Events

• 527 - Byzantine Emperor Justin I names his nephew Justinian I as co-ruler and successor to the throne.
• 1318 - Berwick-upon-Tweed is captured by the Scottish from the English.
• 1340 - Niels Ebbesen kills Gerhard III of Holstein in his bedroom, ending the 1332-1340 interregnum in Denmark.
• 1572 - In the Eighty Years' War, the Watergeuzen capture Brielle from the Spaniards, gaining the first foothold on land for what would become the Dutch Republic.
• 1789 - In New York City, the United States House of Representatives holds its first quorum and elects Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania as its first House Speaker.
• 1826 - Samuel Morey patents the internal combustion engine.
• 1854 - Hard Times begins serialisation in Charles Dickens magazine, Household Words.
• 1857 - Herman Melville publishes The Confidence-Man.
• 1865 - American Civil War: Battle of Five Forks - In Siege of Petersburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee begins his final offensive.
• 1867 - Singapore becomes a British crown colony.
• 1873 - The British steamer SS Atlantic sinks off Nova Scotia, killing 547.
• 1891 - The Wrigley Company is founded in Chicago, Illinois.
• 1912 - The Greek athlete Konstantinos Tsiklitiras breaks the world record -in standing long jump jumping 3.47 meters.
• 1918 - The Royal Air Force is created by merging the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service.
• 1924 - Adolf Hitler is sentenced to five years in jail for his participation in the "Beer Hall Putsch". However, he spends only nine months in jail, during which he writes the book Mein Kampf.
• 1924 - First revenue flight for Belgium's Sabena Airlines
• 1924 - The Royal Canadian Air Force is formed.
• 1933 - The recently elected Nazis under Julius Streicher organize a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany, ushering in the series of anti-Semitic acts that will gradually, yet ultimately lead to the Holocaust.
• 1936 - Orissa Formerly known as Kalinga or Utkal became a state in India.
• 1937 - Aden becomes a British crown colony.
• 1939 - Generalísimo Francisco Franco of the Spanish State announces the end of the Spanish Civil War, when the last of the Republican forces surrender.
• 1941 - The Blockade Runner Badge for German navy is instituted.
• 1944 - Accidental American bombing of the Swiss city of Schaffhausen. The bombers were lost.
• 1945 - World War II: Operation Iceberg - United States troops land on Okinawa in the last campaign of the war.
• 1946 - Aleutian Island earthquake: A 7.8 magnitude earthquake near the Aleutian Islands creates a tsunami that strikes the Hawaiian Islands killing 159 (mostly in Hilo, Hawaii).
• 1946 - Formation of the Malayan Union.
• 1948 - Cold War: Berlin Airlift - Military forces, under direction of the Soviet-controlled government in East Germany, set-up a land blockade of West Berlin.
• 1948 - Faroe Islands receive autonomy from Denmark.
• 1949 - Chinese Civil War: Communist Party of China holds unsuccessful peace talks with the Kuomintang in Beijing, after three years of fighting.
• 1949 - The twenty-six counties of the Irish Free State become the Republic of Ireland.
• 1954 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes the creation of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado.
• 1955 - The EOKA rebellion against The Brtish Empire starts in Cyprus, with the goal of obtaining the desired unification ("enosis") with Greece.
• 1967 - The United States Department of Transportation begins operation.
• 1969 - The Hawker Siddeley Harrier enters service with the RAF.
• 1970 - President Richard Nixon signs the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act into law, requiring the Surgeon General's warnings on tobacco products and banning cigarette advertisements on television and radio in the United States starting on January 1, 1971.
• 1970 - The AMC Gremlin is introduced.
• 1973 - Project Tiger, a tiger conservation project, is launched in the Corbett National Park, India.
• 1974 - In the United Kingdom, the Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties come into being.
• 1976 - Apple Computer is formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
• 1976 - Conrail takes over operations from six bankrupt railroads in the northeastern U.S..
• 1976 - Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect is first reported by the astronomer Patrick Moore.
• 1978 - Philippine College of Commerce, through a presidential decree, becomes the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
• 1979 - Iran's government becomes an Islamic Republic by a 98% vote, officially overthrowing the Shah.
• 1980 - New York City's Transit Worker Union 100 begins a strike lasting 11 days.
• 1981 - Daylight saving time is introduced in the USSR.
• 1989 - Margaret Thatcher's new local government tax, the Community Charge (commonly known as the 'poll tax'), is introduced in Scotland.
• 1996 - The Halifax Regional Municipality in Nova Scotia is created.
• 1999 - Nunavut is established as a Canadian territory carved out of the eastern part of the Northwest Territories.
• 2001 - An EP-3E United States Navy plane collides with a Chinese People's Liberation Army fighter jet. The Navy crew makes an emergency landing in Hainan, People's Republic of China and is detained. See Hainan Island incident.
• 2001 - Former president of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević surrenders to police special forces, to be tried on charges of war crimes.
• 2001 - Same-sex marriage becomes legal in the Netherlands, which is the first country to allow it.
• 2002 - The Netherlands legalizes euthanasia, becoming the first nation in the world to do so.
• 2004 - Google introduces its Gmail product to the public. The launch is met with scepticism on account of the launch date.
• 2006 - The Serious Organised Crime Agency, dubbed the 'British FBI', is created in the United Kingdom.

Births