Today:
1. 1556: Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer was burned at the stake for heresy under Queen Mary I of England.
2. 1804: The French civil code, known as the Napoleonic Code, was enacted, which served as the basis for modern French civil law.
3. 1871: Journalist Henry Morton Stanley set out from Zanzibar to find the missionary and explorer David Livingstone, initiating the famous search with the phrase, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
4. 1918: World War I: The German Spring Offensive, known as Operation Michael, began, aiming to break through the Allied lines on the Western Front.
5. 1925: The Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in Tennessee public schools, was signed into law, leading to the Scopes Monkey Trial.
6. 1945: World War II: Allied forces captured the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen, Germany, opening a corridor into the heart of Germany.
7. 1963: Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in San Francisco Bay, often referred to as “The Rock,” closed its doors as a federal prison.
8. 1965: Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King Jr. completed a four-day march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, demanding voting rights for African Americans.
9. 1980: President Jimmy Carter announced a U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
10. 2006: The social media platform Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams.