Event-a-Day

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1191 – Richard I of England marries Berengaria of Navarre who is crowned Queen consort of England the same day.

1797 – War of the First Coalition: Napoleon I of France conquers Venice.

1821 – The first major battle of the Greek War of Independence against the Turks is fought in Valtetsi.

1926 – The Italian-built airship Norge becomes the first vessel to fly over the North Pole.

1932 – Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh, Charles Jr., is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey, just a few miles from the Lindberghs' home.

1937 – The Duke and Duchess of York are crowned as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Westminster Abbey.

1941 – Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin.

1949 – The Soviet Union lifts its blockade of Berlin. The western occupying powers approve the Basic Law for the new German state: the Federal Republic of Germany.

1965 – The Soviet spacecraft Luna 5 crashes on the Moon.

1515 – Mary Tudor, Queen of France and Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk are officially married at Greenwich.

1568 – Battle of Langside: The forces of Mary, Queen of Scots, are defeated by a confederacy of Scottish Protestants under James Stewart, Earl of Moray, her half-brother.

1787 – Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth, England, with eleven ships full of convicts (the "First Fleet") to establish a penal colony in Australia.

1861 – American Civil War: Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom issues a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognizes the breakaway states as having belligerent rights. The Great Comet of 1861 is discovered by John Tebbutt of Windsor, New South Wales, Australia. Pakistan's (then a part of British India) first railway line opens, from Karachi to Kotri.

1862 – The USS Planter, a steamer and gunship, steals through Confederate lines and is passed to the Union, by a southern slave, Robert Smalls, who later was officially appointed as captain, becoming the first black man to command a United States ship.

1912 – The Royal Flying Corps, the forerunner of the Royal Air Force, is established in the United Kingdom.

1940 – World War II: Germany's conquest of France begins as the German army crosses the Meuse. Winston Churchill makes his "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" speech to the House of Commons.

1943 – World War II: German Afrika Korps and Italian troops in North Africa surrender to Allied forces.

1950 – The first round of the Formula One World Championship is held at Silverstone.

1958 – Ben Carlin becomes the first (and only) person to circumnavigate the world by amphibious vehicle, having travelled over 17,000 kilometres (11,000 mi) by sea and 62,000 kilometres (39,000 mi) by land during a ten-year journey.

1264 – Battle of Lewes: Henry III of England is captured and forced to sign the Mise of Lewes, making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England.

1610 – Henry IV of France is assassinated, bringing Louis XIII to the throne.

1643 – Four-year-old Louis XIV becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Louis XIII.

1787 – In Philadelphia, delegates convene a Constitutional Convention to write a new Constitution for the United States; George Washington presides.

1796 – Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox inoculation.

1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois and begins its historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River.

1961 – Civil Rights Movement: The Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama, and the civil rights protesters are beaten by an angry mob.

1973 – Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched.

1536 – Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, stands trial in London on charges of treason, adultery and incest; she is condemned to death by a specially-selected jury.

1567 – Mary, Queen of Scots marries James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, her third husband.

1730 – Robert Walpole effectively became the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1776 – American Revolution: The Fifth Virginia Convention instructs its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States Declaration of Independence.

1792 – War of the First Coalition: France declares war on Kingdom of Sardinia.

1793 – Diego Marín Aguilera flies a glider for "about 360 meters", at a height of 5–6 meters, during one of the first attempted manned flights.

1796 – War of the First Coalition: Napoleon enters Milan in triumph.

1800 – King George III of the United Kingdom survives an assassination attempt by James Hadfield, who is later acquitted by reason of insanity.

1862 – President Abraham Lincoln signs a bill into law creating the United States Bureau of Agriculture. It is later renamed the United States Department of Agriculture.

1869 – Women's suffrage: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association.

1928 – Walt Disney character Mickey Mouse premieres in his first cartoon, "Plane Crazy".

1940 – McDonald's opens its first restaurant in San Bernardino, California.

1941 – Joe DiMaggio begins a 56-game hitting streak.

1942 – World War II: In the United States, a bill creating the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) is signed into law.

1958 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 3.

1960 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 4.

1963 – Project Mercury: The launch of the final Mercury mission, Mercury-Atlas 9 with astronaut Gordon Cooper on board. He becomes the first American to spend more than a day in space, and the last American to go into space alone.

1970 – President Richard Nixon appoints Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington the first female United States Army generals.

1991 – Édith Cresson becomes France's first female premier.

2008 – California becomes the second U.S. state after Massachusetts in 2004 to legalize same-sex marriage after the state's own Supreme Court rules a previous ban unconstitutional.

2010 – Jessica Watson becomes the youngest person to sail, non-stop and unassisted around the world solo.

1532 – Sir Thomas More resigns as Lord Chancellor of England.

