1. In 999, Gerbert of Aurillac was elected as the first French pope.

2. In 1416, Alfonso V succeeded his father as the king of Aragon.

3. In 1453, Turkish forces under Sultan Mehmed II began the siege of Constantinople (Istanbul), which fell on May 29.

4. In 1513, explorer Juan Ponce de León claimed Florida for Spain as the first known European to reach Florida.

5. In 1550, Jewish physician Joseph Hacohen was expelled from the city of Genoa, and all Jews were expelled soon after.

6. In 1559, England and France signed the first Treaty of Le Cateau - Cambrésis.

7. In 1590, the States - General appointed Earl Mauritius as the viceroy of Utrecht.

8. In 1595, Cornelis de Houtman's ships departed from Holland for Asia via the Cape of Good Hope on the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies (Indonesia).

9. In 1645, Robert Devereux resigned as the supreme commander of Parliament.

10. In 1755, Commodore William James captured the pirate fortress of Suvarnadurg on the west coast of India.

11. In 1767, King Charles III of Spain gave orders to expel the Jesuits from the Spanish Empire.

12. In 1783, William Cavendish - Bentinck became the prime minister of Great Britain after an opposition coalition of Henry Fox and Frederick North forced William Petty to resign.

13. In 1792, the Coinage Act was passed, establishing the United States Mint and authorizing the $10 eagle, $5 half - eagle, and $2.50 quarter - eagle gold coins, as well as the silver dollar, half - dollar, quarter, dime, and half - dime.

14. In 1800, the first performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's First Symphony in C took place.

15. In 1801, during the Napoleonic Wars, the British led by Horatio Nelson destroyed the Danish fleet in the naval Battle of Copenhagen.

16. In 1804, forty merchantmen were wrecked when a convoy led by HMS Apollo ran aground off Portugal.

17. In 1819, the first successful agricultural journal, "American Farmer", was first published.

18. In 1827, US inventor Joseph Dixon of Salem, Massachusetts, began manufacturing lead pencils.

19. In 1845, H. L. Fizeau and Léon Foucault took the first photo of the sun.

20. In 1860, the first Italian parliament met at Turin.

21. In 1863, a bread revolt took place in Richmond, Virginia.

22. In 1864, a skirmish occurred at Crump's Hill (Piney Woods), Louisiana.

23. In 1864, a skirmish took place at Spoonville, Antoine, Arkansas.

24. In 1865, the Battle of Fort Blakely, Alabama, the last major battle of the US Civil War, took place.

25. In 1865, the Battle of Petersburg ended as the Army of Northern Virginia was forced to retreat under heavy fire from a general Union offensive.

26. In 1865, the Battle of Selma, Alabama, took place, and Union forces broke Confederate defenses to secure the town.

27. In 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis fled the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia (US Civil War).

28. In 1866, US President Andrew Johnson ended the civil war in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

29. In 1872, US engineer George Brayton patented an internal combustion engine (Brayton cycle).

30. In 1877, the first Easter egg roll was held on the White House lawn.

31. In 1877, the first human cannonball act was performed by 14 - year - old Rossa Matilda Richter, known as Zazel, at the Royal Aquarium in London.

32. In 1878, the first issue of Rotterdam's newspaper was published.

33. In 1881, the sixth impressionist exhibition opened in Paris, organized by Edgar Degas and showing his famous "Little Dancer of Fourteen Years", the only sculpture shown in his lifetime.

34. In 1883, the Battle at Bamako took place: French forces assaulted Fabous arm forces.

35. In 1884, the London prison for debtors was closed.

36. In 1900, the first edition of the Volk was published (Amsterdam).

37. In 1902, the "Electric Theatre", the first full - time movie theater in the United States, opened in Los Angeles, California.

38. In 1902, Dmitry Sipyagin, the minister of the interior of the Russian Empire, was assassinated by a terrorist in the Marie Palace, St. Petersburg.

39. In 1902, Dutch football club Maatschappelijke Voetbal Vereniging (MVV) was established in Maastricht, Netherlands.

40. In 1905, the Cairo - Cape Town railway opened.

41. In 1906, Dave Nourse took 4 wickets and Reggie Schwarz took 3 as South Africa won the 5th cricket test in Cape Town to complete a 4 - 1 series drubbing of England.

42. In 1912, Sun Yat - sen formed the Kuomintang party in China.

43. In 1912, the Titanic underwent sea trials under its own power.

44. In 1916, 57 armed New Zealand police invaded the remote Ngāi Tūhoe settlement of Mau Ngapō Hātu in the Urewera Ranges to arrest the Māori prophet Rua Kēnana.

45. In 1916, German troops overtook Bois de Caillette.

46. In 1917, Jeannette Rankin (Rep - R - Montana) began her term as the first woman member of the US House of Representatives.

47. In 1917, US President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany.

48. In 1921, Albert Einstein lectured in New York City on his new "Theory of Relativity".

49. In 1930, the first New York - Bermuda airplane flight landed in Bermuda.

50. In 1930, Ras Tafari Makonnen became Emperor Haile Selassie of Abyssinia (Ethiopia).