This Day in History

1500

A fleet led by Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral reaches the coast of Brazil.

Archived Facts

1943

The Warsaw Ghetto uprising begins.

1983

A suicide attack against the American embassy in Beirut kills sixty-three people.

1946

Syria declares independence from French administration.

2003

The Treaty of Accession is signed in Athens, admitting ten new countries into the EU

1989

Students stage mass protests at Tiananmen Square following Hu Yaobang’s death.

1961

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin completes a successful orbital flight to become the first man in space.

1979

Ugandan dictator Idi Amin is deposed by Ugandan rebels helped by Tanzanian forces.

1972

The Biological Weapons Convention is opened for signatures after a draft is presented by the British.

1940

Germany invades Norway and Denmark during Operation Weserübung.

1904

The United Kingdom and France sign a series of agreements establishing the Entente Cordiale.

1992

Sarajevo is sieged by the Bosnian Serb Army.

1949

The North Atlantic Treaty is signed by twelve nations in Washington, DC.

1948

President Harry Truman signs the Marshall Plan into law.

1982

Argentinian forces invade the Falkland Islands, sparking the Falklands War.

2003

U.S. troops release Army soldier Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital in the first U.S. POW rescue since the Vietnam War.

1998

The Good Friday Agreement is reached, ending thirty years of conflict and formalizing relations between Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and Britain.

1854

France and Britain declare war on Russia, officially entering the Crimean War.

1958

Nikita Krushchev becomes Soviet premier.

1991

Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay sign the Treaty of Asuncion, establishing the Mercosur bloc.