1. 1457 BC - Battle of Megiddo: Egyptian forces of Thutmose III defeat a large Canaanite coalition under the King of Kadesh.

2. 1178 BC - A solar eclipse may have marked the return of Odysseus, the legendary king of Ithaca, to his kingdom after the Trojan War.

3. AD 73 - Masada, a Jewish fortress, falls to the Romans after several months of siege, ending the Jewish revolt.

4. 556 - Pelagius I begins his reign as Catholic pope.

5. 1071 - Bari falls to Robert Guiscard's Norman forces, ending Byzantine rule in Italy.

6. 1245 - Franciscan envoys Giovanni da Pian del Carpine and Benedict to Pole depart Lyon on the first Catholic mission to the Mongols.

7. 1346 - The Serbian Empire is proclaimed in Skopje at an Easter assembly, and Stephen Uroš IV Dušan is crowned emperor over much of the Balkans.

8. 1395 - Azzo X d'Este is defeated at the Battle of Portomaggiore by Venetian - Ferranese troops.

9. 1509 - The French army under Louis XII enters the Alps.

10. 1521 - Martin Luther arrives at the Diet of Worms assembly.

11. 1582 - Spanish conquistador Hernando de Lerma founds the settlement of Salta in Argentina.

12. 1632 - Albrecht von Wallenstein is appointed supreme military commander of the Holy Roman Empire.

13. 1705 - Queen Anne of England knights Isaac Newton at Trinity College, Cambridge.

14. 1746 - Battle of Culloden: The Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stuart is defeated by royalist troops under the Duke of Cumberland, the last battle on British soil.

15. 1780 - The University of Münster in North Rhine - Westphalia, Germany is founded.

16. 1787 - The first American comedy, The Contrast, makes its debut in NYC.

17. 1789 - George Washington heads for the first presidential inauguration.

18. 1797 - The Spithead mutiny begins: British Royal Navy sailors protest over living and working conditions and pay near Portsmouth.

19. 1799 - Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Mount Tabor - Napoleon drives Ottoman Turks across the River Jordan near Acre.

20. 1818 - The Senate ratifies the Rush - Bagot Amendment (unarmed US - Canada border).

21. 1849 - Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera Le Prophète premieres in Paris.

22. 1853 - The first passenger railway opens in India, from Bori Bunder (Bombay) to Thane.

23. 1854 - The steamer Long Beach sinks off Long Beach, NY, with 311 dead.

24. 1854 - San Salvador is destroyed by an earthquake.

25. 1858 - The Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is wound up.

26. 1861 - US President Abraham Lincoln outlaws business with Confederate states (US Civil War).

27. 1862 - Slavery is abolished in the District of Columbia.

28. 1865 - Battle of Columbus and West Point, Georgia (Ft Tyler), Union forces win one of the last battles of the US Civil War.

29. 1866 - Nitroglycerine explodes at a Wells Fargo & Co office in San Francisco, shattering glass for half a mile.

30. 1868 - Louisiana voters approve a new constitution.

31. 1869 - Ebenezer Bassett, the first African - American diplomat, begins service as minister to Haiti.

32. 1870 - The Vaudeville Theatre Strand opens in London.

33. 1874 - Dr David Livingstone's body arrives in Southampton.

34. 1881 - In Dodge City, Kansas, Bat Masterson fights his last gun battle.

35. 1883 - Paul Kruger is chosen as president of Transvaal.

36. 1888 - Drentse & Friese peat cutters go on strike in the Netherlands.

37. 1900 - The US Post Office issues the first books of postage stamps.

38. 1903 - A large number of Jews are killed in a pogrom in Kishinev, Russia.

39. 1906 - The 10th Boston Marathon is won by 18 - year - old Tim Ford, the youngest race winner.

40. 1908 - Natural Bridges National Monument is established in Utah.

41. 1912 - Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly across the English Channel.

42. 1913 - Bulgarians and Turks agree to an armistice.

43. 1917 - Vladimir Lenin issues his "April Theses" calling for Soviets to take power during the Russian Revolution.

44. 1918 - The British House of Commons passes a new military service bill, taking men up to 55 years old and extending to Ireland.

45. 1919 - The US proposes that Shandong be jointly administered by five countries.

46. 1921 - The Liberal Freedom League forms in The Hague, Netherlands.

47. 1922 - The Treaty of Rapallo between Germany and the Soviet Union is signed, normalizing diplomatic relations.

48. 1940 - Denmark's National Day.

49. 1941 - The Italian - German Tarigo convoy is attacked and destroyed by British ships.

50. 1943 - Albert Hofmann accidentally discovers the hallucinogenic effects of LSD.