537 – Siege of Rome: The Ostrogoth army under King Vitiges begins the siege. Belisarius conducts a delaying action outside the Flaminian Gate; he and a detachment of his bucellarii are almost cut off.
1498 – Vasco da Gama’s fleet visits the Island of Mozambique.
1657 – Great Fire of Meireki: A fire in Edo (now Tokyo), Japan, caused more than 100,000 deaths; it lasted three days
1717 – The Loves of Mars and Venus is the first ballet performed in England.
1791 – Long-distance communication speeds up with the unveiling of a semaphore machine in Paris.
1807 – The U.S. Congress passes the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, disallowing the importation of new slaves into the country.
1836 – Texas Revolution: Declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico.
1877 – U.S. presidential election, 1876: Just two days before inauguration, Congress declares Rutherford B. Hayes the winner even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876.
1882 – Queen Victoria narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by Roderick McLean in Windsor.
Mr. McLean attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria with a pistol. McLean’s motive was purportedly a curt reply to some poetry that he had mailed to the Queen. Tried for high treason on April 20, McLean was found “not guilty, but insane” by a jury after five minutes’ deliberation, and he lived out his remaining days in Broadmoor Asylum. The verdict prompted the Queen to ask for a change in English law so that those implicated in cases with similar outcomes would be considered as “guilty, but insane.” This led to the Trial of Lunatics Act 1883. McLean was the last of eight attempts to kill or assault Victoria over a period of forty years.
1901 – United States Steel Corporation is founded as a result of a merger between Carnegie Steel Company and Federal Steel Company which became the first corporation in the world with a market capital over $1 billion.
1903 – In New York City the Martha Washington Hotel opens, becoming the first hotel exclusively for women.
1933 – The film King Kong opens at Radio City Music Hall.
1946 – Ho Chi Minh is elected the President of North Vietnam.
1949 – Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute. Click here to see the Superfortress taking off
1962 – Wilt Chamberlain sets the single-game scoring record in the National Basketball Association by scoring 100 points.
1965 – The US and South Vietnamese Air Force begin Operation Rolling Thunder, a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam.
1983 – Compact discs and players are released for the first time in the United States and other markets, previously available only in Japan.
1989 – Twelve European Community nations agree to ban the production of all chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by the end of the century.
1998 – Data sent from the Galileo spacecraft indicates that Jupiter’s moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.
2002 – U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda begins, (ending on March 19 after killing 500 Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, with 11 Western troop fatalities).
Births
1453 – Johannes Engel, German doctor, astronomer and astrologer (d. 1512)
1651 – Carlo Gimach, Maltese architect, engineer and poet (d. 1730)
1793 – Sam Houston, First President of the Republic of Texas (d. 1863)
1878 – William Kissam Vanderbilt II, sailor and race car driver (d. 1944)
1900 – Kurt Weill, German-American pianist and composer (d. 1950)
1904 – Dr. Seuss, American children’s book writer, poet, and illustrator (d. 1991)
1917 – Desi Arnaz, Cuban-American actor, singer, and producer (d. 1986)
1921 – Ernst Haas, Austrian-American photographer and journalist (d. 1986)
1922 – Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, American saxophonist (d. 1986)
1931 – Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Soviet Union, Nobel Prize laureate
1931 – Tom Wolfe, American journalist and author
1942 – John Irving, American novelist and screenwriter
1942 – Lou Reed, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, (d. 2013)
Deaths
1791 – John Wesley, English cleric and theologian (b. 1703)
1930 – D. H. Lawrence, English novelist, poet, playwright, and critic (b. 1885)
