Challenger, declares the Swan River Colony in Australia.
# 1863 - American Civil War: Stonewall Jackson is wounded by friendly fire while returning to camp after reconnoitering during the Battle of Chancellorsville. He succumbs to pneumonia eight days later.
# 1866 - Peruvian defenders fight off Spanish fleet at the Battle of Callao.
# 1876 - The April Uprising breaks out in Bulgaria.
# 1885 - Cree and Assiniboine warriors win the Battle of Cut Knife, their largest victory over Canadian forces during the North-West Rebellion.
# 1885 - The Congo Free State is established by King Léopold II of Belgium.
# 1889 - Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia, signs a treaty of amity with Italy, which gives Italy control over Eritrea.
# 1900 - Oscar II, King of Sweden, declares support for the United Kingdom at the time of the Second Boer War.
# 1918 - General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware.
# 1920 - The first game of the Negro National League baseball is played in Indianapolis, Indiana.
# 1933 - Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler bans trade unions.
# 1945 - World War II: Fall of Berlin: The Soviet Union announces the capture of Berlin and Soviet soldiers hoist their red flag over the Reichstag building. German forces surrender in Italy. German forces surrender to the New Zealand Army in Trieste.
# 1946 - The "Battle of Alcatraz" takes place, killing two guards and three inmates.
# 1952 - The world's first ever jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet 1 makes its maiden flight, from London to Johannesburg.
# 1964 - Vietnam War: An explosion sinks the USS Card while docked at Saigon. Viet Cong forces are suspected of placing a bomb on the ship.
# 1969 - The British ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2 departs on her maiden voyage to New York City.
# 1982 - Falklands War: The British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano.
# 1995 - During the Croatian War of Independence, Serb forces fire cluster bombs at Zagreb, killing 7 and wounding over 175 civilians.
# 1998 - The European Central Bank is founded in Brussels in order to define and execute the European Union's monetary policy.
# 2000 - President Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the United States military.
# 2000 - Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of the Netherlands unveils the Man With Two Hats monument in Apeldoorn and the other in Ottawa on May 11, 2000. Symbolically linking both Netherlands and Canada for their assistance throughout World War II.
# 2002 - Marad massacre of eight Hindus near Palakkad in Kerala.
# 2004 - Yelwa massacre of more than 630 nomad Muslims by Christians in Nigeria.
# 2008 - Cyclone Nargis makes landfall in Myanmar killing over 130,000 people and leaving millions of people homeless.

Deaths:
1519 - Leonardo da Vinci, Italian inventor and painter (b. 1452)


Today is also Buddha's Birthday

On this day in cricket

Events for 18th June

* 618 - Li Yuan becomes Emperor Gaozu of Tang, initiating three centuries of Tang Dynasty rule over China.
* 1155 Frederick I, Barbarossa, is crowned Holy Roman Emperor
* 1178 - Five Canterbury monks see what was possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed. It is believed that the current oscillations of the moon's distance from the earth (on the order of metres) are a result of this collision.
* 1264 - The Parliament of Ireland meets at Castledermot in County Kildare, the first definitively known meeting of this Irish legislature.
* 1429 - French forces under the leadership of Joan of Arc defeat the main English army under Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of Patay. This turns the tide of the Hundred Years' War.
* 1757 - Battle of Kolín between Prussian Forces under Frederick the Great of Prussia and an Austrian Army under the command of Field Marshal Count Leopold Joseph von Daun in the Seven Year's War.
* 1767 - Samuel Wallis, an English sea captain, sights Tahiti and is considered the first European to reach the island.
* 1778 - American Revolutionary War: British troops abandon Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
* 1812 - War of 1812: The U.S. Congress declares war on the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
* 1815 - Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Waterloo leads to Napoleon Bonaparte abdicating the throne of France for the second and last time.
* 1830 - French invasion of Algeria
* 1858 - Charles Darwin receives a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that includes nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin's own. This prompts Darwin to publish his theory.
* 1873 - Susan B. Anthony is fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election.
* 1940 - "Finest Hour" speech by Winston Churchill.
* 1945 - William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) is charged with treason.
* 1953 - The Republic of Egypt is declared and the monarchy is abolished.
* 1953 - A United States Air Force C-124 crashes and burns near Tokyo, Japan killing 129.
* 1954 - Pierre Mendès-France becomes Prime Minister of France.
* 1959 - Governor of Louisiana Earl K. Long is committed to a state mental hospital; he responds by having the hospital's director fired and replaced with a crony who proceeds to proclaim him perfectly sane.
* 1965 - Vietnam War: The United States uses B-52 bombers to attack National Liberation Front guerrilla fighters in South Vietnam.
* 1972 - Staines air disaster - 118 are killed when a plane crashes 2 minutes after take off from London Heathrow Airport.
* 1979 - SALT II is signed by the United States and the Soviet Union.
* 1981 - The AIDS epidemic is formally recognized by medical professionals in San Francisco, California.
* 1983 - Space Shuttle program: STS-7, Astronaut Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.
* 1984 - A major clash between about 5,000 police and a similar number of miners takes place at Orgreave, South Yorkshire, during the 1984-1985 UK miners' strike
* 1996 - Ted Kaczynski, suspected of being the Unabomber, is indicted on ten criminal counts.