On This Day

This Day in History

1. 2012Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, requested asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London while facing allegations of sexual assault in Sweden.
2. 2010The royal wedding of Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and Daniel Westling was held in Stockholm Cathedral.
3. 2009During the War in Afghanistan, British forces launched Operation Panther's Claw, sending over 350 troops on an aerial assault against Taliban positions in southern Afghanistan.
4. 2009Mass rioting erupted in Shishou, China, following suspicious circumstances regarding the death of a local chef.
5. 2005At the United States Grand Prix held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Indiana, only six race cars competed after safety concerns forced the withdrawal of all Michelin-shod entries.
6. 1987A car bomb detonated by the Basque separatist group ETA at a Hipercor shopping centre in Barcelona killed 21 people and injured 45 others.
7. 1970The international Patent Cooperation Treaty was signed, establishing a unified procedure to file patent applications protecting inventions across its contracting states.
8. 1965Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, commander of the South Vietnam Air Force, was appointed prime minister as the head of a military regime.
9. 1953Americans Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for spying after passing nuclear weapons secrets to the Soviet Union.
10. 1939American baseball player Lou Gehrig received a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a condition now commonly called "Lou Gehrig's disease" in the United States.
11. 1926Karol Szymanowski's opera King Roger, which focuses on Roger II of Sicily, premiered at Warsaw's Grand Theatre.
12. 1867Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico was executed by firing squad in Querétaro City during the Second French intervention in Mexico.
13. 1846The first officially recorded baseball game using modern rules in U.S. history took place in Hoboken, New Jersey, where the "New York Nine" defeated the New York Knickerbockers 23–1.
14. 1838In one of the largest slave sales in American history, the Maryland province of the Jesuits contracted to sell 272 slaves to buyers in Louisiana.
15. 1785The proprietors of King's Chapel in Boston voted to adopt James Freeman's Book of Common Prayer, establishing the first Unitarian church in the Americas.
16. 1718An earthquake occurring on the Tibetan Plateau resulted in the deaths of over 73,000 people.