1512 - Birth of Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator (Gerhard Kremer).
1818 - Birth of Karl Marx, German socialist writer, philosopher, founder of communism.
1821 - Death of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
1847 - The American Medical Association was established in Philadelphia.
1862 - The Mexican army defeated the French in the bid for Puebla, Mexico.
1891 - The "Music Hall" (now Carnegie Hall) opened in New York City.
1893 - The New York Stock Exchange reached critical mess; the stock market crashed, sinking the U.S. into a deep depression.
1904 - Cy Young (Denton True Young) pitched the first perfect baseball game.
1925 - John T. Scopes was arrested in Tennessee for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
1955 - West Germany became a sovereign state.
1961 - Alan B. Shepard completed a 15-minute suborbital flight in a capsule launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida.8-)
Now you know there are more events that happened on this day. Here they are. 553 - The Second Council of Constantinople begins.
1260 - Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire.
1640 - King Charles I of England disbands the Short Parliament.
1646 - King Charles I of England and Scotland surrenders to the Scottish Presbyterian Army at Newark.
1762 - Russia and Prussia sign the Treaty of St. Petersburg.
1789 - In France, the Estates-General convenes for the first time in 150 years.
1809 - Mary Kies becomes the first woman awarded a U.S. patent, for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread.
1809 - The Swiss canton of Aargau denies citizenship to Jews.
1835 - In Belgium, the first railway in continental Europe opens between Brussels and Mechelen.
1862 - Cinco de Mayo in Mexico: Troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halt a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla.
1864 - American Civil War: The Battle of the Wilderness begins in Spotsylvania County, Virginia.
1865 - In North Bend, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati), the first train robbery in the United States takes place.
1877 - Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.
1886 - The Bay View Tragedy occurs, militia fire upon a crowd of protesters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin killing seven.
1891 - The Music Hall in New York (now known as Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor.
1893 - Panic of 1893: Crash on the New York Stock Exchange starts a depression.
1902 - Commonwealth Public Service Act creates Australian Public Service.
1904 - Pitching against the Philadelphia Athletics at the Huntington Avenue Grounds, Cy Young of the Boston Americans threw the first perfect game in the modern era of baseball.
1916 - American marines invade the Dominican Republic.
1925 - Scopes Trial: John T. Scopes is served an arrest warrant for teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.
1925 - Afrikaans established as an official language in South Africa.
1936 - Italian troops occupy Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
1940 - World War II: In London, a Norwegian government-in-exile is formed.
1941 - Emperor Haile Selassie returns to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; this date has been since commemorated as Liberation Day.
1944 - Mohandas Gandhi is freed from prison.
1945 - World War II:
German troops in the Netherlands and Denmark capitulate to Canadian and British forces, liberating these countries from Nazi occupation.
Prague uprising against the Nazis.
Mauthausen concentration camp is liberated.
Admiral Karl D
