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Arts & Culture That Happened On This Day in History

Arts & Culture events in history: 319 entries across 206 dates. Open any date for the full story.

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January 2 2
  • 1967 Ronald Reagan, past movie actor and future President of the United States, is sworn in as Governor of California.
  • 1921 World premiere of the science fiction play R.U.R. by the Czech writer Karel Čapek in a theater in Hradec Králové.
January 4 2
  • 1967 The Doors released their eponymous debut album.
  • 1903 Topsy, an elephant, is electrocuted by the owners of Luna Park, Coney Island. The Edison film company records the film Electrocuting an Elephant of Topsy's death.
January 5 1
  • 1875 The Palais Garnier, one of the most famous opera houses in the world, is inaugurated in Paris.
January 7 2
  • 1955 Contralto Marian Anderson becomes the first person of color to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera.
  • 1894 Thomas Edison makes a kinetoscopic film of someone sneezing. On the same day, his employee, William Kennedy Dickson, receives a patent for motion picture film.
January 9 2
  • 1927 A fire at the Laurier Palace movie theatre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, kills 78 children.
  • 1903 Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson, son of the poet Alfred Tennyson, becomes the second Governor-General of Australia.
January 10 1
  • 1927 Fritz Lang's futuristic film Metropolis is released in Germany.
January 11 1
  • 1927 Louis B. Mayer, head of film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), announces the creation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, at a banquet in Los Angeles, California.
January 12 1
  • 1808 John Rennie's scheme to defend St Mary's Church, Reculver, founded in 669, from coastal erosion is abandoned in favour of demolition, despite the church being an exemplar of Anglo-Saxon architecture and sculpture.
January 13 1
  • 1908 The Rhoads Opera House fire in Boyertown, Pennsylvania kills 171 people.
January 14 1
  • 1973 Elvis Presley's concert Aloha from Hawaii is broadcast live via satellite, and sets the record as the most watched broadcast by an individual entertainer in television history.
January 16 1
  • 1942 Crash of TWA Flight 3, killing all 22 aboard, including film star Carole Lombard.
January 19 1
  • 1853 Giuseppe Verdi's opera Il trovatore receives its premiere performance in Rome.
January 25 1
  • 1961 Walt Disney Productions released the animated feature One Hundred and One Dalmatians, based on Dodie Smith's 1956 children's novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians.
January 26 1
  • 1934 The Apollo Theater reopens in Harlem, New York City.
January 27 1
  • 1874 Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov premieres in Mariinsky Theatre in St.Petersburg.
January 28 2
  • 1977 The Shining, the horror novel and the first hardcover bestseller by Stephen King, is published.
  • 1922 Knickerbocker Storm: Washington, D.C.'s biggest snowfall, causes a disaster when the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre collapses, killing over 100 people.
January 29 2
  • 1944 World War II: In Bologna, Italy, the Anatomical theatre of the Archiginnasio is completely destroyed in an air-raid.
  • 1845 "The Raven" is published in The Evening Mirror in New York, the first publication with the name of the author, Edgar Allan Poe.
January 30 2
  • 1969 The Beatles' last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London. The impromptu concert is broken up by the police.
  • 1858 The first Hallé concert is given in Manchester, England, marking the official founding of The Hallé orchestra as a full-time, professional orchestra.
January 31 2
  • 1949 These Are My Children, the first television daytime soap opera, is broadcast by the NBC station in Chicago, United States.
  • 1901 Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters premieres at Moscow Art Theatre in Russia.
February 1 2
  • 1968 Vietnam War: The execution of Viet Cong officer Nguyễn Văn Lém by South Vietnamese National Police Chief Nguyễn Ngọc Loan is recorded on motion picture film, as well as in an iconic still photograph taken by Eddie Adams.
  • 1942 World War II: U.S. Navy conducts Marshalls–Gilberts raids, the first offensive action by the United States against Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater.
February 2 3
  • 2000 First digital cinema projection in Europe (Paris) realized by Philippe Binant with the DLP CINEMA technology developed by Texas Instruments.
  • 1909 The Paris Film Congress opens, an attempt by European producers to form an equivalent to the MPPC cartel in the United States.
  • 1870 The Seven Brothers (Seitsemän veljestä), a novel by Finnish author Aleksis Kivi, is published first time in several thin booklets.
