2005: The Oregon Supreme Court nullifies marriage licenses issued to gay couples a year earlier by Multnomah County.
2003: U.S. troops in Baghdad capture Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestinian group that killed an American on the hijacked cruise liner the MS Achille Lauro in 1985.
1986: The heaviest hailstones ever recorded (1 kilogram (2.2 lb)) fall on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh, killing 92.
1986: In retaliation for the April 5 bombing in West Berlin in which two U.S. servicemen were killed, U.S. president Ronald Reagan orders major bombing raids against Libya, killing 60 people.
1981: STS-1: The first operational Space Shuttle, Columbia completes its first test flight.
1978: Tbilisi Demonstrations: Thousands of Georgians demonstrate against Soviet attempts to change the constitutional status of the Georgian language.
1958: The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days. This was the first spacecraft to carry a living animal, a female dog named Laika, who likely lived only a few hours.
1944: Bombay explosion: A massive explosion in Bombay harbor kills 300 and causes economic damage valued then at 20 million pounds.
1942: Malta receives the George Cross for its gallantry. The George Cross was given by King George VI himself and is now an emblem on the Maltese national flag.
1941: World War II: German general Erwin Rommel attacks Tobruk.
1935: The Black Sunday dust storm, considered one of the worst storms of the Dust Bowl, swept across the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and neighboring areas.
1931: The Spanish Cortes deposes King Alfonso XIII and proclaims the Second Spanish Republic.
1928: The Bremen, a German Junkers W 33 type aircraft, reaches Greenly Island, Canada - the first successful transatlantic aeroplane flight from east to west.
1849: Hungary declares itself independent of Austria with Lajos Kossuth as its leader.
1828: Noah Webster copyrights the first edition of his dictionary.
1816: Bussa, a slave in British-ruled Barbados, leads a slave rebellion and is killed. For this, he is remembered as the first national hero of Barbados.
1775: The first abolition society in North America is established. The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage is organized in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.
1561: A Celestial phenomenon is reported over Nuremberg, described as an aerial battle.
1471: In England, the Yorkists under Edward IV defeat the Lancastrians under the Earl of Warwick at the Battle of Barnet; the Earl is killed and Edward IV resumes the throne.
972: Co-Emperor Otto II, a son of Otto I (the Great), marries the Byzantine princess Theophanu. She is crowned empress by Pope John XIII at Rome.
966: After his marriage to the Christian Doubravka of Bohemia, the pagan ruler of the Polans, Mieszko I, converts to Christianity, an event considered to be the founding of the Polish state.
43 BC: Battle of Forum Gallorum: Mark Antony, besieging Caesar's assassin Decimus Brutus in Mutina, defeats the forces of the consul Pansa, but is then immediately defeated by the army of the other consul, Aulus Hirtius.