9 May 2023 (MIA)

– Europe Day

1947 – First opera performance in Macedonian language was performed in the Macedonian National Theatre. “Cavalleria Rusticana” by Pietro Mascagni was conducted by Todor Skalovski and directed by Branko Pomorisac.

2015 – Eight police officers were killed while 40 others were injured in a gunfight in Kumanovo settlement Diva Naselba. The operation ended after the police special forces neutralized a terrorist group.

1092 – Lincoln Cathedral is consecrated.

1386 – England and Portugal formally ratify their alliance with the signing of the Treaty of Windsor, making it the oldest diplomatic alliance in the world which is still in force.

1450 – ‘Abd al-Latif (Timurid monarch) is assassinated.

1540 – Hernando de Alarcón sets sail on an expedition to the Gulf of California.

1662 – The figure who later became Mr. Punch made his first recorded appearance in England.

1671 – Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, attempts to steal England’s Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.

1726 – Five men arrested during a raid on Mother Clap’s molly house in London are executed at Tyburn.

1763 – The Siege of Fort Detroit begins during Pontiac’s War against British forces.

1864 – Second Schleswig War: The Danish navy defeats the Austrian and Prussian fleets in the Battle of Heligoland.

1865 – American Civil War: Nathan Bedford Forrest surrenders his forces at Gainesville, Alabama.

1865 – American Civil War: President Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation ending belligerent rights of the rebels and enjoining foreign nations to intern or expel Confederate ships.

1873 – Der Krach: Vienna stock market crash heralds the Long Depression.

1874 – The first horse-drawn bus makes its début in the city of Mumbai, traveling two routes.

1877 – Mihail Kogălniceanu reads, in the Chamber of Deputies, the Declaration of Independence of Romania. This day became the Independence Day of Romania.

1877 – A magnitude 8.8 earthquake off the coast of Peru kills 2,541, including some as far away as Hawaii and Japan.

1887 – Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show opens in London.

1901 – Australia opens its first parliament in Melbourne.

1904 – The steam locomotive City of Truro becomes the first steam engine in Europe to exceed 100 mph (160 km/h).

1911 – The works of Gabriele D’Annunzio are placed in the Index of Forbidden Books by the Vatican.

1915 – World War I: Second Battle of Artois between German and French forces.

1918 – World War I: Germany repels Britain’s second attempt to blockade the port of Ostend, Belgium.

1920 – Polish–Soviet War: The Polish army under General Edward Rydz-Śmigły celebrates its capture of Kiev with a victory parade on Khreshchatyk.

1926 – Admiral Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett claim to have flown over the North Pole (later discovery of Byrd’s diary appears to cast some doubt on the claim.)

1927 – The Australian Parliament first convenes in Canberra.

1936 – Italy formally annexes Ethiopia after taking the capital Addis Ababa on May 5.

1940 – World War II: The German submarine U-9 sinks the French coastal submarine Doris near Den Helder.

1941 – World War II: The German submarine U-110 is captured by the Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.

1942 – Holocaust: The SS executes 588 Jewish residents of the Podolian town of Zinkiv (Khmelnytska oblast, Ukraine). The Zoludek Ghetto (in Belarus) is destroyed and all its inhabitants executed or deported.

1945 – World War II: Ratification in Berlin-Karlshorst of the German unconditional surrender of May 8 in Rheims, France, with the signatures of Marshal Georgy Zhukov for the Soviet Union, and for the Western Headquarters Sir Arthur Tedder, British Air Marshal and Eisenhower’s deputy, and for the German side of Colonel-General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff as the representative of the Luftwaffe, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel as the Chief of Staff of OKW, and Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg as Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine.

1945 – World War II: The Channel Islands are liberated by the British after five years of German occupation.

1946 – King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy abdicates and is succeeded by Umberto II.

1948 – Czechoslovakia’s Ninth-of-May Constitution comes into effect.

1949 – Rainier III of Monaco becomes Prince of Monaco.

1950 – Robert Schuman presents his proposal on the creation of an organized Europe, which according to him was indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations. This proposal, known as the “Schuman Declaration”, is considered by some people to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union.

1955 – Cold War: West Germany joins NATO.

1958 – Film: Vertigo has world premiere in San Francisco.

1960 – The Food and Drug Administration announces it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle’s Enovid, making Enovid the world’s first approved oral contraceptive pill.

1961 – FCC Chairman Newton N. Minow gives his Wasteland Speech.

1964 – Ngô Đình Cẩn, de facto ruler of central Vietnam under his brother President Ngo Dinh Diem before the family’s toppling, is executed.

1969 – Carlos Lamarca leads the first urban guerrilla action against the military dictatorship of Brazil in São Paulo, by robbing two banks.

1970 – Vietnam War: In Washington, D.C., 75,000 to 100,000 war protesters demonstrate in front of the White House.

1974 – Watergate scandal: The United States House Committee on the Judiciary opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon.

1977 – Hotel Polen fire: A disastrous fire burns down the Hotel Polen in Amsterdam causing 33 deaths and 21 severe injuries.

1979 – Iranian Jewish businessman Habib Elghanian is executed by firing squad in Tehran, prompting the mass exodus of the once 100,000-strong Jewish community of Iran.

1980 – In Florida, Liberian freighter MV Summit Venture collides with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay, making a 1,400-ft. section of the southbound span collapse. Thirty-five people in six cars and a Greyhound bus fall 150 ft. into the water and die.

1980 – In Norco, California, five masked gunmen hold up a Security Pacific bank, leading to a violent shoot-out and one of the largest pursuits in California history. Two of the gunmen and one police officer are killed and thirty-three police and civilian vehicles are destroyed in the chase.

1987 – LOT Flight 5055 Tadeusz Kościuszko crashes after takeoff in Warsaw, Poland, killing all 183 people on board.

1992 – Armenian forces capture Shusha, marking a major turning point in the Nagorno-Karabakh War.

1992 – Westray Mine disaster kills 26 workers in Nova Scotia, Canada.

2001 – In Ghana, 129 football fans die in what became known as the Accra Sports Stadium disaster. The deaths are caused by a stampede (caused by the firing of teargas by police personnel at the stadium) that followed a controversial decision by the referee.

2002 – The 38-day stand-off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem comes to an end when the Palestinians inside agree to have 13 suspected terrorists among them deported to several different countries.

2012 – A Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft crashes into Mount Salak in West Java, Indonesia, killing 45 people.

2015 – An Airbus A400M Atlas military transport aircraft crashes near the Spanish city of Seville with three people on board killed.

2015 – Russia stages its biggest ever military parade in Moscow’s Red Square to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Victory Day.

2016 – Boris Johnson resigns as Mayor of London, succeeded by Sadiq Khan.

2017 – Fossil of Chinese feathered baby dinosaur formally identified as Beibeilong sinensis (baby dragon in Chinese).

2019 – New Australian $50 bank note misspells responsibility as “responsibilty” on 46 million notes.

2022 –An Andy Warhol portrait of Marilyn Monroe sells for $195 million at auction in New York - the highest price ever for an American artwork.