Events
Pre-1600
686 – Maya king Yuknoom Yich'aak K'ahk' assumes the crown of Calakmul. 1043 – Edward the Confessor is crowned King of England. 1077 – The Patriarchate of Friûl, the first Friulian state, is created. 1559 – The second of two treaties making up the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis is signed, ending the Italian Wars.
1601–1900
1721 – Robert Walpole becomes, in effect, the first Prime Minister of Great Britain, though he himself denied that title. 1851 – Rama IV is crowned King of Thailand after the death of his half-brother, Rama III. 1860 – The first successful United States Pony Express run from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, begins. 1865 – American Civil War: Union forces capture Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States of America. 1882 – American Old West: Robert Ford kills Jesse James. 1885 – Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent for a light, high-speed, four-stroke engine, which he uses seven months later to create the world's first motorcycle, the Daimler Reitwagen. 1888 – Jack the Ripper: The first of 11 unsolved brutal murders of women committed in or near the impoverished Whitechapel district in the East End of London, occurs. 1895 – The trial in the libel case brought by Oscar Wilde begins, eventually resulting in his imprisonment on charges of homosexuality.