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307 - After divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine marries Fausta, the daughter of the retired Roman Emperor Maximian.

1717 - A sermon on "The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ" by Benjamin Hoadly, the Bishop of Bangor, provoked the Bangorian Controversy.

1774 - American Revolutionary War: The Kingdom of Great Britain orders the port of Boston, Massachusetts closed in the Boston Port Act.

1854 - Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Treaty of Kanagawa with the Japanese government, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.

1866 - The Spanish Navy bombs the harbour of Valparaíso, Chile..

1885 - The United Kingdom establishes a protectorate over Bechuanaland.

1889 - The Eiffel Tower is inaugurated.

1906 - The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (later National Collegiate Athletic Association) is established to set rules for amateur sports in the United States.

1909 - Serbia accepts Austrian control over Bosnia-Herzegovina.

1917 - The United States takes possession of the Danish West Indies after paying $25 million to Denmark, and renames the territory the U.S. Virgin Islands.

1918 - Daylight Savings Time goes into effect in the United States for the first time.

1930 - The Motion Pictures Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in motion pictures for the next forty years.

1931 - An earthquake destroys Managua Nicaragua, killing 2,000.

1933 - The Civilian Conservation Corps is established with the mission to relieve rampant unemployment.

1942 - In World War II, Japanese forces invade Christmas Island, then a British possession.

1942 - Holocaust in Ivano-Frankivsk (then called Stanislawow), western Ukraine. German Gestapo organise the first deportation of 5.000 Jews from Stanislawow ghetto to Belzec death camp. It was one of the biggest transports to Belzec in the first phase of the camp.

1949 - The Dominion of Newfoundland joins Confederation and becomes the 10th Province of Canada.

1957 - Elections to the Territorial Assembly of the French colony Upper Volta. After the elections PDU and MDV form a government.

1959 - The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, crosses the border into India and is granted political asylum.

1964 - The Dictatorship in Brazil, under the aegis of general Castello Branco, begins.

1965 - Iberia Airlines Convair 440, crashed into the sea on approach to Tangier killing 47 of 51 occupants.

1966 - The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first spaceprobe to enter orbit around the Moon.

1968 - President Lyndon Johnson announces he will not run for re-election.

1970 - Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth's atmosphere (after 12 years in orbit).

1970 - Eight terrorists from the Japanese Red Army hijacked a Japan Airlines Boeing 727 at Tokyo International Airport, wielding samurai swords and carrying a bomb.

1979 - The last British soldier leaves the Maltese Islands. Malta declares its Freedom Day (Jum il-Helsien).

1979 - Gali Atari and Milk and Honey declared winners of the Eurovision Song Contest 1979 for Israel with the song, Hallelujah.

1985 - The firstWrestlemania is held at New York's Madison Square Garden. This is the World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE's]] (at that time the WWF) flagship Pay-Per-View

1986 - A Mexicana Boeing 727 en route to Puerto Vallarta erupts in flames and crashes in the mountains northwest of Mexico City, killing 166.

1986 - Six metropolitan county councils are abolished in England.

1992 - USS Missouri (BB-63), the last active US Navy Battleship, is decommissioned in Long Beach, California.

1994 - The journal Nature reports the finding in Ethiopia of the first complete Australopithecus afarensis skull (see Human evolution).

1996 - The community eWorld created by Apple Computer officially shut down at 12:01 am Pacific Time.

1998 - Netscape releases the code base of its browser under an open-source license agreement; the project is given the code name Mozilla and would eventually be spun off into the non-profit Mozilla Foundation.

1999 - The Matrix, first episode of the Matrix trilogy movies, is released in theaters.

2004 - Google announces Gmail, the first web-based mail service to offer 1 gigabyte of storage.

2004 - In Fallujah, Iraq, 4 American private military contractors working for Blackwater USA, are killed and their bodies mutilated after being ambushed.

2005 - The Kuiper Belt object is discovered.

