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Events

• 1112 – Ramon Berenguer III of Barcelona and Douce I of Provence marry, uniting the fortunes of those two states.
• 1377 – more than 2,000 people of the Italian city of Cesena are slaughtered by Papal Troops (Cesena Bloodbath).
• 1451 – Sultan Mehmed II inherits the throne of the Ottoman Empire.
• 1488 – Bartolomeu Dias of Portugal lands in Mossel Bay after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, becoming the first known European to travel so far south.
• 1509 – The Battle of Diu, between Portugal and the Ottoman Empire takes place in Diu, India.
• 1637 – Tulip mania collapses in the United Provinces (now the Netherlands) by government order.
• 1690 – The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in America.
• 1706 – During the Battle of Fraustadt Swedish forces defeat a superior Saxon-Polish-Russian force by deploying a double envelopment.
• 1783 – American Revolutionary War: Spain recognizes United States independence.
• 1787 – Shays' Rebellion is crushed.
• 1807 – A British military force, under Brigadier-General Sir Samuel Auchmuty captures the city of Montevideo, then part of the Spanish Empire now the capital of Uruguay.
• 1809 – The Illinois Territory is created.
• 1830 – The sovereignty of Greece is confirmed in a London Protocol.
• 1834 – Wake Forest University is established.
• 1867 – Emperor Meiji becomes the 122nd emperor of Japan.
• 1870 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, granting voting rights to citizens regardless of race.
• 1900 – Gubernatorial candidate William Goebel is assassinated in Frankfort, Kentucky.
• 1908 – Foundation of Panathinaikos in Athens, Greece.
• 1913 – The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.
• 1916 – Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canada burn down.
• 1917 – World War I: The United States breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany a day after the former announced a new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.
• 1918 – The Twin Peaks Tunnel in San Francisco, California begins service as the longest streetcar tunnel in the world at 11,920 feet (3,633 meters) long.
• 1930 – The Communist Party of Vietnam is established.
• 1931 – The Hawke's Bay earthquake, New Zealand's worst natural disaster, kills 258.
• 1944 – World War II: United States troops capture the Marshall Islands.
• 1945 – World War II: The Soviet Union agrees to enter the Pacific Theatre conflict against Japan.
• 1945 – World War II: As part of Operation Thunderclap, 1,000 B-17's of the Eighth Air Force bomb Berlin.
• 1947 – The lowest temperature in North America is recorded in Snag, Yukon.
• 1957 – Senegalese political party Democratic Rally merges into the Senegalese Party of Socialist Action (PSAS).
• 1958 – Founding of the Benelux Economic Union, creating a testing ground for a later European Economic Community.
• 1959 – A plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa kills Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson and the incident becomes known as The Day the Music Died.
• 1966 – The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon.
• 1967 – Ronald Ryan, the last person to be executed in Australia, is hanged in Pentridge Prison, Melbourne.
• 1969 – In Cairo, Yasser Arafat is appointed Palestine Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress.
• 1971 – New York Police Officer Frank Serpico is shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption. Many believe the incident proves that NYPD officers tried to kill him.
• 1984 – Dr. John Buster and the research team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center announce history's first embryo transfer, from one women to another resulting in a live birth.
• 1984 – Space Shuttle program: STS-41-B Mission – astronauts, Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered spacewalks using the Manned Maneuvering Unit.
• 1988 – Iran-Contra Affair: The United States House of Representatives rejects President Ronald Reagan's request for $36.25 million to aid Nicaraguan Contras.
• 1989 – After a stroke, P.W. Botha resigns party leadership and the presidency of South Africa.
• 1989 – A military coup overthrows Alfredo Stroessner, dictator of Paraguay since 1954.
• 1991 – The Italian Communist Party dissolves and splits into the Democratic Party of the Left and the Communist Refoundation Party.
• 1996 – The Lijiang earthquake in Lijiang, Yunnan, China.
• 1998 – Karla Faye Tucker is executed in Texas becoming the first woman executed in the United States since 1984.
• 1998 – Cavalese cable-car disaster: a United States Military pilot causes the death of 20 people when his low-flying plane cuts the cable of a cable-car near Trento, Italy.
• 1999 – In Jammu and Kashmir the political party Democratic Janata Dal is revived.
• 2007 – A Baghdad market bombing kills at least 135 people and injures a further 339.
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