TODAY IN HISTORY
1471 The Yorkists defeat the Lancastrians at the Battle of
Tewkesbury in the Wars of the Roses.
1926 Britain’s first general strike begins. It was called by the Trade Union Congress and troops were called in to operate essential services.
1938 Douglas Hyde becomes the first president of Ireland
under its new constitution.
1945 Field Marshal Montgomery announces that all enemy forces in the Netherlands, north-west Germany and Denmark have surrendered unconditionally; the US 7th Army captures Hitler’s country retreat of Berchtesgaden.
1968 Southern Vietnamese liberation forces make concerted attacks on US-SÀI Gòn positions in over 30 cities and townships in South Việt Nam.
1970 American National Guards shoot four students dead and wound 11 at Kent State University, after demonstrations against the American War in Việt Nam.
1995 Turkey announces it has pulled out the last of its troops from northern Iraq, six weeks after 35,000 soldiers crossed the border to wipe out Kurdish rebel bases.
1998 A major Swiss bank agrees to settle the claim of a 71-year-old Holocaust survivor, the first settlement in the dispute over Jewish-owned accounts missing since World War II.
2000 Ken Livingstone becomes the first Mayor of London.
2002 A passenger plane, belonging to Nigeria’s private EAS Airlines, crashes in a densely populated suburb of the northern city of Kano, killing 148 people.
2003 A series of tornado-laden storms kill 48 people across the mid-western and southern United States and injure hundreds of others.
2009 The EU admits that its previous forecasts were way off the mark. It now predicts "a deep and widespread recession" across the continent and said unemployment among the 16 nations that use the euro will rise to a postwar record of 11.5 per cent in 2010.
2014 A train derailment in the Raigad district of India’s Maharashtra state causes at least 19 deaths and 130 people injured.
2015 It is announced that the daughter of the Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, has been named Charlotte Elizabeth Diana, named after her grandfather, grandmother, and great grandmother.
2016 The European Union proposes visa-free travel for Turkish citizens within Europe’s Schengen Area and invites member states and EU lawmakers to endorse the move by June 30.
2017 Buckingham Palace announces that 95-year-old Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince consort of Queen Elizabeth II, will retire from royal duties in August.
2018 US President Donald Trump, in a speech to the National Rifle Association (NRA), suggests looser gun laws could have helped prevent deadly attacks in Paris in 2015 and linked knife crime in London to a handgun ban. His comments cause anger in France and Britain.
2021 Thailand launches a campaign to vaccinate 50,000 people living in a crowded river-side district of the capital Bangkok, as the country tries to contain a third wave of coronavirus infections.