February 4 1
  • 2000 The World Summit Against Cancer for the New Millennium, Charter of Paris is signed by the President of France, Jacques Chirac and the Director General of UNESCO, Koichiro Matsuura, initiating World Cancer Day which is held on February 4 every year.
February 5 1
  • 1913 Claudio Monteverdi's last opera L'incoronazione di Poppea was performed theatrically for the first time in more than 250 years.
February 7 1
  • 1940 The second full-length animated Walt Disney film, Pinocchio, premieres.
February 9 1
  • 1893 Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, premieres at La Scala, Milan.
February 11 1
  • 1963 The Beatles record their first album, Please Please Me.
February 12 3
  • 1994 Four thieves break into the National Gallery of Norway and steal Edvard Munch's iconic painting The Scream.
  • 1946 African American United States Army veteran Isaac Woodard is severely beaten by a South Carolina police officer to the point where he loses his vision in both eyes. The incident later galvanizes the civil rights movement and partially inspires Orson Welles' film Touch of Evil.
  • 1889 Antonín Dvořák's Jakobín is premiered at the National Theater in Prague.
February 13 2
  • 1983 A cinema fire in Turin, Italy, kills 64 people.
  • 1820 The Assassination of the Duke of Berry takes place in Paris. The Duke of Berry, nephew of Louis XVIII, is stabbed to death while attending the Paris Opera.
February 14 2
  • 1990 The Voyager 1 spacecraft takes the photograph of planet Earth that later becomes famous as Pale Blue Dot.
  • 1989 Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.
February 15 2
  • 1940 Paul Creston's Saxophone Sonata is officially premiered at the Carnegie Chamber Hall by saxophonist Cecil Leeson, who had commissioned it, and the composer.
  • 1909 The Flores Theater fire in Acapulco, Mexico, kills 250.
February 17 1
  • 1965 Project Ranger: The Ranger 8 probe launches on its mission to photograph the Mare Tranquillitatis region of the Moon in preparation for the crewed Apollo missions. Mare Tranquillitatis or the "Sea of Tranquility" would become the site chosen for the Apollo 11 lunar landing.
February 18 1
  • 1977 A thousand armed soldiers raid Kalakuta Republic, the commune of Nigerian singer Fela Kuti, leading to the death of Funmilayo Anikulapo Kuti.
February 20 3
  • 2003 During a Great White concert in West Warwick, Rhode Island, a pyrotechnics display sets the Station nightclub ablaze, killing 100 and injuring over 200 others.
  • 1943 World War II: American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.
  • 1877 Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake receives its premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
February 22 1
  • 1983 The notorious Broadway flop Moose Murders opens and closes on the same night at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.
February 25 1
  • 1705 George Frideric Handel's opera Nero premieres in Hamburg.
February 26 1
  • 1909 Kinemacolor, the first successful color motion picture process, is first shown to the general public at the Palace Theatre in London.
March 1 1
  • 1998 Titanic becomes the first film to gross over $1 billion worldwide.
March 2 2
  • 1978 The late iconic actor Charlie Chaplin's coffin is stolen from his grave in Switzerland.
  • 1933 The film King Kong premieres in Radio City Music Hall and RKO Roxy in New York City.
March 3 2
  • 1923 US magazine Time publishes its first issue.
  • 1585 The Olympic Theatre, designed by Andrea Palladio, is inaugurated in Vicenza.
March 4 1
  • 1966 In an interview in the London Evening Standard, the Beatles' John Lennon declares that the band is "more popular than Jesus now".
March 7 2
  • 2024 Hannah Gutierrez-Reed is found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie Rust, the first time someone has been found guilty for causing a death on a movie set.
  • 1989 Iran and the United Kingdom break diplomatic relations after a fight over Salman Rushdie and his controversial novel, The Satanic Verses.
March 8 1
  • 1775 An anonymous writer, thought by some to be Thomas Paine, publishes "African Slavery in America", the first article in the American colonies calling for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery.
March 9 3
  • 1842 Giuseppe Verdi's third opera, Nabucco, receives its première performance in Milan; its success establishes Verdi as one of Italy's foremost opera composers.
  • 1815 Francis Ronalds describes the first battery-operated clock in the Philosophical Magazine.
  • 1765 After a campaign by the writer Voltaire, judges in Paris posthumously exonerate Jean Calas of murdering his son. Calas had been tortured and executed in 1762 on the charge, though his son may have actually died by suicide.
