On This Day

This Day in History

1. 2025Six people were killed when Israel conducted an airstrike on Doha in an unsuccessful effort to decapitate the Hamas leadership.
2. 2010A natural-gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, California, launched a fireball over 1,000 feet (300 meters) into the air and killed eight people.
3. 1999The Board of Commissioners of Currency introduced the initial banknotes of the Singapore dollar's Portrait Series.
4. 1971John Lennon released Imagine, his second solo album.
5. 1962French President Charles de Gaulle gave his "speech to the German youth" before an audience of 20,000 people in the courtyard of Ludwigsburg Palace.
6. 1957U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957, marking the first federal civil rights legislation enacted since Reconstruction.
7. 1954A magnitude-6.7 earthquake near Chlef killed more than 1,200 people, prompting the Algerian government to execute comprehensive building code reforms.
8. 1939Roughly 3,000 Polish Army soldiers initiated a nearly month-long defense of the Hel Peninsula during Germany's invasion of Poland in World War II.
9. 1892Edward Emerson Barnard discovered Jupiter's moon Amalthea at California's Lick Observatory, making it the final natural satellite identified through visual observation.
10. 1796A French Revolutionary Wars naval battle between British and French fleets off the Sumatran coast concluded inconclusively.
11. 1791Commissioners supervising the construction of the new capital city of the United States named it Washington, D.C., honoring the nation's first president.
12. 1493During the Ottoman wars in Europe, a sizeable Croatian army was defeated after intercepting Ottoman forces returning to the Sanjak of Bosnia.
13. 1320Byzantine troops gained control over Greece's Arcadia region by defeating Achaean forces at the Battle of Saint George.
14. 1141Yelü Dashi, the Liao general and founder of the Qara Khitai, defeated Kara-Khanid and Seljuq forces at the Battle of Qatwan near Samarkand in modern-day Uzbekistan.
15. 337Constantine II, Constantius II, and Constans became Roman co-emperors after eliminating every relative who could potentially claim the throne.
16. 9During the Germanic Wars, an alliance of Germanic tribes under Arminius defeated three Roman legions within several days at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.