1483 – Edward V (aged 12) succeeded his father Edward IV as king of England. He was never crowned, and disappears presumed murdered, after incarceration in the Tower of London with his younger brother Richard (the “Princes in the Tower”)
1682 – Robert La Salle claimed lower Mississippi (Louisiana) for France
1768 – John Hancock refused to allow two British customs agents to go below deck of his ship, considered by some to be the first act of physical resistance to British authority in the colonies
1784 – Great Britain ratified the Treaty of Paris, signed September 3, 1783, which ended the Revolutionary War
1864 – Battle of Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, Confederate assault repulsed by Union side with high cost of estimated 3,100 causalities
1865 – Confederate General Robert E. Lee and 26,765 troops surrendered at Appomattox Court House to US Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant which ended the Civil War in North Virginia
1866 – Civil Rights Bill passed over President Andrew Johnson’s veto
1872 – Samuel R. Percy patented dried milk
1914 – US President W Wilson refused to recognize Huerta as President of Mexico on the ground that he had not been elected by the people
1939 – Marian Anderson sang before 75,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
1947 – Tornadoes struck West Texas & Oklahoma and killed 169 and injured 1,300.
1950 – Bob Hope’s first TV appearance
1959 – NASA named first 7 astronauts for Project Mercury
1960 – South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd survived an assassination attempt by David Pratt despite being shot twice in the face.
1963 – Winston Churchill became first honorary US citizen.
1965 – Beatles “Ticket to Ride” was released in UK.
1965 – First game at Astrodome, Houston beats Yankees 2-1 in exhibition as Mickey Mantle hits first indoor homerun
1967 – First Boeing 737 (a 100 series) makes its maiden flight
1968 – Martin Luther King Jr., was buried in Atlanta
1971 – Ringo Starr released “It Don’t Come Easy” in UK
1976 – “All the President’s Men”, directed by Alan J. Pakula, based on the novel by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward detailing their Watergate investigation, starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford, was released
1986 – “Dallas” announced it would revive killed Bobby Ewing character
1989 – Mike Tyson struck a parking attendant when asked to move his car
1992 – US Fed court found Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega guilty of 8 out of 10 drug and racketeering charges
2002 – Funeral of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother at Westminster Abbey. More than a million people lined the streets
2012 – “The Lion King” became highest grossing Broadway show after overtaking “The Phantom of the Opera”