69 1st Battle of Bedriacum: Vitellius defeats Otho to confirm his claim as Emperor (proclaimed Jan 1st)
193 The Pannonian legions proclaim Lucius Septimius Severus Roman Emperor (193-211), initiating a protracted civil war
754 Pact of Quierzy between Pope Stephen II & Pepin the Short
1191 Giacinto Bobo, c. 85, elected Pope as Celestine III (1191-1198)
1205 Battle of Adrianople: Bulgarians defeat Latin Emperor of Constantinople Baldwin I
1360 Besieging Paris, Edward III's army suffers many men and horses frozen to death in an extraordinary overnight cold snap
1471 Battle of Barnet: King Edward IV defeats the Lancastrians under the Earl of Warwick in a confusing action
1496 Battle of Chilone: The French defeat the Neapolitans
1544 Battle of Ceresole Alba: French defeat the Spanish & Imperialists
1574 Battle of Mookerheyde: Spanish defeat the Dutch
1658 Battle of Dunkerque: French defeat the Spanish
1796 Battle of Dego: Bonaparte defeats the Austro-Piedmontese
1818 US Army Medical Corps formed
1828 HMS 'Acorn' (18 guns) sinks off Halifax, 115 die
1848 Battle of Sarche: Austrians defeat Italian Nationalists
1849 The Hungarian National Assembly passes a "Declaration of Independence" from the Hapsburg Monarchy, and promptly dispatches a copy to President Zachary Taylor
1864 Spanish fleet captures the Chincha Islands from Peru, initiating the Guano War (1864-66)
1865 Abraham Lincoln is mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth in Ford's Theatre, on Good Friday
1865 Mobile is captured by Union forces
1898 USS 'Solace' (later AH-2) is commissioned; the first hospital ship in the USN since 1865, and the only purpose-built hospital ship in the history of the fleet
1912 RMS 'Titanic' strikes an ice berg, c. 11:40 pm
1914 The first air attack on a warship: Mexican revolutionary pilot Gustavo Adolfo Salinas Camiña bombs the Federalista gunboat 'Guerrero', at Topolobampo, Mexico, causing slight damage
1931 King Alfonso XIII flees as Spain becomes a republic
1940 British and French troops land in Norway to help fight Germans
1942 Australia assents to MacArthur as Supreme Commander, SW Pacific.
1942 Burma: British order the Yenangyaung oil fields destroyed.
1942 HMS 'Upholder', top scoring British submarine of WW II (120,000 tons; 15 merchantmen, a cruiser, a destroyer, and 3 submarines), is sunk on her 25th patrol, northeast of Tripoli, by the Regia Marina
1943 New Guinea: Japanese air raid on Milne Bay sinks two transports.
1943 New Guinea: 'PT-150' and 'PT-152' sink Japanese sub 'Ro-102', off Lae.
1944 Bombay: ship loaded with 1,300 tons of TNT explodes, 21 ships sink, c. 1000 die
1945 Arnhem & Zwolle, the Netherlands, liberated from the Nazis
1945 Tokyo fire bomb raids: B-29s damage Imperial Palace
1953 Viet Minh offensive in Laos
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