330 – Byzantium is renamed Nova Roma during a dedication ceremony, but it is more popularly referred to as Constantinople.
868 – A copy of the Diamond Sutra is printed in China, making it the oldest known dated printed book.
912 – Alexander becomes Emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
1310 – Philip IV of France has fifty-four members of the Knights Templar burned at the stake, ostensibly for heresy.
1502 – Christopher Columbus departs Cádiz on his fourth and final voyage to the Americas.
1647 – Peter Stuyvesant arrives in New Amsterdam to replace Willem Kieft as Director-General of New Netherland, the Dutch colonial settlement in present-day New York City.
1792 – Robert Gray commands the first expedition to sail into the Columbia River.
1833 – The Lady of the Lake strikes an iceberg off Newfoundland and sinks with the loss of up to 265 passengers and crew.
1846 – President James K. Polk asked for a Declaration of War against Mexico, starting the Mexican–American War. It is approved on May 13.
1858 – Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. State.
1862 – American Civil War: The ironclad CSS Virginia is scuttled in the James River.
1894 – Four thousand Pullman Palace Car Company workers go on a wildcat strike.
1910 – An act of the U.S. Congress establishes Glacier National Park in Montana.
1927 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded.
1942 – William Faulkner's collections of short stories, Go Down, Moses, is published.
1943 – World War II: American troops invade Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.
1949 – Siam officially changes its name to Thailand for the second time. The name had been in use since 1939 but was reverted in 1945.
1960 – In Buenos Aires, Argentina, four Israeli Mossad agents capture fugitive Nazi Adolf Eichmann who is living under the alias of Ricardo Klement.
1970 – The 1970 Lubbock tornado kills 26 and causes $250 million in damage.
1973 – Citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg's charges for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times are dismissed.
1985 – Fifty-six spectators die and more than 200 are injured in the Bradford City stadium fire.
1987 – Klaus Barbie goes on trial in Lyon for war crimes committed during World War II.
1995 – More than 170 countries extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely and without conditions.
1996 – After the aircraft's departure from Miami, a fire started by improperly handled chemical oxygen generators in the cargo hold of Atlanta-bound ValuJet Flight 592 causes the Douglas DC-9 to crash in the Florida Everglades, killing all 110 on board.
1996 – The 1996 Mount Everest disaster kills eight people.
1997 – Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format.
1998 – India conducts three underground atomic tests in Pokhran.
2011 – An Earthquake of magnitude 5.1 hits Spain.
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