[The above scene of King John signing the Magna Carta was engraved by William Ryland after a picture by 18th Century neo-classicist painter John Hamilton Mortimer, whose romanticism was often wrought at the expense of accuracy; upon embiggening, please observe Exhibit A: a portrait of His Majesty looking altogether more handsome than he actually did in real life.]
923 CE - At the Battle of Soissons France's King Robert I was killed (legend has it by the usurper King Charles III himself); the so-called Charles the Simple was later arrested and imprisoned by Rudolph, Duke of Burgundy, who himself became king.
1184 - Norway's King Magnus V was killed at the Battle of Fimreite.
1215 - King John of England put his seal to the Magna Carta at the Thames-side meadow of Runnymede in order to thwart a rebellion by his aristocracy.
1219 - According to legend Dannebrog - the flag of Denmark and the oldest national flag in the world - fell from the sky during the Battle of Lyndanisse near Estonia's Toompea Castle, turning the Danes' luck.
1246 - With the death of Duke Frederick II, Austria's Babenberg dynasty ended.
1520 - Pope Leo X threatened to excommunicate Martin Luther in a papal bull entitled Exsurge Domine.
1667 - The first human blood transfusion was administered by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys.
1785 - Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier - co-pilot of the first-ever manned flight - and his companion, Pierre Romain, became the first-ever casualties of an air crash when their hot air balloon exploded during an attempt to cross the English Channel.
1888 - Germany's Crown Prince Wilhelm became Kaiser Wilhelm II following the death of his father Frederick III, making him third in the so-called Year of Three Emperors; he was also to be the last emperor of the German Empire.
1905 - Britain's Princess Margaret of Connaught married Gustav, Crown Prince of Sweden.
1913 - The Battle of Bud Bagsak in the Philippines concluded with a decisive US victory for General John 'Black Jack' Pershing over the Moro Rebellion.
1919 - John Alcock and Arthur Brown completed the first nonstop transatlantic flight at Clifden, in Ireland's County Galway.
1944 - In Saskatchewan, the CCF Party of Tommy Douglas was elected, forming North America's first socialist government.
1945 - The General Dutch Youth League (ANJV) was founded in Amsterdam.
1954 - The UEFA (Union des Associations Européennes de Football) was formed in Basle, Switzerland.
1978 - Jordan's King Hussein married American Lisa Halaby, who took the name Queen Noor; at the time of their meeting Halaby - an architect and urban planner - was working on the Jordanian capital's Amman Intercontinental Airport.
1985 - Rembrandt's painting Danaë was attacked at St. Petersburg's Hermitage Museum by a man later judged insane, who threw sulfuric acid on the canvas and cut it twice with his knife. Restoration of the eight by ten foot masterpiece took nearly 12 years.
1991 - The first federal political party in Canada that supported Quebec nationalism, the Bloc Québécois, was founded by former Conservative MP Lucien Bouchard.
1996 - A terrorist bomb in the UK injured over 200 people and devastated a large part of Manchester's city centre.
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