March 11 1
  • 1927 In New York City, Samuel Roxy Rothafel opens the Roxy Theatre.
March 14 2
  • 1931 Alam Ara, India's first talking film, is released.
  • 1885 The Mikado, a light opera by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, receives its first public performance at the Savoy Theatre in London.
March 16 2
  • 2022 Mariupol theatre airstrike during the siege of Mariupol.
  • 2002 Sofia Gubaidulina's Johannes-Ostern is premiered, together with her earlier Johannes-Passion, at Hamburg's Michaeliskirche, performed by soloists, choir and orchestra from the Mariinsky Theatre combined with NDR choir and orchestra, conducted by Valery Gergiev.
March 17 2
  • 1973 The Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph Burst of Joy is taken, depicting a former prisoner of war being reunited with his family, which came to symbolize the end of United States involvement in the Vietnam War.
  • 1962 A Clockwork Orange, a British dystopian novel by Anthony Burgess, is published.
March 18 1
  • 1974 Güzel İstanbul, a nude sculpture by Gürdal Duyar in Istanbul, is torn down in the middle of the night.
March 21 3
  • 1970 San Diego Comic-Con, the largest pop and culture festival in the world, hosts its inaugural event.
  • 1952 Alan Freed presents the Moondog Coronation Ball, the first rock and roll concert, in Cleveland, Ohio.
  • 1925 Ravel's opera L'enfant et les sortilèges, to a libretto by Colette, is premiered at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo.
March 22 1
  • 1963 The Beatles release their debut album Please Please Me.
March 24 1
  • 1944 World War II: In an event later dramatized in the movie The Great Escape, 76 Allied prisoners of war begin breaking out of the German camp Stalag Luft III.
March 28 2
  • 1969 Greek poet and Nobel Prize laureate Giorgos Seferis makes a famous statement on the BBC World Service opposing the junta in Greece.
  • 1842 First concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Otto Nicolai.
March 31 2
  • 1930 The Motion Picture Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in film, in the U.S., for the next thirty-eight years.
  • 1913 The Vienna Concert Society rioted during a performance of modernist music by Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Alexander von Zemlinsky, and Anton von Webern, causing a premature end to the concert due to violence; this concert became known as the Skandalkonzert.
April 1 1
  • 1984 Singer Marvin Gaye is shot to death by his father in his home in Arlington Heights, Los Angeles, California.
April 3 1
  • 1989 The US Supreme Court upholds the jurisdictional rights of tribal courts under the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 in Mississippi Choctaw Band v. Holyfield.
April 4 2
  • 2020 China holds a national day of mourning for martyrs who died in the fight against the novel coronavirus disease outbreak.
  • 1963 Bye Bye Birdie, a musical romantic comedy film directed by George Sidney, was released.
April 5 1
  • 1974 Carrie, the first novel by American author Stephen King, is published for the first time with a print run of 30,000 copies.
April 13 2
  • 1964 At the Academy Awards, Sidney Poitier becomes the first African-American man to win the Best Actor award for the 1963 film Lilies of the Field.
  • 1953 CIA director Allen Dulles launches the mind-control program Project MKUltra.
April 15 2
  • 1865 President Abraham Lincoln dies after being shot the previous evening by actor John Wilkes Booth. Vice President Andrew Johnson becomes president.
  • 1738 Serse, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel, receives its premiere performance in London, England.
April 19 1
  • 1956 Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco.
April 21 1
  • 1934 The "Surgeon's Photograph", the most famous photo allegedly showing the Loch Ness Monster, is published in the Daily Mail (in 1994, it is revealed to be a hoax).
April 22 1
  • 1944 World War II: The 1st Air Commando Group using Sikorsky R-4 helicopters stage the first use of helicopters in combat with combat search and rescue operations in the China Burma India Theater.
April 27 1
  • 1945 World War II: The last German formations withdraw from Finland to Norway. The Lapland War and thus, World War II in Finland, comes to an end and the Raising the Flag on the Three-Country Cairn photograph is taken.
April 28 1
  • 1983 The West German news magazine Stern begins publishing excerpts from the purported diaries of Adolf Hitler, later revealed to be forgeries.
May 2 1
  • 1808 Outbreak of the Peninsular War: The people of Madrid rise up in rebellion against French occupation. Francisco de Goya later memorializes this event in his painting The Second of May 1808.
May 3 1
  • 1913 Raja Harishchandra, the first full-length Indian feature film, is released, marking the beginning of the Indian film industry.
