• 1264 - Battle of Lewes: Henry III of England is captured in France making Simon de Montfort the de facto ruler of England.
• 1483 - Coronation of Charles VIII of France ("Charles l'Affable").
• 1509 - Battle of Agnadello: In northern Italy, French forces defeat the Venetians.
• 1607 - Jamestown, Virginia is settled as an English colony.
• 1608 - The Protestant Union is founded in Auhausen.
• 1610 - Assassination of Henri IV of France, bringing Louis XIII to the throne.
• 1643 - Four-year-old Louis XIV becomes King of France upon the death of his father, Louis XIII.
• 1747 - A British fleet under Admiral George Anson defeats the French at first battle of Cape Finisterre.
• 1796 - Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox vaccination.
• 1804 - The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois and begins its historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River.
• 1811 - Paraguay gains independence from Spain.
• 1861 - The Canellas meteorite, an 859-gram chondrite-type meteorite, strikes the earth near Barcelona, Spain.
• 1863 - American Civil War: The Battle of Jackson takes place.
• 1868 - Japanese Boshin War: end of the Battle of Utsunomiya Castle, former Shogunate forces withdraw northward to Aizu by way of Nikkō.
• 1870 - The first game of rugby in New Zealand is played in Nelson between Nelson College and the Nelson Rugby Football Club.
• 1879 - The first group of 463 Indian indentured labourers arrive in Fiji aboard the Leonidas.
• 1889 - The children's charity the NSPCC is launched in London.
• 1913 - New York Governor William Sulzer approves the charter for the Rockefeller Foundation, which begins operations with a $100 million donation from John D. Rockefeller.
• 1925 - Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway is published.
• 1927 - Cap Arcona is launched at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg.
• 1927 - The University of Chicago's local collegiate organization, Phi Sigma, becomes incorporated under Illinois law as Eta Sigma Phi, the National Honorary Classical Fraternity.
• 1929 - Wilfred Rhodes takes his 4000th first-class wicket during a performance of 9 for 39 at Leyton.
• 1931 - Ådalen shootings: five people are killed in Ådalen, Sweden, as soldiers open fire on an unarmed trade union demonstration.
• 1935 - The Philippines ratifies an independence agreement.
• 1935 - Northamptonshire County Cricket Club gains (over Somerset at Taunton by 48 runs) what proved to be their last victory for 99 matches, a record in the County Championship. Their next Championship win wasn't until May 29, 1939.
• 1939 - Lina Medina becomes the world's youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five.
• 1940 - World War II: Rotterdam is bombed by the German Luftwaffe.
• 1940 - World War II: The Netherlands surrenders to Germany.
• 1943 - Sinking of the Australian Hospital Ship Centaur off the coast of Queensland, by a Japanese submarine.
• 1948 - Israel is declared to be an independent state and a provisional government is established. Immediately after the declaration, Israel is attacked by the neighboring Arab states, triggering the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
• 1955 - Cold War: Eight communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact.
• 1961 - American civil rights movement: The Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama, and the civil rights protesters are beaten by an angry mob.
• 1961 - Stirling Moss wins the 1961 Monaco Grand Prix.
• 1970 - The Red Army Faction is established in Germany.
• 1970 - Mississippi state police kill two black students at Jackson State University.
• 1973 - Human Space Flight: Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched. It is the last launch of the Saturn V rocket.
• 1978 - First round of the presidential elections in Upper Volta.
• 1988 - Carrollton bus collision: a drunk driver going the wrong way on Interstate 71 near Carrollton, Kentucky, United States hits a converted school bus carrying a church youth group. The crash and ensuing fire kill 27.
• 1995 - Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, proclaims six-year-old Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the eleventh reincarnation of the Panchen Lama.
• 2002 - Ten members of the Darwin-based Network Against Prohibition invade the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory of Australia.
• 2004 - The Constitutional Court of South Korea overturns the impeachment of President Roh Moo-hyun.
• 2004 - The marriage of Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark and Mary Donaldson takes place in Copenhagen.
• 2005 - Pope Benedict XVI observes his first beatification, elevating Blessed Marianne of Molokai on the road to canonization into sainthood.
• 2005 - The former USS America (CV-66), a decommissioned supercarrier of the United States Navy, is deliberately sunk in the Atlantic Ocean after four weeks of live-fire exercises. She is the largest ship ever to be disposed of as a target in a military exercise.

Births