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250 - Constantius Chlorus, Roman Emperor (d. 306)

1499 - Pope Pius IV (d. 1565)

1504 - Guru Angad Dev, second Sikh guru (d. 1552)

1519 - King Henry II of France (d. 1559)

1536 - Ashikaga Yoshiteru, Japanese shogun (d. 1565)

1596 - René Descartes, French mathematician (d. 1650)

1621 - Andrew Marvell, English poet (d. 1678)

1651 - Karl II, Elector Palatine (d. 1685)

1675 - Pope Benedict XIV (d. 1758)

1718 - Marianne Victoria of Borbón, queen regent of Portugal (d. 1781)

1723 - King Frederick V of Denmark (d. 1766)

1730 - Étienne Bézout, French mathematician (d. 1783)

1732 - Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer (d. 1809)

1777 - Charles Cagniard de la Tour, French physicist (d. 1859)

1778 - Coenraad Jacob Temminck, Dutch zoologist (d. 1858)

1809 - Edward FitzGerald, English poet (d. 1883)

1811 - Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, German chemist and inventor (d. 1899)

1819 - Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1901)

1847 - Yegor Ivanovich Zolotarev, Russian mathematician (d. 1878)

1871 - Arthur Griffith, President of Ireland (d. 1922)

1872 - Alexandra Kollontai, Russian ambassador to Norway (d.1952)

1878 - Jack Johnson, American boxer (d. 1946)

1885 - Pascin, Bulgarian painter (d. 1930)

1890 - William Lawrence Bragg, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1971)

1891 - Victor Varconi, Hungarian film actor (d. 1976)

1906 - Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Japanese physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1979)

1907 - Eddie Quillan, American actor (d. 1990)

1911 - Elisabeth Grümmer, Alsatian soprano (d. 1986)

1914 - Octavio Paz, Mexican diplomat and writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1998)

1915 - Albert Hourani, English historian (d. 1993)

1916 - John H. Wood, Jr., American federal judge (d. 1979)

1922 - Richard Kiley, American actor and singer (d. 1999)

1924 - Leo Buscaglia, American author (d. 1998)

1926 - John Fowles, English author (d. 2005)

1927 - César Chávez, American labor activist (d. 1993)

1927 - William Daniels, American actor

1928 - Lefty Frizzell, American singer and songwriter (d. 1975)

1928 - Gordie Howe, Canadian hockey player

1929 - Lucille Bliss, American voice actress

1929 - Liz Claiborne, Belgian fashion designer

1929 - Bertram Fields, American lawyer

1931 - Miller Barber, American professional golfer

1933 - Nichita Stănescu, Romanian poet (d. 1983)

1934 - Richard Chamberlain, American actor

1934 - Shirley Jones, American singer and actress

1934 - Carlo Rubbia, Italian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

1935 - Herb Alpert, American trumpeter and band leader

1935 - Judith Rossner, American author

1936 - Bob Pulford, Canadian hockey player

1936 - Marge Piercy, American writer

1938 - Sheila Dikshit, Chief Minister of Delhi

1938 - David Steel, Scottish politician

1939 - Zviad Gamsakhurdia, first President of Georgia (d. 1993)

1939 - Volker Schlöndorff, German film director

1940 - Patrick Leahy, U.S. Senator from Vermont

1940 - Barney Frank, U.S. Representative from Massachusetts

1942 - Michael Savage, talk radio host and commentator

1943 - Christopher Walken, American actor

1945 - Valerie Curtin, American actress, writer, and producer

1945 - Gabe Kaplan, American actor and comedian

1946 - Gonzalo Márquez, Venezuelan Major League Baseball player (d. 1984)

1947 - Cesar Gaviria Trujillo, President of Colombia

1948 - Al Gore, Vice President of the United States

1948 - Rhea Perlman, American actress

1950 - Ed Marinaro, American football player and actor

1950 - Andras Adorjan, Hungarian chess player

1952 - Adrian Walker, Winemaker & cyclist

1955 - Angus Young, Scottish-born musician (AC/DC)

1957 - Marc McClure, American actor

1963 - Paul Mercurio, Australian actor/dancer

1965 - Tom Barrasso, American hockey player

1966 - Roger Black, British athlete

1969 - Samantha Brown, American television host

1971 - Pavel Bure, Russian hockey player

1971 - Ewan McGregor, Scottish actor

1973 - Bold Forbes, Puerto Rican racehorse (d. 2000)