May 5 1
  • 1877 American Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.
May 6 2
  • 1996 The body of former CIA director William Colby is found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he disappeared.
  • 1940 John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.
May 7 2
  • 1994 Edvard Munch's painting The Scream is recovered undamaged after being stolen from the National Gallery of Norway in February.
  • 1824 World premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Vienna, Austria. The performance is conducted by Michael Umlauf under the composer's supervision.
May 8 1
  • 1970 The Beatles release their 12th and final studio album Let It Be.
May 10 3
  • 1967 The Northrop M2-F2 crashes on landing, becoming the inspiration for the novel Cyborg and TV series The Six Million Dollar Man.
  • 1924 J. Edgar Hoover is appointed first Director of the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and remains so until his death in 1972.
  • 1849 Astor Place Riot: A riot breaks out at the Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City over a dispute between actors Edwin Forrest and William Charles Macready, killing at least 22 and injuring over 120.
May 12 1
  • 2006 Iranian Azeris interpret a cartoon published in an Iranian magazine as insulting, resulting in massive riots throughout the country.
May 13 1
  • 1945 World War II: Yevgeny Khaldei's photograph Raising a Flag over the Reichstag is published in Ogonyok magazine.
May 14 1
  • 1842 The first edition of The Illustrated London News, the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine, is published.
May 15 1
  • 2001 A CSX EMD SD40-2 8888 rolls out of a train yard in Walbridge, Ohio, with 47 freight cars, including some tank cars with flammable chemical, after its engineer fails to reboard it after setting a yard switch. It travels south driverless for 66 miles (106 km) until it is brought to a halt near Kenton. The incident became the inspiration for the 2010 film Unstoppable.
May 16 1
  • 1925 The first modern performance of Claudio Monteverdi's opera Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria occurred in Paris.
May 17 2
  • 1977 Nolan Bushnell opens the first Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre (later renamed Chuck E. Cheese) in San Jose, California.
  • 1900 The children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, is first published in the United States. The first copy is given to the author's sister.
May 18 1
  • 1912 The first Indian film, Shree Pundalik by Dadasaheb Torne, is released in Mumbai.
May 19 1
  • 1963 The New York Post Sunday Magazine publishes Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail.
May 20 1
  • 1891 History of cinema: The first public display of Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope.
May 21 2
  • 1981 Transamerica Corporation agrees to sell United Artists to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $380 million after the box office failure of the 1980 film Heaven's Gate.
  • 1925 The opera Doktor Faust, unfinished when composer Ferruccio Busoni died, is premiered in Dresden.
May 22 1
  • 2017 Twenty-two people are killed at an Ariana Grande concert in the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.
May 23 1
  • 1980 The Shining, the psychological horror film directed by Stanley Kubrick, is premiered on 10 screens in New York City and Los Angeles on the Memorial Day weekend.
May 25 2
  • 1955 First ascent of Mount Kangchenjunga: On the British Kangchenjunga expedition led by Charles Evans, Joe Brown and George Band reach the summit of the third-highest mountain in the world (8,586 meters); Norman Hardie and Tony Streather join them the following day.
  • 1895 Playwright, poet and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons" and sentenced to serve two years in prison.
May 26 1
  • 1967 The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is released.
May 29 1
  • 2021 A Cessna Citation I/SP crashes into Percy Priest Lake in Tennessee, killing all six people on board, including actor Joe Lara and his wife Gwen Shamblin Lara.
June 1 2
  • 2008 A fire on the back lot of Universal Studios breaks out, destroying the attraction King Kong Encounter and a large archive of master tapes for music and film, the full extent of which was not revealed until 2019.
  • 1943 BOAC Flight 777 is shot down over the Bay of Biscay by German Junkers Ju 88s, killing British actor Leslie Howard and leading to speculation that it was actually an attempt to kill British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
June 6 2
  • 1942 World War II: The United States Navy's victory over the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway is a major turning point in the Pacific Theater. All four Japanese fleet carriers taking part—Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū—are sunk, as is the heavy cruiser Mikuma. The American carrier Yorktown and the destroyer Hammann are also sunk.
  • 1933 The first drive-in theater opens in Camden, New Jersey.
June 7 2
  • 1981 The Israeli Air Force destroys Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor during Operation Opera.
  • 1955 Lux Radio Theatre signs off the air permanently. The show launched in New York in 1934, and featured radio adaptations of Broadway shows and popular films.
