The day is yours, and yours also the night;
you established the sun and moon.   NIV


– Psalm 74:16 

0314: St. Sylvester becomes Pope

0410: Death of St. Marcella

0626: Death of St. Aidan (Madoc) of Ferns

1531: Ferdinand of Hapsburg, King of Hungary, and John Zapolyai, King of Hungary, reach a truce

1547: The Earl of Hertford is appointed Duke of Somerset and Lord-Protector of England

1580: Death of Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal

1606: Guy Fawkes, convicted for his part in the "Gunpowder Plot" against the English Parliament and King James the First, was executed.

1616: First trip both ways around Cape Horn

1620: The Virginia colony requests more orphaned apprentices for employment

1788: The Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart dies.

1801: The sale of white bread was prohibited in London.

1851: San Francisco Orphan's Asylum, 1st in California, founded.

1865: General Robert E. Lee was named General-in-Chief of all the Confederate armies.

1865: House of Representatives approves a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery.

1871: Birds fly over the western part of San Francisco in such large numbers that they actually darken the sky.

1885: C.D. Wright was appointed as the first Commissioner of Labor in the United States.

1901: France the Army and the Navy ban corporal punishment.

1902: The Pan American Conference ends in Mexico City with all agreed to settle disputes in peace.

1911: Congress passes resolution naming San Francisco as the site of the celebration of the opening of the Panama Canal.

1911: The German Reichstag exempts royal families from tax obligations.

1915: Germans use poison gas on the Russians at Bolimov.

1915: German U-boats sink two British steamers in the English Channel.

1916: President Wilson refuses the compromise on Lusitania reparations.

1917: Germany served notice that it was beginning a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.

1929: The Soviet Union expelled communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky. He was later assassinated in Mexico.

1930: Lt. Ralph S. Barnaby of the U.S. Navy became the first glider pilot to have his craft released from a large blimp at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

1934: The Federal Farm Mortgage Corp. is set up to provide low interest loans that are backed by government bonds.

1935: The Soviet premier tells Japan to get out of Manchuria. The rise of militaristic nationalism led Japan down the road to Pearl Harbor and World War II.

1936: The radio show, "The Green Hornet" was introduced by its famous theme song, "The Flight of the Bumble Bee". The show premiered on WXYZ radio, in Detroit, Michigan, and stayed on the air for 16 years.

1940: The first Social Security check was issued, by the U.S. Government. The check was for $22.54 and was issued to Ida Fuller of Brattlesboro, Vermont. Her check number was 00-000-001.

1944: During World War Two, US forces began invading Kwajalein Atoll and other parts of the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.

1945: Private Eddie Slovik became the only US soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion as he was shot by an American firing squad in France.

1949: The first TV daytime soap opera, "These Are My Children," was broadcast from the NBC station in Chicago.

1950: Paris protests the Soviet recognition of Ho Chi Minh’s Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

1950: President Truman announced he had ordered development of the hydrogen bomb. Truman said, ``A leader has to lead, or otherwise he has no business in politics.''

1958: The United States entered the Space Age with its first successful launch of a satellite into orbit, "Explorer One."

1960: Julie Andrews, Henry Fonda, Rex Harrison and Jackie Gleason, appeared in a two-hour TV special titled, "The Fabulous ’50s."

1961: Ham the chimp is 1st animal sent into space by the US.

1966: U.S. planes resume bombing of North Vietnam after a 37-day pause.

1971: Astronauts Alan B. Shepard Junior, Edgar D. Mitchell and Stuart A. Roosa blasted off aboard "Apollo 14" on a mission to the moon.

1976: Ernesto Miranda, famous from the Supreme Court ruling on "MirandaRights," is stabbed to death in Arizona.

1981: Lech Walesa announces an accord in Poland, giving labor Saturdays off.

1982: The Israeli Cabinet agreed to a multi-national peace-keeping force to act as a buffer between Israel and Egypt in the Sinai peninsula.

1982: Sandy Duncan, of Tyler, Texas, gave her final performance as "Peter Pan" in Los Angeles. She completed 956 performances without missing a show, and flew a total of 261.5 miles while on stage.

1984: Newsman Edwin Newman retired from NBC News after 35 years with the network.

1985: The final Jeep, the workhorse vehicle that came home a hero from World War II, rolled off the assembly line at the AMC plant in Toledo, Ohio.

1987: Members of the United Steelworkers union ratified a contract with USX Corporation, ending a six-month work stoppage.

1987: Discount airline pioneer People Express flew its last flights before merging into Continental Airlines.

1988: The Washington Redskins crushed the Denver Broncos, 42-to-10, to win Super Bowl 22 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego.

1989: Jury selection began in the trial of former National Security Council aide Oliver North, charged in connection with the Iran-Contra affair. (North was later convicted on three counts, but those convictions were set aside, and the case was not retried.)

1990: McDonald's Corporation opened its first fast-food restaurant in Moscow.

1991: During the Gulf War, Army Specialist Melissa Rathbun-Nealy and Army Specialist David Lockett were captured by Iraqi forces near the Kuwaiti-Saudi border; both were eventually released. 

1991: Allied forces claimed victory against Iraqi attackers at Khafji, Saudi Arabia. 

1992: Leaders of the UN Security Council's member states held an unprecedented summit, after which they issued a declaration on collective security, arms control and nuclear non-proliferation.

1993: The Dallas Cowboys defeated the Buffalo Bills 52-to-17 in Super Bowl 27, played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.

1994: Gerry Adams, president of the pro-IRA Sinn Fein party, arrived in New York after being granted a 48-hour visa so that he could take part in a conference on the violence in Northern Ireland.

1994: In Somalia, a convoy of U.S. soldiers opened fire on hundreds of Somali civilians outside a food distribution center, killing at least eight.

1995: Legendary Broadway producer-director George Abbott died in Miami Beach, Florida, at age 107

1995: After Congress failed to act quickly, President Clinton used his emergency authority to provide financially troubled Mexico with a $20 billion loan.

1995: The prosecution in the double-murder trial of O.J. Simpson began presenting its case.

1996: In one of the worst attacks in Sri Lanka's civil war, a truck packed with explosives rammed into the central bank and exploded, killing 88 people and wounding 14-hundred others.

1996: The last Cubans held in refugee camps at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base boarded a plane for Florida.

1997: Three days of deliberations in the O.J. Simpson civil trial in Santa Monica, California, were scrapped and the jury forced to start all over again after the only black woman on the panel was replaced because of misconduct.

1998:: Astronaut David Wolf returned to Earth aboard space shuttle Endeavour after four months on the Russian space station Mir.

1999: The Denver Broncos repeated as NFL champions, defeating the Atlanta Falcons 34-19 in Super Bowl XXXIII.

1999: Researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham presented what they called convincing proof that the AIDS virus originated in chimpanzees and spread to people in Africa.

2000: An Alaska Airlines jet plummeted into the Pacific Ocean, killing all 88 people aboard. 

2000: Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker was suspended by baseball commissioner Bud Selig for disparaging foreigners, homosexuals and minorities in a Sports Illustrated interview. 

2000: Pro Bowl linebacker Ray Lewis was charged with murder in the deaths of two people outside an Atlanta nightclub hours after the Super Bowl. (Lewis ended his trial early by pleading guilty to obstruction of justice; two co-defendants were acquitted at trial.)