211 Accession of the Praetorian Prefect Macrinus as Roman Emperor (April 9, 217-June 8, 218), in succession to the late Caracalla

238 Battle of Carthage: Forces loyal to Emperor Maximinus Thrax defeat those of the Gordiani

464 Procopius Anthemius is proclaimed Roman Emperor in the West (464-472)

627 King Edwin of Northumbria (616-632) converts to Christianity

1204 Fourth Crusaders capture Constantinople, amid the great slaughter

1229 Peace treaty between Castille and Toulouse

1365 2nd Treaty of Guerande: the House of Blois cedes Brittany to John IV de Montfort

1394 Turkish Sultan Bayazid takes Thessaloniki

1495 Italian League formed to fight Charles VIII of France

1637 Shimabara Revolt begins in Japan

1706 The new United Kingdom of Great Britain adopts the "Union" flag

1782 Battle of Providen: Indecisive Anglo-French naval clash off India

1796 Battle of Montenotte: Bonaparte's French defeat the Austrians

1809 Battle of Oporto: The English defeat the French

1831 The Broughton Suspension Bridge in Manchester, England, collapses from sympathetic vibrations induced as a company of the King's Royal Rifle Corps marches across

1861 Confederates shell Fort Sumter, initiating the Civil War

1862 Great Locomotive Chase: James Andrews steals a train at Kenesaw, GA

1864 Battle of Blair's Landing, La

1864 Fort Pillow Massacre: N. B. Forrest's men slaughter black troops

1877 British annex the Transvaal Republic

1911 First US naval aviator: Lt Theodore Ellyson

1916 Battle of Hacienda Santa Cruz de la Villegas: Maj. Charles Young, a senior black officer in the U.S. Army, leads a squadron of the 10th Cavalry ("Buffalo Soldiers") to rescue the white 13th Cav, besieged by the Mexicans

1924 19-year old hooker Madeline Blair was found plying her trade aboard the USS 'Arizona' (BB-39)

1928 Attempted assassination of King Victor Emanuel III by a bomb at a fair in Milan; 15 die, 40 injured

1931 Spanish voters elect an anti-monarchist parliament

1935 Germany prohibits the publishing of "non-Aryan" writers

1940 Italy annexes Albania

1942 Bataan: Japanese massacre c. 400 Filipino officers

1942 Cebu: Fil-Am forces initiate guerrilla operations.

1943 Allies capture Soussa, Tunisia

1943 German occupiers seize the Catholic University at Nijmegen, the Netherlands

1943 New Guinea: Japanese aircraft raid Port Moresby

1944 British airlift a West African Chindit brigade into central Burma.

1945 Okinawa: 150 kamikaze attack the Allied fleet, sinking one destroyer.

1945 Senior U.S. commanders visit the Ohrduf Concentration Camp; Ike & Bradley are stunned, Patton vomits

1945 The last wartime performance of the Berlin Philharmonic, opening appropriately with Brunhilde's aria and ending with the finale from "Die Gõtterdammerung".

1961 Douglas MacArthur declines offer to become baseball commissioner

1961 The first manned orbital mission: Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin, in Vostok 1

1966 First B-52 raids on North Vietnam

1993 Bosnia: USS 'Theodore Roosevelt' (CVN-71) & NATO a/c initiate no-fly zone

2014 Great Fire of Valparaíso begins: In four days 16 die, 10,000 are displaced, over 2,000 homes destroyed