June 8 2
  • 1972 Vietnam War: Nine-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc is burned by napalm, an event captured in a photograph moments later while the young girl is seen running naked down a road, in what would become an iconic, Pulitzer Prize-winning photo.
  • 1949 George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is published in the United States
June 9 1
  • 1863 American Civil War: The Battle of Brandy Station in Virginia, the largest cavalry battle on American soil, ends Confederate cavalry dominance in the eastern theater.
June 11 1
  • 1892 The Limelight Department, one of the world's first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia.
June 12 4
  • 1982 A nuclear disarmament rally and concert is held in New York City.
  • 1981 The first of the Indiana Jones film franchise, Raiders of the Lost Ark, is released in theaters.
  • 1963 The film Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, is released in US theaters. It was the most expensive film made at the time.
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June 13 2
  • 2005 The jury acquits pop singer Michael Jackson of all charges for allegedly sexually abusing a child in 2003.
  • 1997 The Uphaar Cinema Fire takes place at Green Park, Delhi, resulting in the deaths of 59 people and seriously injuring 103 others.
June 14 1
  • 2026 Two helicopters collide mid-air in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, killing all 6 people on board, including American singer-songwriter Oliver Tree, Argentine YouTuber Gaspi, director and screenwriter Lucas A. Vignale, and Brazilian music producer Lucas Frota.
June 16 2
  • 1904 Irish author James Joyce begins a relationship with Nora Barnacle and subsequently uses the date to set the actions for his novel Ulysses; this date is now traditionally called "Bloomsday".
  • 1883 The Victoria Hall theatre panic in Sunderland, England, kills 183 children.
June 18 2
  • 1958 Benjamin Britten's one-act opera Noye's Fludde premieres at the Aldeburgh Festival.
  • 1948 Columbia Records introduces the long-playing record album in a public demonstration at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.
June 19 2
  • 1978 Garfield's first comic strip, originally published locally as Jon in 1976, goes into nationwide syndication.
  • 1926 King Roger, an opera about Roger II of Sicily by Karol Szymanowski, is premiered at the Grand Theatre in Warsaw.
June 20 1
  • 1975 The film Jaws is released in the United States, becoming the highest-grossing film of that time and starting the trend of films known as "summer blockbusters".
June 21 1
  • 1978 The original production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, Evita, based on the life of Eva Perón, opens at the Prince Edward Theatre, London.
June 24 1
  • 1916 Mary Pickford becomes the first female film star to sign a million-dollar contract.
June 25 4
  • 1996 American rapper Jay-Z releases his debut album, Reasonable Doubt.
  • 1944 The final page of the comic Krazy Kat is published, exactly two months after its author George Herriman died.
  • 1910 Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird is premiered in Paris, bringing him to prominence as a composer.
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June 26 1
  • 1997 J. K. Rowling publishes the first of her Harry Potter novel series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in the United Kingdom.
June 29 2
  • 1987 Vincent van Gogh's painting, the Le Pont de Trinquetaille, is bought for $20.4 million at an auction in London, England.
  • 1613 The Globe Theatre in London, built by William Shakespeare's playing company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, burns to the ground.
July 4 1
  • 2008 A bomb explodes at a concert in Minsk's Independence Square, injuring 50 people.
July 7 1
  • 2007 The first Live Earth benefit concert was held in 11 locations around the world.
July 8 1
  • 1972 Israeli Mossad assassinate Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani.
July 9 1
  • 1937 The silent film archives of Fox Film Corporation are destroyed by the 1937 Fox vault fire.
July 10 1
  • 2002 The Massacre of the Innocents, a painting by Peter Paul Rubens, is sold at a Sotheby's auction for £49.5 million (US$76.2 million) to Lord Thomson.
July 13 2
  • 2020 After a five-day search, the body of American actress and singer Naya Rivera is recovered from Lake Piru in California, where she had drowned.
  • 1985 The Live Aid benefit concert takes place in London and Philadelphia, as well as other venues such as Moscow and Sydney.
July 14 1
  • 2013 Dedication of the statue of Rachel Carson, a sculpture of the environmentalist, in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
July 15 1
  • 1996 A Belgian Air Force C-130 Hercules carrying the Royal Netherlands Army marching band crashes on landing at Eindhoven Airport.