1568 – Mary, Queen of Scots, flees to England.

1770 – A 14-year-old Marie Antoinette marries 15-year-old Louis-Auguste who later becomes King Louis XVI of France.

1843 – The first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest sets out on the Oregon Trail with one thousand pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri.

1866 – The U.S. Congress eliminates the half dime coin and replaces it with the five cent piece, or nickel.

1868 – United States President Andrew Johnson is acquitted in his impeachment trial by one vote in the United States Senate.

1888 – Nikola Tesla delivers a lecture describing the equipment which will allow efficient generation and use of alternating currents to transmit electric power over long distances.

1929 – In Hollywood, the first Academy Awards ceremony takes place.

1969 – Venera program: Venera 5, a Soviet space probe, lands on Venus.

2005 – Kuwait permits women's suffrage in a 35–23 National Assembly vote.

2011 – STS-134 (ISS assembly flight ULF6), launched from the Kennedy Space Center on the 25th and final flight for Space Shuttle Endeavour.

1521 – Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, is executed for treason.

1536 – George Boleyn, 2nd Viscount Rochford and four other men are executed for treason. 1536 – Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn's marriage is annulled.

1590 – Anne of Denmark, wife of King James VI of Scotland, is crowned Queen of Scotland.

1792 – The New York Stock Exchange is formed under the Buttonwood Agreement.

1809 – Napoleon I of France orders the annexation of the Papal States to the French Empire.

1875 – Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby.

1939 – The Columbia Lions and the Princeton Tigers play in the United States' first televised sporting event, a collegiate baseball game in New York City.

1969 – Venera program: Soviet Venera 6 begins its descent into the atmosphere of Venus, sending back atmospheric data before being crushed by pressure.

1973 – Watergate scandal: Televised hearings begin in the United States Senate.

2004 – The first legal same-sex marriages in the U.S. are performed in the state of Massachusetts.

1499 – Catherine of Aragon is married by proxy to Arthur, Prince of Wales. Catherine is 13 and Arthur is 12.

1536 – Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England, is beheaded.

1568 – Queen Elizabeth I of England orders the arrest of Mary, Queen of Scots.

1643 – Thirty Years' War: French forces under the duc d'Enghien decisively defeat Spanish forces at the Battle of Rocroi, marking the symbolic end of Spain as a dominant land power.

1649 – An Act of Parliament declaring England a Commonwealth is passed by the Long Parliament. England would be a republic for the next eleven years.

1802 – Napoleon Bonaparte founds the Legion of Honour.

1828 – U.S. President John Quincy Adams signs the Tariff of 1828 into law, protecting wool manufacturers in the United States.

1961 – Venera program: Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (the probe had lost contact with Earth a month earlier and did not send back any data).

1962 – A birthday salute to U.S. President John F. Kennedy takes place at Madison Square Garden, New York City. The highlight is Marilyn Monroe's rendition of "Happy Birthday".

1963 – The New York Post Sunday Magazine publishes Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail.

1971 – Mars probe program: Mars 2 is launched by the Soviet Union.

1497 – John Cabot sets sail from Bristol, England, on his ship Matthew looking for a route to the west (other documents give a May 2 date).

1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovers the sea route to India when he arrives at Kozhikode (previously known as Calicut), India.

1813 – Napoleon Bonaparte leads his French troops into the Battle of Bautzen in Saxony, Germany, against the combined armies of Russia and Prussia. The battle ends the next day with a French victory.

1861 – American Civil War: The state of Kentucky proclaims its neutrality, which will last until September 3 when Confederate forces enter the state. Meanwhile, the State of North Carolina secedes from the Union.

1862 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law.

1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.

1875 – Signing of the Metre Convention by 17 nations leading to the establishment of the International System of Units.

1891 – History of cinema: The first public display of Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope.

1932 – Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland to begin the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot, landing in Ireland the next day.

1554 – Queen Mary I grants a royal charter to Derby School, as a grammar school for boys in Derby, England.

1659 – In the Concert of The Hague, the Dutch Republic, the Commonwealth of England and the Kingdom of France set out their views on how the Second Northern War should end.

1725 – The Order of St. Alexander Nevsky is instituted in Russia by Empress Catherine I. It would later be discontinued and then reinstated by the Soviet government in 1942 as the Order of Alexander Nevsky.

1851 – Slavery is abolished in Colombia, South America.

1881 – The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton in Washington, D.C.

1894 – The Manchester Ship Canal in the United Kingdom is officially opened by Queen Victoria, who later knights its designer Sir Edward Leader Williams.

1904 – The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is founded in Paris.

1927 – Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

1932 – Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

1937 – A Soviet station, North Pole-1, becomes the first scientific research settlement to operate on the drift ice of the Arctic Ocean.

1939 – The Canadian National War Memorial is unveiled by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in Ottawa.

