1834, for the first time in U.S. history, the Senate voted to censure a president, doing so against Andrew Jackson, an ardent supporter of states’ rights, for removing funds from the Bank Of The United States and sending it to state institutions. Jackson later succeeded in having the censure stripped from the Senate records.
1939, the Spanish Civil War ended as Madrid fell to Francisco Franco‘s Fascist forces.
1969 In London, Ringo Starr announces that there will be no further public appearances by the Beatles.John Lennon disputes the claim, which ultimately is proved correct.
1970 “Let It Be” by The Beatles peaks at Number Two on the pop chart.
1970 “Instant Karma (We All Shine On)” by John Ono Lennon peaks at Number Three on the pop chart.
1971, UCLA became the first team ever to win five consecutive NCAA basketball titles. The Bruins defeated Villanova 68-62. UCLA, under coaching legend John Wooden, dominated NCAA tournament play until 1974, when North Carolina State won the tourney.
1973 Houses Of The Holy by Led Zeppelin is released.
1974, a streaker ran onto the set of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. NBC censors blacked out the lower half of the screen.
1976 Genesis opens their first North American tour with Phil Collins as lead vocalist. Collins does play some drums on the tour, but former Yes member Bill Bruford is the tour’s primary drummer.
1977, Rocky, starring Sylvester Stallone, won the 1976 Best Picture Academy Award.
1979, America’s worst commercial nuclear accident occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, when a series of errors almost led to the meltdown of the reactor’s uranium core.
1981 “Rapture” by Blondie hits Number One on the pop chart.
1986, over 6,000 radio stations of all formats played “We Are The World” simultaneously at 10:15 a.m. ET. The promotion raised millions of dollars for African famine relief.
1991, just days before the 10th anniversary of the attempt on his life, former president Ronald Reaganendorsed the “Brady Bill,” requiring a seven-day waiting period for handgun purchases. The bill was named after Reagan’s former press secretary, James Brady, who was severely wounded by a bullet to the head in the attack.
1992 “Tears In Heaven” by Eric Clapton peaks at Number Two on the pop chart.
1993, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his chief political rival, parliament speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov, claimed victory after surviving attempts by the Russian Congress to oust them.
1993, About 10,000 people marched in Dublin, Ireland, to protest an IRA bombing that claimed the lives of two young boys.
1994, More than 50 people were killed in violence that erupted in Johannesburg, South Africa, during a march by Zulu nationalists.
1995, In Japan, Mitsubishi Bank and the Bank Of Tokyo agreed to a merger to create the world’s largest bank.
1996, Congress passed the line-item veto, giving the president power to cut government spending by scrapping specific programs.
1996, The space shuttle Atlantis‘s astronauts said goodbye to the crew of Russia’s space station Mir and then flew away, leaving Shannon Lucid behind for a five-month stay in orbit.
1997, A medical examiner revealed that some members of the Heaven’s Gate cult who’d committed suicide in a California mansion had also been castrated in apparent pursuit of the group’s ideal of androgynous immortality.
1998, President Clinton, during his visit to South Africa, went to Soweto, a landmark in the bloody uprising against apartheid, to honor South Africans “who answered the call of conscience” and defeated their country’s system of white supremacy.
1999, The Baltimore Orioles beat a Cuban all-star team 3-2 in Havana.
1999, NATO broadened its attacks on Yugoslavia to target Serb military forces in Kosovo in the fifth straight night of air strikes, as thousands of refugees flooded into Albania and Macedonia from Kosovo.
1999, Venus Williams beat kid sister Serena 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 to win the Lipton Championships in the first all-sister women’s final in 115 years.
2000, In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court sharply curtailed police power to rely on anonymous tips to stop and search people.
2001, A federal appeals court in San Francisco threw out a record $107 million verdict against anti-abortion activists, ruling that a Web site and wanted posters branding abortion doctors as “baby butchers” and “criminals” were protected by the First Amendment.
2001, The authors of a book on the Oklahoma City bombing revealed that, during prison interviews,Timothy McVeigh had shown no remorse for what happened, and called the 19 children who died “collateral damage.”
2004 Actor Peter Ustinov (Spartacus, Logan’s Run, Lorenzo’s Oil, The Bachelor; played Detective Hercule Poirot in several movies and TV shows based on Agatha Christie‘s novels) dies at age 82.