July 16 2
  • 1951 J. D. Salinger publishes his popular yet controversial novel, The Catcher in the Rye.
  • 1916 Max Reger's Hebbel Requiem is first performed in a memorial concert for the composer, conducted by Philipp Wolfrum.
July 18 1
  • 1806 A gunpowder magazine explosion in Birgu, Malta, kills around 200 people.
July 19 1
  • 1957 The largely autobiographical novel The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold by Evelyn Waugh is published.
July 20 1
  • 2012 James Holmes opened fire at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 and injuring 70 others.
July 21 1
  • 1979 Jay Silverheels, a Mohawk actor, becomes the first Native American to have a star commemorated in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
July 23 4
  • 2010 The English-Irish boy band One Direction were formed while auditioning for the 2010 series of the British singing competition The X Factor.
  • 1982 Outside Santa Clarita, California, actor Vic Morrow and two children are killed when a helicopter crashes onto them while shooting a scene from Twilight Zone: The Movie.
  • 1942 Bulgarian poet and communist activist Nikola Vaptsarov is executed by firing squad.
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July 26 1
  • 1951 Walt Disney's 13th animated film, Alice in Wonderland, premieres in London, England, United Kingdom.
July 27 1
  • 1816 Seminole Wars: The Battle of Negro Fort ends when a hot shot cannonball fired by US Navy Gunboat No. 154 explodes the fort's Powder Magazine, killing approximately 275. It is considered the deadliest single cannon shot in US history.
July 28 1
  • 1866 At the age of 18, Vinnie Ream becomes the first and youngest female artist to receive a commission from the United States government for a statue (of Abraham Lincoln).
July 31 1
  • 1975 The Troubles: Three members of a popular cabaret band and two gunmen are killed during a botched paramilitary attack in Northern Ireland.
August 1 2
  • 1971 The Concert for Bangladesh, organized by former Beatle George Harrison, is held at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
  • 1965 Frank Herbert's novel, Dune, is published for the first time. It was named as the world's best-selling science fiction novel in 2003.
August 3 2
  • 2007 Former deputy director of the Chilean secret police Raúl Iturriaga is captured after having been on the run following a conviction for kidnapping.
  • 1778 The theatre La Scala in Milan is inaugurated with the première of Antonio Salieri's Europa riconosciuta.
August 5 1
  • 1962 American actress Marilyn Monroe is found dead at her home from a drug overdose.
August 8 2
  • 2004 A tour bus belonging to the Dave Matthews Band dumps approximately 800 pounds of human waste onto a boat full of passengers.
  • 1969 At a zebra crossing in London, photographer Iain Macmillan takes the iconic photo that becomes the cover image of the Beatles' album Abbey Road.
August 9 2
  • 1969 Tate–LaBianca murders: Followers of Charles Manson murder pregnant actress Sharon Tate (wife of Roman Polanski), coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Polish actor Wojciech Frykowski, men's hairstylist Jay Sebring and recent high-school graduate Steven Parent.
  • 1877 American Indian Wars: Battle of the Big Hole: A small band of Nez Percé Indians clash with the United States Army.
August 10 1
  • 1969 A day after murdering actress Sharon Tate and four others, members of Charles Manson's cult kill Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.
August 11 1
  • 1942 Actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil receive a patent for a Frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication system that later became the basis for modern technologies in wireless telephones, two-way radio communications, and Wi-Fi.
August 12 1
  • 1851 Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.
August 18 2
  • 2003 One-year-old Zachary Turner is murdered in Newfoundland by his mother, who was awarded custody despite facing trial for the murder of Zachary's father. The case was documented in the film Dear Zachary and led to reform of Canada's bail laws.
  • 1958 Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita is published in the United States.
August 19 1
  • 1978 In Iran, the Cinema Rex fire causes more than 300 deaths.
August 23 1
  • 1966 Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.
August 25 2
  • 2001 American singer Aaliyah and several members of her entourage are killed as their overloaded aircraft crashes shortly after takeoff from Marsh Harbour Airport, Bahamas.
  • 1985 Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808 crashes near Auburn/Lewiston Municipal Airport in Auburn, Maine, killing all eight people on board including peace activist and child actress Samantha Smith.
August 27 1
  • 1943 World War II: Japanese forces evacuate New Georgia Island in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II.
August 29 2
  • 1966 The Beatles perform their last concert before paying fans at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
  • 1952 American experimental composer John Cage's 4’33” premieres at Maverick Concert Hall, played by American pianist David Tudor.
