• 1152 – Henry II of England weds Eleanor of Acquitaine
• 1565 – Ottoman forces unsuccessfully attempt to conquer Malta, starting the Siege of Malta
• 1631 – John Winthrop becomes the first Governor of Massachusetts
• 1756 – Great Britain declares war on France, starting the Seven Years’ War
• 1804 – Napoleon Bonaparte is named Emperor of the French by the French Senate
• 1860 – Abraham Lincoln wins the Republican presidential nomination
• 1980 – Mount St. Helens erupts in Washington, US, causing $3 bil in damage and killing 57 people
• 2012 – Mitt Romney releases his first positive presidential TV advertisement, outlining what he would do on his first day in the White House if elected President

• 1204 – The first Emperor of the Latin Empire is crowned, Baldwin IX
• 1843– The first major wagon train leaves on the Oregon Trail, heading for the Pacific Northwest
• 1866 – Congress introduces the nickel as a replacement for the half dime coin
• 1868 – President Andrew Johnson is acquitted in his impeachment trial
• 1929 – The first Academy Awards take place
• 1951 – The first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights occur between JFK and London Heathrow
• 1991 – Queen Elizabeth II is the first British monarch to address US Congress
• 2012 – The trial of Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb Army chief, begins. He faces 11 counts of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

1792 – Militia Act establishes conscription under federal law

1945 – V-E Day is celebrated in American and Britain

1956 – Henry Ford II leaves post at Ford Foundation

1970 – Nixon defends invasion of Cambodia

1984 – Soviets announce boycott of 1984 Olympics

1988 – Woman convicted for tampering with Excedrin

2010 – Betty White becomes oldest Saturday Night Live host

2012 – ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ author Maurice Sendak dead at age 83

1789 – George Washington attends inaugural ball

1902 - Martinique’s Mount Pele begins the deadliest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.

1915 – German submarine sinks Lusitania

1960 – Brezhnev becomes president of the USSR

1994 – Munch’s The Scream recovered

1998 – Daimler-Benz announces purchase of Chrysler Corp.

1626 – Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on what is now Manhattan

1704 – The British seized Gibraltar from Spain

1929 – Actress Audrey Hepburn was born

1994 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat reached agreement in Cairo on the first stage of Palestinian self-rule

1990 – A botched execution of Jesse Tafero in Florida, caused many states to cease the use of the electric chair and adopt lethal injection as their means of capital punishment

1998 – Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was given four life sentences plus 30 years by a federal judge in Sacramento, Calif., under a plea agreement that spared him the death penalty

1469 – Niccolo Machiavelli was born

1810 – Washington, D.C., was incorporated

1921 – West Virginia imposed the first state sales tax in the US

1947 – Japan’s post WWII constitution went into effect

1937 – Margaret Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel “Gone with the Wind”

1980 – MADD founder’s 13 year old daughter was killed by a drunk driver

2005 – Iraq’s first democratically elected government was sworn in

1519 – Artist Leonardo da Vinci died

1536 – Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII of England, was imprisoned in the Tower of London

1945 – The Soviet Union announced the fall of Berlin and the Allies announced the surrender of Nazi troops in Italy and parts of Austria

1994 – Nelson Mandela claimed victory in South Africa’s first democratic elections

1997 – Tony Blair became, at age 44, Britain’s youngest prime minister in 185 years

2011 – Leaders and people across the world react to the US announcement that Osama Bin Laden was dead

1786 – Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro premieres in Vienna

1926 – Ford Motor Company becomes one of the first companies in America to adopt a five-day, 40-hour week for workers in its automotive factories

1931 – Empire State Building dedicated by Herbert Hoover

1958 – Eisenhower proclaims Law Day

1963 – James Whittaker of Redmond, Washington, becomes the first American to reach the summit of Mt. Everest, the tallest mountain in the world

2012 – May Day is marked around the world with demands for stronger labor rights – rallies throughout Asia demanding wage increases and marches planned across Europe over government-imposed austerity measures.

1789 – George Washington gives first presidential inaugural address

1803 – Louisiana Purchase concluded

1939 – New York World’s Fair opens

1945 – Adolf Hitler commits suicide in his underground bunker

1948 – Original Land Rover debuts at auto show

1997 – episode of the ABC sitcom Ellen, (played by Ellen DeGeneres) announces that she is gay

2012 – US troops aid in search for Kony the African fugitive rebel commander

4977 B.C. – The universe was created, according to German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler, but he was off by about 13.7 billion years

1296 – The Battle of Dunbar; England defeated Scotland

1682 – Peter the Great was declared Tsar of Russia

1995 – Actor Christopher Reeve was paralyzed when he was thrown from his horse during a jumping event in Charlottesville, VA

2012 – The US and Afghanistan have agreed to “give safe passage” to representatives of the Afghan Taliban to help them to enter future peace talks.