July 4

• July 4, 1054
  The Chinese and Arabian observers document a bright supernova, the remnants of which form the Crab Nebula
• July 4, 1187
  Army of Saladin defeat Crusader forces and kill the majority of the Crusaders in the Battle of Hattin, becoming the eminent military power in the Holy Land
• July 4, 1415
  Angelo Correr becomes Pope Gregory XII
• July 4, 1610
  The Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth army under Polish nobleman Stanisław Żółkiewski defeats combined Russian-Swedish forces at the Battle of Klushino near Smolensk and conquers Tsardom of Russia
• July 4, 1653
  Barebone's Parliament, an assembly entirely nominated by Oliver Cromwell, goes into session in England
• July 4, 1776
  In Philadelphia the Continental Congress, convention of thirteen British colonies, adopts the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming the independence of the United States of America from Great Britain and its king
• July 4, 1779
  A French fleet occupies Grenada
• July 4, 1817
  Construction on Erie Canal, connecting Lake Erie with the Hudson, begins with ground-breaking in Utica, New York, USA
• July 4, 1828
  Ground-breaking ceremony for construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the first US railway, is held
• July 4, 1845
  American writer Henry David Thoreau begins his 26 month experiment in simple living in natural surroundings at Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts
• July 4, 1848
  The Cornerstone of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. is laid by President Polk
• July 4, 1852
  Frederick Douglass, an African-American social reformer, delivers his speech "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" for the Independence Day celebration in Rochester, New York
• July 4, 1855
  American poet and journalist Walt Whitman publishes his book "Leaves of Grass"
• July 4, 1868
  In Japan the last Tokugawa armies are defeated by Imperial "Kangun" troops at the Battle at Ueno
• July 4, 1881
  Tuskegee University in Alabama, founded by former slave Booker T. Washington as a major center for African-American higher education, enrolls 30 students
• July 4, 1883
  One of the first Wild West shows is performed in North Platte, Nebraska, and is organized by Buffalo Bill, who takes the show on the road the following year
• July 4, 1884
  The Statue of Liberty, 225-ton statue created by the French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, is presented to the United States in ceremonies at Paris as a gift from France in commemoration of 100 years of American independence
• July 4, 1898
  The French liner "La Bourgogne" collides with bark Cromartyshire, and 560 people die
• July 4, 1902
  President Theodore Roosevelt offers pardon and amnesty to all Filipinos who participated in the Philippine-American War marking the official end of the conflict
• July 4, 1942
  Forces of Germany, Romania, and Italy end the Siege of Sevastopol, the last Soviet port in the Crimea on the Black Sea, and take control of the city after intense bombardment
• July 4, 1946
  The Philippines gain independence from the United States
• July 4, 1987
  German Klaus Barbie, "Butcher of Lyon" convicted by a French court to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity
• July 4, 1997
  Mars Pathfinder, an American spacecraft carrying wheeled robotic Mars rover, lands on Mars
• July 4, 2012
  CERN announces the discovery of a new particle with properties consistent with the Higgs boson, an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics, after experiments at the Large Hadron Collider