August 31 1
  • 2006 Edvard Munch's famous painting, The Scream, stolen on August 22, 2004, is recovered in a raid by Norwegian police.
September 3 1
  • 1914 French composer Albéric Magnard is killed defending his estate against invading German soldiers.
September 4 2
  • 1949 Paul Robeson performs a second concert in Peekskill, New York eight days after the Peekskill riots.
  • 1888 George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak and receives a patent for his camera that uses roll film.
September 5 3
  • 1960 Poet Léopold Sédar Senghor is the first elected President of Senegal.
  • 1943 World War II: In the Pacific Theater, the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment lands and occupies Lae Nadzab Airport, near Lae during the Salamaua–Lae campaign.
  • 1887 A fire at the Theatre Royal, Exeter kills 186, making it the UK's deadliest ever building fire.
September 8 1
  • 1975 Gays in the military: US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, appears in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline "I Am A Homosexual". He is given a general discharge, later upgraded to honorable.
September 9 1
  • 2014 The album Songs of Innocence by U2 is digitally released at no charge to all customers of the iTunes Music Store, appearing automatically in the "purchased" section of over 500 million users worldwide.
September 13 1
  • 1898 Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film.
September 14 1
  • 1911 Russian Premier Pyotr Stolypin is shot by Dmitry Bogrov while attending a performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tale of Tsar Saltan at the Kiev Opera House, in the presence of Tsar Nicholas II.
September 15 1
  • 1915 New Culture Movement: Chen Duxiu establishes the New Youth magazine in Shanghai.
September 16 1
  • 1966 The Metropolitan Opera House opens at Lincoln Center in New York City with the world premiere of Samuel Barber's opera Antony and Cleopatra.
September 18 1
  • 1932 The body of actress Peg Entwistle is discovered by police, two days after her suicide by jumping off of the Hollywoodland sign.
September 19 1
  • 1863 American Civil War: The first day of the Battle of Chickamauga, in northwestern Georgia, the bloodiest two-day battle of the conflict, and the only significant Confederate victory in the war's Western Theater.
September 20 2
  • 1973 Singer Jim Croce, songwriter and musician Maury Muehleisen and four others die when their light aircraft crashes shortly after takeoff from Natchitoches Regional Airport in Louisiana.
  • 1946 The first Cannes Film Festival is held, having been delayed for seven years due to World War II.
September 22 1
  • 1910 The Duke of York's Picture House opens in Brighton, now the oldest continually operating cinema in Britain.
September 25 1
  • 1790 Four Great Anhui Troupes introduce Anhui opera to Beijing in honor of the Qianlong Emperor's eightieth birthday.
September 29 1
  • 1990 The Tampere Hall, the largest concert and congress center in the Nordic countries, is inaugurated in Tampere, Finland.
September 30 2
  • 1863 Georges Bizet's opera Les pêcheurs de perles, premieres in Paris.
  • 1791 The first performance of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute takes place two months before his death.
October 5 2
  • 1962 The first of the James Bond film series, based on the novels by Ian Fleming, Dr. No, is released in Britain.
  • 1943 World War II: Pacific Theater: Ninety-eight American POWs are executed by Japanese forces on Wake Island.
October 6 1
  • 1927 Opening of The Jazz Singer, the first prominent "talkie" movie.
October 9 1
  • 1986 The Phantom of the Opera, eventually the second longest running musical in London, opens at Her Majesty's Theatre.
October 16 1
  • 1926 Háry János, a Hungarian folk opera by Zoltán Kodály is premiered at the Royal Hungarian Opera House in Budapest.
October 17 2
  • 1975 'Salem's Lot, an American vampire novel by Stephen King, is published.
  • 1969 The Caravaggio painting Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence is stolen from the Oratory of Saint Lawrence in Palermo.
October 18 2
  • 1945 Argentine military officer and politician Juan Perón marries actress Eva Duarte.
  • 1775 African-American poet Phillis Wheatley is freed from slavery.
October 19 1
  • 1847 The novel Jane Eyre is published in London.
October 20 4
  • 2002 Top Gear, the revived popular British TV motoring magazine, premieres on BBC.
  • 1977 A plane carrying the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd crashes in woodland in Mississippi, United States. Six people, including three band members, are killed.
  • 1973 The Sydney Opera House is opened by Elizabeth II after 14 years of construction.
