1. In 756, Abd - al - Rahman I became the emir of Cordoba, Spain.

2. In 884, Marinus I ended his reign as the Catholic pope.

3. In 1004, Henry II the Saint was crowned king of Italy.

4. In 1213, King John of England appointed Stephen Langton as the archbishop of Canterbury.

5. In 1222, Genghis Khan met the leader of the Taoist Dragon Gate Sect Chang Chun at his camp in Parwan, Afghanistan.

6. In 1248, Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden laid the cornerstone for Cologne Cathedral.

7. In 1252, Pope Innocent IV issued the papal bull Ad Ex Stir Panda, which authorized, but also limited, the torture of heretics in the medieval inquisition.

8. In 1492, during the Cheese & Bread Rebellion, German mercenaries killed 232 residents of Alkmaar, Netherlands.

9. In 1514, Jodocus Badius Ascensius published Christiern Pedersen's Latin version of Saxo's "Gesta Danorum" (Deeds of the Danes) in Paris.

10. In 1525, at the Battle of Frankenhausen, the German peasant army was surrounded and 5,000 were slaughtered, ending the peasants' uprising.

11. In 1536, Anne Boleyn and her brother George, Lord Rochford, were accused of adultery and incest. After a four - day show trial, Anne Boleyn was beheaded.

12. In 1572, Louis van Nassau and the Huguenots occupied Valenciennes.

13. In 1602, Cape Cod was discovered by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold.

14. In 1610, the Parliament of Paris appointed Louis XIII as the French king.

15. In 1618, German astronomer Johannes Kepler discovered the third of his three planetary laws, the "Harmonic Law".

16. In 1625, 16 rebellious farmers were hanged in Vocklamarkt, Upper - Austria.

17. In 1648, the Treaty of Munster was ratified by Spain and the Netherlands.

18. In 1665, Pope Alexander VII appointed a committee to investigate Jansenism.

19. In 1672, the first copyright law was enacted by Massachusetts.

20. In 1701, the War of the Spanish Succession began.

21. In 1711, Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism" was published anonymously.

22. In 1718, James Puckle, a London lawyer, patented the world's first machine gun.

23. In 1756, Britain declared war on France, and the Seven Years' War broke out.

24. In 1767, Genoa sold Corsica to France.

25. In 1776, during the American Revolution, the fifth Virginia convention instructed its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States Declaration of Independence.

26. In 1791, during the French Revolution, Maximilien Robespierre proposed the Self - Denying Ordinance.

27. In 1793, Diego Marín Aguilera flew a glider for "about 360 metres" at a height of 5 - 6 metres, one of the first attempted flights.

28. In 1796, during the First Coalition, Napoleon entered Milan in triumph with French troops.

29. In 1796, France and Sardinia signed the Peace Treaty of Paris.

30. In 1800, King George III survived a second assassination attempt.

31. In 1817, the Ambonese uprising against Dutch authority took place in modern - day Indonesia under Thomas Matulesia (aka Kapitan Pattimura).

32. In 1817, the first private mental health hospital opened in the US, the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason (now Friends Hospital) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

33. In 1830, Emily Dickinson was born.

34. In 1836, Francis Baily observed "Baily's Beads" during an annular solar eclipse.

35. In 1841, the first emigrant wagon train to make it to California left Independence, Missouri on a 1,730 - mile journey over the Sierra Nevada.

36. In 1851, King Mongkut (Rama IV or Phra Chomklao Chao Yuhua) was crowned in Siam (Thailand).

37. In 1851, the first Australian gold rush was proclaimed, although the discovery had been made three months earlier.

38. In 1856, the second San Francisco Vigilance Committee was organized.

39. In 1858, the Royal Italian Opera opened in Covent Garden, London.

40. In 1869, the National Woman Suffrage Association was formed in New York by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

41. In 1882, the May Laws were passed in Russia. Tsar Alexander III banned Jews from living in rural Romania.

42. In 1883, Italy signed a military treaty with Austria - Hungary and Germany.

43. In 1885, Canadian Métis insurgent Louis Riel was captured in the aftermath of the Battle of Batoche in Saskatchewan.

44. In 1886, British sailor David Beatty was promoted to midshipman.

45. In 1889, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France was officially opened to the public.

46. In 1911, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Standard Oil Company was a monopoly and ordered it to dissolve within six months.

47. In 1936, the Spanish Civil War nearly broke out as the conflict between the left - wing Popular Front government and right - wing officers in Spain intensified.

48. In 1943, Joseph Stalin dissolved the Comintern (or Third International).

49. In 1948, the first Arab - Israeli War broke out. The day after Israel declared its independence, the Arab - Israeli War (the First Middle East War) erupted as a coalition of Arab countries including Egypt, Syria, and Jordan launched an offensive against Israel.

50. In 1973, the US space station "Skylab" was launched into space and later successfully docked with the "Apollo" spacecraft, marking the beginning of long - term manned spaceflight experiments.