1529 - At the Second Diet of Speyer, a group of rulers (German: Fürst) and independent cities (German: Reichsstadt) protests the reinstatement of the Edict of Worms, beginning the Protestant Reformation.
1587 - Francis Drake sinks the Spanish fleet in Cádiz harbor.
1713 - With no living male heirs, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, issues the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 to ensure that Habsburg lands and the Austrian throne would be inherited by his daughter, Maria Theresa of Austria (not actually born until 1717).
1770 - Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI by Proxy marriage.
1775 - American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Lexington and Concord which began the American Revolutionary War.
1782 - John Adams secured the Dutch Republic's recognition of the United States as an independent government and the house that he purchased in The Hague, Netherlands became the first American embassy.
1809 - The army of Austria attacks and is defeated by the forces of the Duchy of Warsaw in the Battle of Raszyn, part of the struggles of the Fifth Coalition.
1810 - Venezuela achieves home rule: Vicente Emparan, Governor of the Captaincy General is removed by the people of Caracas and a Junta is installed.
1839 - The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom.
1861 - American Civil War: Baltimore riot of 1861, a pro-Secession mob in Baltimore, Maryland, attacks United States Army troops marching through the city.
1892 - Charles Duryea claims to have driven the first automobile in the United States, in Springfield, Massachusetts.
1904 - Much of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is destroyed by fire.
1919 - Leslie Irvin of the United States makes the first successful voluntary free-fall parachute jump using a new kind of self-contained parachute.
1927 - Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in jail for obscenity for her play Sex.
1928 - The 125th and final fascicle of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.
1934 - Shirley Temple debuts in Stand Up and Cheer.
1936 - First day of the Great Uprising in Palestine.
1943 - World War II: In Poland, German troops enter the Warsaw ghetto to round up the remaining Jews, beginning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
1943 - Bicycle Day – Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time.
1945 - The diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Guatemala are established.
1950 - Argentina becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
1951 - General Douglas MacArthur retires from the military.
1954 - Constituent Assembly of Pakistan decides Urdu and Bengali to be national languages of Pakistan.
1955 - The German automaker Volkswagen, after six years of selling cars in the United States, founds Volkswagen of America in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey to standardize its dealer and service network.
1956 - Actress Grace Kelly marries Rainier III of Monaco.
1960 - Students in South Korea hold a nationwide pro-democracy protest against their president Syngman Rhee, eventually forcing him to resign.
1961 - The Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba ends in success for the defenders.
1971 - Sierra Leone becomes a republic, and Siaka Stevens the president.
1971 - Vietnam War: Vietnam Veterans Against the War begin a five-day demonstration in Washington, DC.
1971 - Launch of Salyut 1, first human-made space station.
1971 - Charles Manson is sentenced to death for the Sharon Tate murders.
1975 - India's first satellite Aryabhata is launched.
1985 - Advance Australia Fair is proclaimed as Australia's national anthem, and green and gold as the national colours.
1985 - U.S.S.R performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalatinsk U.S.S.R.
1993 - The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian building outside Waco, Texas, USA, ends when a fire breaks out. Eighty-one people die.
1993 - South Dakota governor George Mickelson and seven others are killed when a state-owned aircraft crashed lands in Iowa.
1995 - Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, is bombed, killing 168. That same day convicted murderer Richard Wayne Snell, who had ties to bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh, is executed in Arkansas.
