Events

• 823 – Lothair I is crowned King of Italy by Pope Paschal I.
• 919 – The second Fatimid invasion of Egypt begins, when the Fatimid heir-apparent, al-Qa’im bi-Amr Allah, sets out from Raqqada at the head of his army.
• 1081 – Alexios I Komnenos is crowned Byzantine emperor at Constantinople, bringing the Komnenian dynasty to full power.
• 1242 – During the Battle on the Ice of Lake Peipus, Russian forces, led by Alexander Nevsky, rebuff an invasion attempt by the Teutonic Knights.
• 1536 – Royal Entry of Charles V into Rome: The last Roman triumph.
• 1566 – Two hundred Dutch noblemen, led by Hendrick van Brederode, force themselves into the presence of Margaret of Parma and present the Petition of Compromise, denouncing the Spanish Inquisition in the Seventeen Provinces.
• 1609 – Daimyō (Lord) Shimazu Tadatsune of the Satsuma Domain in southern Kyūshū, Japan, completes his successful invasion of the Ryūkyū Kingdom in Okinawa.
• 1621 – The Mayflower sets sail from Plymouth, Massachusetts on a return trip to England.
• 1722 – The Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovers Easter Island.
• 1795 – Peace of Basel between France and Prussia is made.
• 1818 – In the Battle of Maipú, Chile’s independence movement, led by Bernardo O’Higgins and José de San Martín, win a decisive victory over Spain, leaving 2,000 Spaniards and 1,000 Chilean patriots dead.
• 1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Yorktown begins.
• 1879 – Chile declares war on Bolivia and Peru, starting the War of the Pacific.
• 1932 – Dominion of Newfoundland: Ten thousand rioters seize the Colonial Building leading to the end of self-government.
• 1942 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy launches a carrier-based air attack on Colombo, Ceylon during the Indian Ocean raid. Port and civilian facilities are damaged and the Royal Navy cruisers HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire are sunk southwest of the island.
• 1943 – World War II: American bomber aircraft accidentally cause more than 900 civilian deaths, including 209 children, and 1,300 wounded among the civilian population of the Belgian town of Mortsel. Their target was the Erla factory one kilometer from the residential area hit.
• 1944 – World War II: Two hundred seventy inhabitants of the Greek town of Kleisoura are executed by the Germans.
• 1945 – Cold War: Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito signs an agreement with the Soviet Union to allow “temporary entry of Soviet troops into Yugoslav territory”.
• 1946 – Soviet troops end their year-long occupation of the Danish island of Bornholm.
• 1946 – A Fleet Air Arm Vickers Wellington crashes into a residential area in Rabat, Malta during a training exercise, killing all 4 crew members and 16 civilians on the ground.
• 1951 – Cold War: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are sentenced to death for spying for the Soviet Union.
• 1956 – Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro declares himself at war with Cuban President Fulgencio Batista.
• 1958 – Ripple Rock, an underwater threat to navigation in the Seymour Narrows in Canada is destroyed in one of the largest non-nuclear controlled explosions of the time.
• 1969 – Vietnam War: Massive antiwar demonstrations occur in many US cities.
• 1971 – In Sri Lanka, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna launches a revolt against the United Front government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike.
• 1976 – In China, the April Fifth Movement leads to the Tiananmen Incident.
• 1977 – The US Supreme Court rules that congressional legislation that diminished the size of the Sioux people’s reservation thereby destroyed the tribe’s jurisdictional authority over the area in Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. Kneip.
• 1992 – Alberto Fujimori, president of Peru, dissolves the Peruvian congress by military force.
• 1992 – Peace protesters Suada Dilberovic and Olga Sučić are killed on the Vrbanja Bridge in Sarajevo, becoming the first casualties of the Bosnian War.
• 2009 – North Korea launches its controversial Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 rocket. The satellite passed over mainland Japan, which prompted an immediate reaction from the United Nations Security Council, as well as participating states of Six-party talks.

People (Births)

• 1719 – Axel von Fersen the Elder, Swedish field marshal and politician, Lord Marshal of Sweden (d. 1794).
• 1761 – Sybil Ludington, American heroine of the American Revolutionary War (d. 1839).
• 1769 – Sir Thomas Hardy, 1st Baronet, English admiral (d. 1839).
• 1795 – Henry Havelock, British general (d. 1857).
• 1810 – Sir Henry Rawlinson, British East India Company army officer and politician (d. 1895).
• 1814 – Felix Lichnowsky, Czech soldier and politician (d. 1848).
• 1848 – Ulrich Wille, Swiss army general (d. 1925).
• 1879 – Nikolaus zu Dohna-Schlodien, German naval officer and author (d. 1956).
• 1880 – Eric Carlberg, Swedish Army officer, diplomat, shooter, fencer and modern pentathlete (d. 1963).
• 1880 – Vilhelm Carlberg, Swedish Army officer and shooter (d. 1970).
• 1882 – Song Jiaoren, Chinese revolutionary (d. 1913).
• 1886 – Gustavo Jiménez, Peruvian colonel and politician, 73rd President of Peru (d. 1933).
• 1891 – Arnold Jackson, English runner, soldier, and lawyer (d. 1972).
• 1894 – Lawrence Dale Bell, American industrialist and founder of Bell Aircraft Corporation (d. 1956).
• 1894 – Hans Hüttig, German SS officer (d. 1980).
• 1912 – Bill Roberts, English sprinter and soldier (d. 2001).
• 1920 – Arthur Hailey, English-Canadian soldier and author (d. 2004).
• 1923 – Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, Vietnamese general and politician, 5th President of South Vietnam (d. 2001).
• 1937 – Colin Powell, American general and politician, 65th United States Secretary of State.
• 1944 – Peter T. King, American soldier, lawyer, and politician.
• 1981 – Michael A. Monsoor, American sailor, Medal of Honour recipient (d. 2006).

People (Deaths)

• 1794 – François Joseph Westermann, French general (b. 1751).
• 1804 – Jean-Charles Pichegru, French general (b. 1761).
• 1865 – Manfredo Fanti, Italian general (b. 1806).
• 1873 – Milivoje Blaznavac, Serbian soldier and politician (b. 1824).
• 1900 – Osman Nuri Pasha, Ottoman field marshal and the hero of the Siege of Plevna in 1877 (b. 1832).
• 1928 – Roy Kilner, English cricketer and soldier (b. 1890).
• 1938 – Verner Lehtimäki, Finnish revolutionary (b. 1890).
• 1940 – Song Zheyuan, Chinese general (b. 1885).
• 1941 – Franciszek Kleeberg, Polish general (b. 1888).
• 1945 – Heinrich Borgmann, German officer (b. 1912).
• 1945 – Karl-Otto Koch, German SS officer (b. 1897).
• 1964 – Douglas MacArthur, American general (b. 1880).
• 1969 – Ain-Ervin Mere, Estonian SS officer (b. 1903).
• 1975 – Chiang Kai-shek, Chinese general and politician, 1st President of the Republic of China (b. 1887).
• 1984 – Hans Lunding, Danish military officer (b. 1899).
• 1991 – John Tower, American soldier, academic, and politician (b. 1925).
• 2004 – Sławomir Rawicz, Polish lieutenant (b. 1915).
• 2005 – Robert Borg, American military officer and equestrian (b. 1913).
• 2012 – Pedro Bartolomé Benoit, Dominican Republican politician military officer.