Events

• 919 – The nobles of Franconia and Saxony elect Henry the Fowler at the Imperial Diet in Fritzlar as king of the East Frankish Kingdom.
• 1218 – The Fifth Crusade leaves Acre for Egypt.
• 1567 – Erik XIV of Sweden and his guards murder five incarcerated Swedish nobles.
• 1607 – One hundred-five English settlers under the leadership of Captain Christopher Newport established the colony called Jamestown at the mouth of the James River on the Virginia coast, the first permanent English colony in America.
• 1621 – The Protestant Union is formally dissolved.
• 1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan.
• 1667 – The French Royal Army crosses the border into the Spanish Netherlands, starting the War of Devolution opposing France to the Spanish Empire and the Triple Alliance.
• 1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the United Irishmen against British rule begins.
• 1813 – South American independence leader Simón Bolívar enters Mérida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and is proclaimed El Libertador (“The Liberator”).
• 1822 – Battle of Pichincha: Antonio José de Sucre secures the independence of the Presidency of Quito.
• 1832 – The First Kingdom of Greece is declared in the London Conference.
• 1844 – Samuel Morse sends the message “What hath God wrought” (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from a committee room in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland, to inaugurate a commercial telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington D.C.
• 1861 – American Civil War: Union troops occupy Alexandria, Virginia.
• 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.
• 1940 – Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight.
• 1940 – Acting on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, NKVD agent Iosif Grigulevich orchestrates an unsuccessful assassination attempt on exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Coyoacán, Mexico.
• 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.
• 1948 – Arab-Israeli War: Egypt captures the Israeli kibbutz of Yad Mordechai, but the five-day effort gives Israeli forces time to prepare enough to stop the Egyptian advance a week later.
• 1967 – Egypt imposes a blockade and siege of the Red Sea coast of Israel.
• 1981 – Ecuadorian president Jaime Roldós Aguilera, his wife, and his presidential committee die in an aircraft accident while travelling from Quito to Zapotillo minutes after the president gave a famous speech regarding the 24 de mayo anniversary of the Battle of Pichincha.
  • Battle of Pichincha Day (Ecuador).
• 1982 – Liberation of Khorramshahr: Iranians recapture of the port city of Khorramshahr from the Iraqis during the Iran-Iraq War.
• 1991 – Israel conducts Operation Solomon, evacuating Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
• 1992 – The last Thai dictator, General Suchinda Kraprayoon, resigns following pro-democracy protests.
• 1992 – The ethnic cleansing in Kozarac, Bosnia and Herzegovina begins when Serbian militia and police forces enter the town.
• 1993 – Eritrea gains its independence from Ethiopia.
  • Independence Day (Eritrea).
• 1999 – The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands indicts Slobodan Milošević and four others for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo.
• 2000 – Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.
• 2002 – Russia and the United States sign the Moscow Treaty.

People (Births)

• 15 BC – Germanicus, Roman general (d. 19).
• 1686 – Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, Polish-German physicist and engineer, developed the Fahrenheit scale (d. 1736).
• 1887 – Mick Mannock, Irish soldier and pilot, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1918).
• 1913 – Joe Abreu, American baseball player and soldier (d. 1993).
• 1916 – Roden Cutler, Australian lieutenant and politician, 32nd Governor of New South Wales (d. 2002).
• 1924 – Philip Pearlstein, American soldier and painter.
• 1937 – Maryvonne Dupureur, French runner and educator (d. 2008).
• 1946 – Irena Szewińska, Russian-Polish sprinter (d. 2018).
• 1964 – Liz McColgan, Scottish educator and runner.
• 1964 – Adrian Moorhouse, English swimmer.
• 1974 – Sébastien Foucan, French runner and actor.
• 1988 – Monica Lin Brown, American sergeant and medic (the first woman during the War in Afghanistan and only the second woman since WWII to receive the Silver Star).
• 1994 – Daiya Seto, Japanese swimmer.

People (Deaths)

• 1136 – Hugues de Payens, first Grand Master of the Knights Templar (b. c. 1070).
• 1456 – Ambroise de Loré, French commander (b. 1396).
• 1792 – George Brydges Rodney, 1st Baron Rodney, English admiral and politician, 16th Governor of Newfoundland (b. 1718).
• 1806 – John Campbell, 5th Duke of Argyll, Scottish field marshal and politician, Lord Lieutenant of Argyllshire (b. 1723).
• 1861 – Elmer E. Ellsworth, American colonel (b. 1837).
• 1915 – John Condon, Irish-English soldier (b. 1896).
• 1941 – Lancelot Holland, English admiral (b. 1887).
• 1945 – Robert Ritter von Greim, German field marshal and pilot (b. 1892).
• 1950 – Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell, English field marshal and politician, 43rd Governor-General of India (b. 1883).
• 1959 – John Foster Dulles, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 52nd United States Secretary of State (b. 1888).
• 2012 – Klaas Carel Faber, Dutch-German SS officer (b. 1922).