1350: While besieging Gibraltar, Alfonso XI of Castile died of the Black Death.
1794: The U.S. Congress and President Washington authorized the creation of the U.S. Navy.
1802: The Treaty of Amiens was signed ending the French Revolutionary War.
1814: U.S. troops under Gen. Andrew Jackson defeated the Creek Indians at Horshoe Bend in Northern Alabama.
1836: In Goliad, TX, about 350 Texan prisoners, including their commander James Fannin, were executed under orders from Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna. An estimated 30 Texans escaped execution.
1836: The first Mormon temple was dedicated in Kirtland, OH.
1841: The first steam fire engine was tested in New York City.
1860: The corkscrew was patented by M.L. Byrn.
1866: U.S. President Andrew Johnson vetoed the civil rights bill, which later became the 14th amendment.
1884: The first long-distance telephone call was made from Boston to New York.
1899: The first international radio transmission between England and France was achieved by the Italian inventor G. Marconi.
1900: The London Parliament passed the War Loan Act that gave 35 million pounds to the Boer War cause in South Africa.
1900: The Russian army mobilized 250,000 troops for active duty.
1901: Filipino rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo was captured by the U.S.
1904: Mary Jarris "Mother" Jones was ordered by Colorado state authorities to leave the state. She was accused of stirring up striking coal miners.
1907: French troops occupied Oudja, Morocco, as a punitive action for the murder of French Dr. Muchamp.
1912: The first cherry blossom trees were planted in Washington, DC. The trees were a gift from Japan.
1917: The Seattle Metropolitans, of the Pacific Coast League of Canada, defeated the Montreal Canadiens and became the first U.S. hockey team to win the Stanley Cup.
1931: Actor Charlie Chaplin received France’s Legion of Honor decoration.
1933: About 55,000 people staged a protest against Hitler in New York City.
1933: In the U.S., the Farm Credit Administration was authorized.
1941: Tokeo Yoshikawa arrived in Oahu, HI, and began spying for Japan on the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor.
1942: The British raided the Nazi submarine base at St. Nazaire, France.
1944: One-thousand Jews left Drancy, France, for the Auschwitz concentration camp.
1944: Thousands of Jews were murdered in Kaunas, Lithuania.
1946: Four-month long strikes at both General Electric and General Motors ended with a wage increase.
1952: The U.S. Eighth Army reached the 38th parallel in Korea, the original dividing line between the two Koreas.
1955: Steve McQueen made his network TV debut on "Goodyear Playhouse."
1958: Nikita Khrushchev became the chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers in addition to First Secretary of the Communist Party.
1958: The U.S. announced a plan to explore space near the moon.
1964: An earthquake in Alaska killed 114 people and registered 8.4 on the Richter Scale.
1968: Yuri Gagarin, the first man to orbit the earth, died in a plane crash.
1976: Washington, DC, opened its subway system.
1977: About 570 people died when a KLM 747 and a Pan Am 747 collided with each other on a foggy runway on the Canary Island of Tenerife.
1985: Billy Dee Williams received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1988: The U.S. Senate ratified the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
1989: The U.S. anti-missile satellite failed the first test in space.
1992: Police in Philadelphia, PA, arrested a man with AIDS on charges that he may have infected several hundred teenage boys with HIV through sexual relations.
1993: In China, Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin was appointed President.
1995: Maurizo Gucci was shot to death outside his office in Milan.
1997: Russian workers, nearly 2 million, held a nationwide strike to protest unpaid wages.
1997: In Australia, Governor-General William Deane signed a bill to overturn a 1996 Northern Territory act to legalize assisted suicides. The 1996 act was the first in the world to permit assisted suicides.
1997: Dexter King met with James Earl Ray. Ray was in prison for the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Dexter King believes that Ray had nothing to do with the assassination.
1998: In the U.S., the FDA approved the prescription drug Viagra. It was the first pill for male impotence.
1998: Top civilian aircraft makers in France, Spain, Germany and Britain agreed to create single European aerospace and defense company.
1998: Ax-wielders killed at least 52 people in southern Algeria, most of which were toddlers.
2002: Rodney Dangerfield received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
2004: NASA successfully launched an unpiloted X-43A jet that hit Mach 7 (about 5,000 mph).
2006: Zacarias Moussaoui testified in his federal trail that he was the supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on September 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House.
2007: NFL owners voted to make instant replay a permanent officiating tool.
