45 BC – In his last victory, Julius Caesar defeats the Pompeian forces of Titus Labienus and Pompey the Younger in the Battle of Munda.
432 – St Patrick aged 16 is carried off to Ireland as a slave (traditional date)
1190 – A wave of anti-Semitic riots culminated in the massacre of an estimated 150 Jews – the entire Jewish community of York – who had taken refuge in the royal castle where Clifford’s Tower now stands. The chronicler William of Newburgh described the rioters as York acting “without any scruple of Christian conscientiousness” in wiping out the Jewish community. Stoked by the Christian fervour of the Crusades, anti-Semitic feeling was running high throughout Europe that directed aggression against Jews across England, France and Germany, as well as against Muslims in the Holy Land. ( wikipedia )
1755 – Transylvania Land Company buys Kentucky for $50,000 from a Cherokee chief
1756 – St Patrick’s Day first celebrated in New York City at Crown & Thistle Tavern
1845 – Rubber band patented by Stephen Perry of London
1898 – John Philip Holland has his first successful, full-fledged trial run of diving and surfacing while underway in his Holland VI. It occurred off Staten Island. A demonstration 10 days later for the U.S. Navy convinced then-Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt to recommend the purchase of a Holland submarine. Despite the support of such an influential figure, it would be another two years before the Navy finally contracted to go ahead with the deal. On April 11, 1900, the date now celebrated as the birthday of the U.S. Submarine Force, the Navy finally bought Holland VI – for $150,000, just half of its design cost, The Navy did quickly order seven more. Six more of her type were ordered and built at the Crescent Shipyard in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The company that emerged from under these developments was called The Electric Boat Company and eventually evolved into the major defense contractor General Dynamics.
1899 – Windsor luxury hotel in NYC catches fire, 92 die
1901 – A showing of seventy-one Vincent van Gogh paintings in Paris, 11 years after his death, creates a sensation
1966 – US submarine locates missing H-bomb in Mediterranean
1987 – IBM releases PC-DOS version 3.3
2008 -Governor Eliot Spitzer resigns after a scandal involving a high-end prostitute. David Paterson becomes acting New York State governor
Birthdays
1834 – Gottlieb Daimler, Engineer, inventor designed first motorcycle
1944 – John Sebastian, singer Loving Spoonful born in NYC
1945 – Michael Hayden, General USAF, Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Anniversaries
Marriage 1955 – Erotic writer Anaïs Nin marries actor Rupert Pole at Quartzsite, Arizona, while still married to her first husband
Divorce
2008 – Musician Paul McCartney divorces former model and anti-landmines campaigner Heather Mills on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour
Deaths
180 – Antonius Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome, dies at 58
1974 – Louis I Kahn, Estonia, architect, dies at 73
Edited from various sources including historyorb.com, the NYTimes.com Wikipedia and other internet searches