451 Attila's Huns sack Metz

1118 Pope Gelasius II excommunicates Emperor Henry V

1381 2nd Treaty of Guerande: Yann IV of Brittany and Charles VI of France conclude peace

1509 France declares war on Venice

1528 French troops defeat Cardinal Pompeo Colonna outside Gaeta, initiating an unsuccessful siege

1555 Marcello Cervini degli Spannochi elected Pope as Marcellus II (7 Apr-6 May 1555)

1625 Albrecht von Wallenstein appointed supreme commander by the HRE

1652 The Fronde: Battle of Bleneau: French Royalists defeat the Frondist rebels

1655 Fabio Chigi elected Pope as Alexander VII (1655-1667)

1776 Continental brig 'Lexington' captures the British 'Edward'

1818 Gen Andrew Jackson seizes St Marks, Fla, from Seminole Indians

1831 Dom Pedro II crowned Emperor of Brazil (1825-1891)

1836 Skirmish between Texian rear guards and advancing Mexican troops at San Felipe Ford

1855 Battle of Kaba: King Cakobau of Bau, aided by King George of Tonga, completes the unification of Fiji

1862 Battle of Shiloh, Day 2: Grant defeats the Confederates

1863 First Battle of Charleston, SC: Unsuccessful USN attempt to force the harbor

1865 Battle of Farmville, Va

1917 USN takes over all wireless stations for the duration of WW I

1926 Violet Gibson, deranged daughter of Baron Ashbourne, attempts to assassinate Mussolini, but only wounds him slightly in the nose; arrested, she is released at the Duce's orders

1933 Nazis bar Jews from law & public service

1938 Battle of Taierzhuang ends 14 days of desperate Chinese resistance cause the Japanese to fall back - their first major defeat in the "China Incident"

1939 Italy invades Albania, initiating the first combat by an armored division, the Centauro

1941 USS 'North Carolina' (BB-55) is commissioned in Brooklyn

1942 Bataan: Fil-Am troops fail to form a new defensive line

1942 Heavy Axis air attack on Malta

1942 Japanese 18th Div lands at Rangoon.

1942 Solomons: Japanese land on Bougainville

1942 USN agrees to accept black Americans for general service

1943 Japanese a/c inflict heavy losses on Allied shipping around Guadalcanal

1944 Japanese cut the water supply of Anglo-Indian forces at Kohima.

1945 First Navy Nurses land on Iwo Jima: Lt, jg, Ann Purvis & Ens Jane Kendeigh

1945 Japanese BB 'Yamato' sunk off Okinawa by TF 58 a/c.

1945 Massive kamikaze attack on the US fleet off Okinawa

1946 Part of East Prussia is incorporated into the Russian SFSR

1949 Rogers & Hammerstein's "South Pacific" opens at the Majestic on Broadway for 1928 performances

1966 US recovers lost H-bomb from sea off Palomares, Spain

1978 President Jimmy Carter defers production of neutron bomb

1980 President Jimmy Carter breaks relations with Iran over the hostage crisis

1989 Soviet submarine 'K-278 Komsomolets' sinks after a fire in the Norwegian Sea, 42 die