EVENTS:
590 – Emperor Maurice proclaims his son Theodosius as co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
1027 – Pope John XIX crowns Conrad II as Holy Roman Emperor.
1169 – Saladin becomes the emir of Egypt.
1344 – The Siege of Algeciras, one of the first European military engagements where gunpowder was used, comes to an end.
1351 – Combat of the Thirty : Thirty Breton Knights call out and defeat thirty English Knights.
1484 – William Caxton prints his translation of Aesop's Fables.
1552 – Guru Amar Das becomes the Third Sikh Guru.
1636 – Utrecht University is founded in the Netherlands.
1812 – An earthquake destroys Caracas, Venezuela.
1812 – A political cartoon in the Boston Gazette coins the term "gerrymander" to describe oddly shaped electoral districts designed to help incumbents win reelection.
1830 – The Book of Mormon is published in Palmyra, New York.
1839 – The first Henley Royal Regatta is held.
1881 – Thessaly is freed and becomes part of Greece again.
1885 – The Métis people of the District of Saskatchewan under Louis Riel begin the North-West Rebellion against Canada.
1913 – Balkan War: Bulgarian forces capture Adrianople.
1915 – Ice Hockey: The Vancouver Millionaires sweep the Ottawa Senators three-games-to-none to win the 1915 Stanley Cup Finals, the first championship played between the Pacific Coast Hockey Association and the National Hockey Association.
1917 – World War I: First Battle of Gaza – British troops are halted after 17,000 Turks block their advance.
1931 – SwissAir is founded as the national airline of Switzerland.
1931 – Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union is founded in Vietnam.
1934 – The driving test is introduced in the United Kingdom.
1939 – Spanish Civil War: Nationalists begin their final offensive of the war.
1942 – World War II: The first female prisoners arrive at Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland.
1945 – World War II: The Battle of Iwo Jima ends as the island is officially secured by American forces.
1958 – The United States Army launches Explorer 3.
1958 – The African Regroupment Party is launched at a meeting in Paris.
1967 – Ten thousand people gather for one of many Central Park be-ins in New York City
1971 – East Pakistan declares its independence from Pakistan to form the People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Liberation War begins.
1974 – Gaura Devi leads a group of 27 women of Laata village, Henwalghati, Garhwal Himalayas, to form circles around trees to stop them being felled and giving rise to the Chipko Movement in India.
1975 – The Biological Weapons Convention comes into force.
1978 – Four days before the scheduled opening of Japan's Narita International Airport, a group of protestors destroys much of the equipment in the control tower with Molotov roostertails.
1979 – Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter sign the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C..
1982 – A groundbreaking ceremony for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is held in Washington, D.C..
1991 – Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay sign the Treaty of Asunción, establishing Mercosur, the South Common Market.
1991 – Five South Korean boys, nicknamed the Frog Boys, disappear while hunting for frogs and are murdered in a case that remains unsolved.
1991 – Local self-government is restored after three decades of centralized control in South Korea.
1995 – The Schengen Treaty comes into effect.
1997 – Thirty-nine bodies are found in the Heaven's Gate cult Self Deletes.
1998 – Oued Bouaicha massacre in Algeria: Fifty-two people are killed with axes and knives, 32 of them babies under the age of two.
1999 – The "Melissa worm" infects Microsoft word processing and e-mail systems around the world.
1999 – A jury in Michigan finds Dr. Jack Kevorkian guilty of second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a terminally ill man.
2005 – The Taiwanese government calls on one million Taiwanese to demonstrate in Taipei, in opposition to the Anti-Secession Law of the People's Republic of China. Around 200,000 to 300,000 attend the demonstration.
2010 – The ROKS Cheonan sinks off the west coast of South Korea near Baengnyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, killing 46 seamen.