1980 – Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is released in theaters.

1992 – After 30 seasons Johnny Carson hosted his penultimate episode and last featuring guests (Robin Williams and Bette Midler) of The Tonight Show.

2010 – JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, launches the solar-sail spacecraft IKAROS aboard an H-IIA rocket. The vessel would make a Venus flyby late in the year.

760 – 14th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.

1200 – King John of England and King Philip II of France sign the Treaty of Le Goulet.

1455 – Start of the Wars of the Roses: At the First Battle of St Albans, Richard, Duke of York, defeats and captures King Henry VI of England.

1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially began as the Corps of Discovery departed from St. Charles, Missouri.

1807 – A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason.

1809 – On the second and last day of the Battle of Aspern-Essling (near Vienna, Austria), Napoleon I is repelled by an enemy army for the first time.

1849 – Future U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is issued a patent for an invention to lift boats, making him the only U.S. President to ever hold a patent.

1900 – The Associated Press is formed in New York City as a non-profit news cooperative.

1906 – The Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine".

1942 – Mexico enters World War II on the side of the Allies.

1947 – The Truman Doctrine goes into effect, aiding Turkey & Greece.

1964 – Lyndon B. Johnson launches the Great Society.

1969 – Apollo 10's lunar module flies within 8.4 nautical miles (16 km) of the moon's surface.

1973 – U.S. President Richard Nixon confesses his role in Watergate cover-up.

2002 – Civil Rights Movement: A jury in Birmingham, Alabama, convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murders of four girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

1533 – The marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon is declared null and void.

1701 – After being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore, Captain William Kidd is hanged in London.

1706 – John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, defeats a French army under Marshal François de Neufville, duc de Villeroy in the Battle of Ramillies.

1788 – South Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution as the eighth American state.

1793 – Battle of Famars during the Flanders Campaign of the War of the First Coalition.

1829 – Accordion patent granted to Cyrill Demian in Vienna, Austrian Empire.

1911 – The New York Public Library is dedicated.

1915 – World War I: Italy joins the Allies, fulfilling its part of the Treaty of London.

1934 – Infamous American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

1945 – Heinrich Himmler commits suicide while in Allied custody. The Flensburg Government under Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz is dissolved when its members are captured and arrested by British forces.

1992 – Italy's most prominent anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three body guards are killed by the Corleonesi clan with a half-ton bomb near Capaci, Sicily. His friend and colleague Paolo Borsellino will be assassinated less than two months later, making 1992 a turning point in the history of Italian Mafia prosecutions.

1487 – The ten-year-old Lambert Simnel is crowned in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland, with the name of Edward VI in a bid to threaten King Henry VII's reign.

1607 – 100 English settlers disembark in Jamestown, the first English colony in America.

1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan.

1830 – "Mary Had a Little Lamb" by Sarah Josepha Hale is published.

1832 – The First Kingdom of Greece is declared in the London Conference.

1883 – The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction.

1900 – Second Boer War: The United Kingdom annexes the Orange Free State.

1915 – World War I: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary, joining the conflict on the side of the Allies.

1930 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).

1935 – The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the Cincinnati Reds beating the Philadelphia Phillies 2–1 at Crosley Field.

1940 – Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight.

1941 – World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Battleship Bismarck sinks then-pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen.

1961 – American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus.

1962 – Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule.

2001 – Mountaineering: Temba Tsheri, a 16-year-old Sherpa, becomes the youngest person to climb to the top of Mount Everest.

1659 – Richard Cromwell resigns as Lord Protector of England following the restoration of the Long Parliament, beginning a second brief period of the republican government called the Commonwealth of England.

1660 – Charles II lands at Dover at the invitation of the Convention Parliament (England), which marks the end of the Cromwell-proclaimed Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland and begins the Restoration (1660) of the British monarchy.

1819 – The Argentine Constitution of 1819 is promulgated.

1833 – The Chilean Constitution of 1833 is promulgated.

1878 – Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore opens at the Opera Comique in London.

1895 – The playwright, poet, and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons" and sentenced to serve two years in prison.

1925 – Scopes Trial: John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in Tennessee.

1935 – Jesse Owens of Ohio State University breaks three world records and ties a fourth at the Big Ten Conference Track and Field Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

1953 – The first public television station in the United States officially begins broadcasting as KUHT from the campus of the University of Houston.

1961 – Apollo program: U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces before a special joint session of the Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on the Moon" before the end of the decade.

1966 – Explorer program: Explorer 32 launches.

1968 – The Gateway Arch in Saint Louis is dedicated.

1977 – Star Wars is released in theaters.

1983 – Return of the Jedi is released in theaters.

2008 – NASA's Phoenix lander lands in Green Valley region of Mars to search for environments suitable for water and microbial life.

