On This Day

This Day in History

1. 2024Anura Kumara Dissanayake secured election as the ninth President of Sri Lanka.
2. 2013As part of the insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, two suicide bombers attacked All Saints Church in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 127 people.
3. 2013A suicide bombing targeted a Christian church located in Peshawar, Pakistan, leaving at least 75 people dead.
4. 2003Dolphin, the initial GameCube emulator capable of running commercial video games, was released.
5. 1994The Nordhordland Bridge, which spans Salhusfjorden between Klauvaneset and Flatøy in Vestland to serve as Norway's second-longest bridge, was officially opened.
6. 1994Pictured here, the Nordhordland Bridge officially opened across Salhusfjorden between Klauvaneset and Flatøy in Vestland, standing as the second-longest bridge in Norway.
7. 1993In Mobile, Alabama, U.S., a tugboat towing a barge struck a rail bridge and deformed the tracks, causing a passenger train to derail eight minutes later, killing 47 people and injuring 103 others.
8. 1979An American Vela satellite recorded an unidentified flash of light close to the Prince Edward Islands in the Indian Ocean, which was believed to be a nuclear weapons test.
9. 1957François Duvalier, pictured and nicknamed Papa Doc, won election as President of Haiti on a populist platform before consolidating power to rule as dictator for the remainder of his life.
10. 1948Under the leadership of Gail Halvorsen, the United States Air Force launched Operation "Little Vittles" to drop candy to children during the Berlin Airlift.
11. 1939Forces from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union held a joint military parade in Brest-Litovsk to celebrate their joint partition of Poland.
12. 1934An explosion at Gresford Colliery in Wales resulted in 266 deaths, marking one of the deadliest mining disasters in British history.
13. 1914During the First World War, the German submarine U-9 sank three Royal Navy cruisers, causing around 1,450 fatalities.
14. 1869Das Rheingold, the initial opera in Der Ring des Nibelungen composed by the pictured Richard Wagner of Germany, premiered in Munich.
15. 1789The office of United States Postmaster General was officially created.
16. 1236During the Livonian Crusade, pagan Samogitian and Semigallian forces decisively defeated the Livonian Brothers of the Sword in the Battle of Saule.