May 18

• May 18, 1096
  Peasant crusaders from France and Germany begin Pogroms of 1096, the first instance of an antisemitism in Europe touched by the First Crusade, murdering thousands of Jews in Germany
• May 18, 1160
  Eric IX, a King of Sweden, is killed by the Danish lord Magnus Henriksson
• May 18, 1291
  Egyptian Mamluks destroy Acre after a siege of 43 days ending the existence of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem
• May 18, 1604
  England and Spain agree sign the Treaty of London ending the 19 year Anglo-Spanish war
• May 18, 1619
  Hugo Grotius, a Dutch jurist who laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law, is sentenced to life in prison
• May 18, 1652
  Rhode Island try to enact first law declaring slavery illegal
• May 18, 1727
  Peter II Alekseyevich is proclaimed Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias after death of Catherine I
• May 18, 1803
  Britain declares war on France after General Napoleon Bonaparte continues interfering in Italy and Switzerland, ending Peace of Amiens and starting the Napoleonic Wars and War of the Third Coalition
• May 18, 1804
  The French Senate adopted new national constitution of France, establishing the First French Empire and proclaiming Napoleon Bonaparte emperor
• May 18, 1810
  May Revolution as part of Latin American wars of independence against Napoleonic Spain begins in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which lead to the establishment of a local government, the Primera Junta
• May 18, 1830
  Edwin Beard Budding of England signs an agreement for the manufacture of his invention, the lawn mower, in which he adopts the rotary blade in the cloth industry to grass
• May 18, 1896
  The United States Supreme Court upholds the State of Louisiana Separate Car Act in Plessy vs. Ferguson, and affirms that segregation does not constitute discrimination, establishing the doctrine of "separate but equal"
• May 18, 1899
  The First Hague Peace Conference, proposed by Nicholas II of Russia, is opened in the Netherlands as 26 nations met to ban the destruction or seizure of enemy property with no military value
• May 18, 1900
  Tonga becomes a protected state under a Treaty of Friendship with Britain, when European settlers and rival Tongan chiefs tried to oust the second king
• May 18, 1954
  Supreme Court of the United States unanimously decides the case of Brown v. Board of Education, ordering an end to racial segregation in public schools
• May 18, 1994
  Food and Drug Administration concludes that Flavr Savr, a genetically modified tomato, is safe for food use, making it the first commercially grown genetically engineered food
• May 18, 2000
  Boo.com, one of the greatest dot-com busts in history collapses in London after six months, due to lack of funds

May 13

• May 13, 609
  Pope Boniface IV turns Pantheon, given him by the Byzantine emperor Phocas, into Christian church
• May 13, 1110
  Crusaders march into Beirut causing a bloodbath and include the city in Kingdom of Jerusalem
• May 13, 1497
  Pope Alexander VI excommunicates Girolamo Savonarola, who preached against corruption in the Church and civil government, for heresy
• May 13, 1607
  Jamestown, Virginia, is settled by English privateer Christopher Newport and 105 followers, which would become the first permanent English colony in North America
• May 13, 1637
  Cardinal Richelieu of France creates the table knife to cure dinner guests of the unsavoury habit of picking their teeth with their knife-points
• May 13, 1654
  Venetian fleet under Admiral Adeler beats Turkish
• May 13, 1779
  War of Bavarian Succession ends with Treaty of Teschen
• May 13, 1830
  Republic of Ecuador is founded after separation from Gran Columbia, with Juan José Flores, a Venezuelan military general, as president
• May 13, 1861
  Queen Victoria announces England's position of neutrality in the War Between the States
• May 13, 1888
  Princess Isabel of Brazil signs a law named "Lei Áurea", abolishing slavery and emancipating some 4 million slaves, the most of any nation in the western hemisphere
• May 13, 1926
  British general strike, involving 2.5 million trade workers, ends, but mine workers go on strike
• May 13, 1943
  The North African campaign of World War II ends as German and Italian forces forces surrender yielding over 275,000 prisoners of war
• May 13, 1950
  The first Formula One season is commenced with British Grand Prix, won by Giuseppe Farina for the Alfa Romeo team
• May 13, 1952
  Jawaharlal Nehru, one of the leaders of the Indian independence movement, becomes premier of India
• May 13, 1968
  1,000,000 French demonstrate against Charles de Gaulle and Pompidou
• May 13, 1981
  Pope John Paul II is shot and seriously wounded by Turkish ultra-nationalist Mehmet Ali Ağca, who makes two shots striking the Pope, while passing through Saint Peter's Square in Rome, in an open car
• May 13, 1992
  Falun Gong, a Chinese spiritual discipline for mind and body, is introduced by Li Hongzhi
• May 13, 1998
  Indonesian natives destroy and burn Chinese Indonesian-owned properties and kill and rape more than 1,000 Chinese Indonesians during riots against Chinese Indonesians