2011 – Oprah Winfrey airs her last show, ending her twenty-five-year run of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

2012 – The SpaceX Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to successfully rendezvous with the International Space Station.

47 BC – Julius Caesar visits Tarsus on his way to Pontus, where he meets enthusiastic support, but where, according to Cicero, Cassius is planning to kill him at this point.

1805 – Napoléon Bonaparte assumes the title of King of Italy and is crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy in Milan Cathedral, the gothic cathedral in Milan.

1830 – The Indian Removal Act is passed by the U.S. Congress; it is signed into law by President Andrew Jackson two days later.

1864 – Montana is organized as a United States territory.

1865 – American Civil War: The Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi division, is the last full general of the Confederate Army to surrender, at Galveston, Texas.

1868 – The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson ends with his acquittal by one vote.

1896 – Nicholas II becomes the last Tsar of Imperial Russia. Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

1897 – Dracula, a novel by Irish author Bram Stoker, is published.

1938 – In the United States, the House Un-American Activities Committee begins its first session.

1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 returns to Earth after a successful eight-day test of all the components needed for the forthcoming first manned moon landing.

1970 – The Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 becomes the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2.

May 27:

1199 – John is crowned King of England.

1703 – Tsar Peter the Great founds the city of Saint Petersburg.

1799 – War of the Second Coalition: Austrian forces defeat the French at Winterthur, Switzerland.

1883 – Alexander III is crowned Tsar of Russia.

1907 – Bubonic plague breaks out in San Francisco.

1927 – The Ford Motor Company ceases manufacture of the Ford Model T and begins to retool plants to make the Ford Model A.

1930 – The 1,046 feet (319 m) Chrysler Building in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opens to the public.

1933- New Deal: The U.S. Federal Securities Act is signed into law requiring the registration of securities with the Federal Trade Commission. The Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon Three Little Pigs, with its hit song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" The Century of Progress World's Fair opens in Chicago.

1941 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaims an "unlimited national emergency". The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic killing almost 2,100 men.

1942 – World War II: In Operation Anthropoid, Reinhard Heydrich is fatally wounded in Prague; he dies of his injuries eight days later.

2016 – Barack Obama is the first president of United States to visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and meet Hibakusha.

May 28:

1533 – The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, declares the marriage of King Henry VIII of England to Anne Boleyn valid.

1588 – The Spanish Armada, with 130 ships and 30,000 men, sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal, heading for the English Channel. (It will take until May 30 for all ships to leave port.)

1830 – U.S. President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act which relocates Native Americans.

1892 – In San Francisco, John Muir organizes the Sierra Club.

1900 – Gare d'Orsay railway station is inaugurated in Paris.

1936 – Alan Turing submits On Computable Numbers for publication.
1937 – Volkswagen (VW), the German automobile manufacturer is founded.

1940 – World War II: Belgium surrenders to Nazi Germany to end the Battle of Belgium. Norwegian, French, Polish and British forces recapture Narvik in Norway. This is the first allied infantry victory of the War.

1942 – World War II: In retaliation for the assassination attempt on Reinhard Heydrich, Nazis in Czechoslovakia kill over 1,800 people.

1948 – Daniel François Malan is elected as Prime Minister of South Africa. He later goes on to implement Apartheid.

1961 – Peter Benenson's article The Forgotten Prisoners is published in several internationally read newspapers. This will later be thought of as the founding of the human rights organization Amnesty International.

1999 – In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece The Last Supper is put back on display.

1328 – Philip VI is crowned King of France.

1453 – Fall of Constantinople: Ottoman armies under Sultan Mehmed II Fatih capture Constantinople after a 53-day siege, ending the Byzantine Empire.

1660 – English Restoration: Charles II is restored to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland.

1727 – Peter II becomes Tsar of Russia.

1790 – Rhode Island becomes the last of the original United States' colonies to ratify the Constitution and is admitted as the 13th U.S. state.

1848 – Wisconsin is admitted as the 30th U.S. state.

1864 – Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico arrives in Mexico for the first time.

1867 – The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 ("the Compromise") is born through Act 12, which establishes the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

1919 – Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity is tested (later confirmed) by Arthur Eddington and Andrew Claude de la Cherois Crommelin.

1935 – First flight of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter aeroplane.

1953 – Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay become the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay's (adopted) 39th birthday.

1973 – Tom Bradley is elected the first black mayor of Los Angeles, California.

1988 – The U.S. President Ronald Reagan begins his first visit to the Soviet Union when he arrives in Moscow for a superpower summit with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

1989 – Signing of an agreement between Egypt and the United States, allowing the manufacture of parts of the F-16 jet fighter plane in Egypt.

1990 – The Russian parliament elects Boris Yeltsin as president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

1999 – Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station.

2004 – The National World War II Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C.