1974 - Stefan Olsdal, Swedish bassist (Placebo)

1974 - Benjamin Eicher, Swiss film director

1976 - Josh Saviano, American actor

1978 - Stephen Clemence, English footballer

1978 - Jérôme Rothen, French footballer

1978 - Tony Yayo, American rapper

1979 - Josh Kinney, baseball player

1980 - Chien-Ming Wang, Taiwanese Major League Baseball player

1982 - Philippe Mexès, French footballer

1983 - Paddy McCarthy, Irish footballer

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1204 - Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of France and England (b. 1121)

1340 - Ivan I of Russia, Prince of Moscow (b. 1288)

1567 - Philipp I of Hesse (b. 1504)

1621 - Philip III of Spain (b. 1578)

1631 - John Donne, English writer and prelate (b. 1572)

1671 - Anne Hyde, wife of James II of England (b. 1637)

1703 - Johann Christoph Bach, German composer (b. 1642)

1723 - Edward Hyde, 3rd Earl of Clarendon, British-born American statesman (b. 1661)

1727 - Sir Isaac Newton, English mathematician and physicist (b. 1643)

1741 - Pieter Burmann the Elder, Dutch classical scholar (b. 1668)

1783 - Nikita Ivanovich Panin, Russian statesman (b. 1718)

1837 - John Constable, English painter (b. 1776)

1855 - Charlotte Brontë, English author (b. 1816)

1877 - Antoine Augustin Cournot, French mathematician (b. 1801)

1880 - Henryk Wieniawski, Polish composer (b. 1835)

1885 - Franz Wilhelm Abt, German composer (b. 1819)

1913 - John Pierpont Morgan, American financier (b. 1837)

1917 - Emil Adolf von Behring, German physician, Nobel laureate (b. 1854)

1915 - Wyndham Halswelle, British runner (b. 1882)

1931 - Knute Rockne, American football coach (b. 1888)

1945 - Hans Fischer, German chemist, Nobel laureate (b. 1881)

1945 - Anne Frank, German-born diarist (b. 1929)

1952 - Wallace H. White, Jr., American politician (b. 1877)

1954 - Edwin Armstrong, American electrical engineer (b. 1890)

1956 - Ralph DePalma, Italian-born race car driver (b. 1884)

1968 - Grover Lowdermilk, American baseball player (b. 1885)

1978 - Charles Best, Canadian medical scientist (b. 1899)

1980 - Vladimír Holan, Czech poet (b. 1905)

1980 - Jesse Owens, American athlete (b. 1913)

1981 - Enid Bagnold, British playwright (b. 1889)

1984 - Ronald Clark O'Bryan, American murderer (b. 1944)

1984 - Srinivasan Mohanathas, British Priminster (b. 1948)

1985 - Jeanine Deckers, Belgian nun (b. 1933)

1988 - William McMahon, 20th Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1908)

1993 - Brandon Lee, American actor (b. 1965)

1995 - Selena, Mexican-American singer (b. 1971)

1996 - Jeffrey Lee Pierce, American singer member of The Gun Club (b. 1958)

1998 - Bella Abzug, American politician (b. 1920)

1998 - Tim Flock, American race car driver

1999 - Yuri Knorosov, Russian linguist (b. 1922)

2001 - Clifford Shull, American physicist, Nobel laureate (b. 1915)

2002 - Barry Took, British comedian (b. 1928)

2003 - H.S.M. Coxeter, English-born geometer (b. 1907)

2003 - Tommy Seebach, Danish singer (b. 1949)

2005 - Stanley J. Korsmeyer, American oncologist (b. 1951)

2005 - Frank Perdue, American poultry farmer (b. 1920)

2005 - Terri Schiavo

2006 - Jackie McLean, American jazz saxophonist

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New Jersey - Thomas Mundy Peterson Day.

César Chávez Day - official holiday in five states and many cities across the U.S.

Freedom Day in Malta.

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Liturgical feasts

Saint Amos
Saint Benjamin gray
Blessed Hendrik Werner
Saint of Rome
Saint Cornelia