March 18

• March 18, 235
  Alexander Severus, Syrian emperor of Rome, is murdered by his troops. Maximinus Thrax becomes 27th Emperor of the Roman Empire
• March 18, 1167
  Battle of al-Babein between Kingdom of Jerusalem and Syrians for control of Egypt ends with draw
• March 18, 1314
  Jacques de Molay, the 23rd and last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake along with his aides by order of King Philip IV of France, who was deeply in debt to the order
• March 18, 1442
  Forces of Kingdom of Hungary defeat the Ottoman Turks in Battle of Hermannstadt
• March 18, 1532
  English parliament bans payments by English church to Rome
• March 18, 1584
  Ivan IV the Terrible, Russian tsar, dies at age 53 and is succeeded by his weak-minded son, Fyodor I with duties handed over to his wife's brother and trusted minister Boris Godunov
• March 18, 1793
  Austria army beats France at Battle of Neerwinden
• March 18, 1871
  Paris Commune, a revolutionary and socialist government in Paris, is founded
• March 18, 1899
  Phoebe, a moon of Saturn, is discovered by American astronomer William Henry Pickering
• March 18, 1902
  Enrico Caruso, an Italian operatic tenor, becomes first well-known performer to make a gramophone record
• March 18, 1913
  George I, king of Greece, is assassinated by socialist Alexandros Schinas at age 67
• March 18, 1915
  Turkey's Canakkale Sea Victory against allied powers occurs during Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign
• March 18, 1920
  Greece adopts the Gregorian calendar
• March 18, 1921
  Polish-Soviet War ends with Peace of Riga, by witch the disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine are partitioned between Russia and Poland, and Russia surrender works of art and other Polish national treasures acquired from Polish territories after 1772
• March 18, 1925
  60-kmps Tri-State Tornado, the deadliest tornado in U.S. history, speed through Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee killing 689
• March 18, 1948
  France, Great Britain, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg sign Treaty of Brussels, contains a mutual defence clause and provides a basis to foundation the Western European Union
• March 18, 1959
  President Dwight D Eisenhower signs Hawaii Admission Act, which admits the Hawaii into the United States as the 50th state
• March 18, 1965
  First human space walks occurs, when Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov, leaves his spacecraft Voskhod 2 for 12 minutes
• March 18, 1970
  Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk flees after military coup under General Lon Nol during Cambodian Civil War
• March 18, 1974
  Most Arab oil-producing nations end embargo against United States
• March 18, 1978
  Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan, is sentenced to death by hanging for ordering the assassination of a political opponent
• March 18, 1980
  Fifty people are killed at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia, when a Vostok-2M rocket explodes on its launch pad during a fueling operation
• March 18, 2000
  Chen Shui-bian, one of the founders of Democratic Progressive Party, is elected President of the Taiwan ending Kuomintang rule for the first time

March 5

• March 5, 1198
  The Teutonic Knights, religious Catholic order, are established as a military order in a ceremony at Acre in Palestine
• March 5, 1496
  English King Henry VII hires John Cabot, an Italian navigator, to explore new lands
• March 5, 1616
  The Catholic Church's Congregation of the Index ban Catholics from reading "On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres" by Nicholas Copernicus
• March 5, 1766
  Spanish official Antonio de Ulloa arrives in New Orleans to take possession of the Louisiana Territory from the French
• March 5, 1770
  British troops taunted by a crowd of colonists fire on an unruly mob in Boston and kill five citizens in what came to be known as the Boston Massacre
• March 5, 1824
  The British Empire annexes Burma, also known as Myanmar, with start of Anglo-Burmese Wars
• March 5, 1868
  Stapler patents in England by C.H.Gould
• March 5, 1931
  Mohandas Gandhi and British viceroy of India Lord Irwin sign pact, in which the British Government agree to free all political prisoners, in return for the suspension of the civil disobedience movement
• March 5, 1946
  Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech occurs in Fulton, Missouri, marking the beginning of Cold War
• March 5, 1953
  Joseph Stalin, a Soviet leader responsible for 9 to 15 million deaths from executions, Gulag camps, ethnic deportations, and famines, dies at age 73, which marks start of a period of moderate social and economic liberalization
• March 5, 1970
  The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, goes into effect
• March 5, 1972
  The Godfather, an American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is released in New York City
• March 5, 1998
  NASA announces that the Clementine probe orbiting the Moon has found enough water in polar craters to support a human colony and rocket fueling station
• March 5, 2013
  Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela, dies
• March 5, 2013
  Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina is elected the 266th pope, whereupon he takes the name Francis and becomes the first pope from the Southern Hemisphere after resignation of Benedict XVI, who becomes the first to do so since Gregory XII in 1415