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October 21 3
  • 2021 A shooting occurs on the set of the film Rust, in which actor Alec Baldwin discharged a prop weapon which had been loaded, killing the director of photography, Halyna Hutchins, and injuring director Joel Souza.
  • 1986 In Lebanon, pro-Iran kidnappers claim to have abducted American writer Edward Tracy (he is released in August 1991).
  • 1940 The first edition of the Ernest Hemingway novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is published.
October 22 2
  • 1987 John Adams' opera Nixon in China premiered at the Houston Grand Opera.
  • 1883 The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City opens with a performance of Charles Gounod's Faust.
October 23 5
  • 2022 Myanmar Air Force airstrikes a concert in Hpakant Township, Kachin state killing at least 80 people, including senior Kachin Independence Organisation officials, in the Hpakant massacre.
  • 2002 Second Chechen War: Chechen separatist terrorists seize the House of Culture theater in Moscow and take approximately 700 theater-goers hostage.
  • 1995 Yolanda Saldívar is found guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of popular Latin singer Selena.
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October 24 2
  • 1946 A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.
  • 1926 Harry Houdini's last performance takes place at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit.
October 26 1
  • 2002 Approximately 50 Chechen terrorists and 150 hostages die when Russian special forces troops storm a theater building in Moscow, which had been occupied by the terrorists during a musical performance three days before.
October 28 2
  • 1893 Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Pathétique receives its première performance only nine days before the composer's death.
  • 1726 The novel Gulliver's Travels written by Jonathan Swift is published.
November 1 1
  • 1968 The Motion Picture Association of America's film rating system is officially introduced, originating with the ratings G, M, R, and X.
November 3 2
  • 1986 Iran–Contra affair: The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reports that the United States has been secretly selling weapons to Iran in order to secure the release of seven American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon.
  • 1976 Carrie, an American supernatural horror film directed by Brian De Palma, is premiered in 17 theaters in the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore area.
November 4 1
  • 1967 Iberia Flight 062 crashes in Blackdown, West Sussex, killing all 37 people on board including British actress June Thorburn.
November 5 1
  • 1955 After being destroyed in World War II, the rebuilt Vienna State Opera reopens with a performance of Beethoven's Fidelio.
November 10 1
  • 1939 Finnish author F. E. Sillanpää is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
November 11 1
  • 1993 A sculpture honoring women who served in the Vietnam War is dedicated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
November 12 1
  • 2021 The Los Angeles Superior Court formally ends the 14-year conservatorship to pop singer Britney Spears.
November 13 1
  • 1940 Walt Disney's animated musical film Fantasia is first released at New York's Broadway Theatre, on the first night of a roadshow.
November 15 1
  • 1959 Four members of the Clutter family are murdered near Holcomb, Kansas, by Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, a crime later detailed by Truman Capote in his 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood.
November 16 4
  • 1990 Pop group Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing at all on the Girl You Know It's True album. Session musicians had provided all the vocals.
  • 1966 The Temptations release their Greatest Hits album, which goes on to be the Billboard Year-End R&B album of 1967.
  • 1944 The Jussi Awards, the Finnish film award ceremony, is held for the first time at Restaurant Adlon in Helsinki.
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November 17 1
  • 2003 Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger's tenure as the governor of California begins.
November 18 1
  • 1985 The first comic of Calvin and Hobbes is published in ten newspapers.
November 20 3
  • 1900 The French actress Sarah Bernhardt receives the press at the Savoy Hotel in New York at the outset of her first visit since 1896. She talked about her impending tour with a troupe of more than 50 performers and her plans to play the title role in Hamlet.
  • 1820 An 80-ton sperm whale attacks and sinks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 3,200 kilometres (2,000 mi) from the western coast of South America. (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick was in part inspired by this incident.)
  • 1805 Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, premieres in Vienna.
November 23 1
  • 1991 Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury announces in a statement that he is HIV-positive. He dies the following day.
November 24 4
  • 2001 Crossair Flight 3597 crashes in Bassersdorf near Zurich Airport, killing 24 people, including singer Melanie Thornton and two members of the German band Passion Fruit.
  • 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is killed by Jack Ruby on live television. Robert H. Jackson takes a photograph of the shooting that will win the 1964 Pulitzer Prize in Photography.
  • 1922 Nine Irish Republican Army members are executed by an Irish Free State firing squad. Among them is author Erskine Childers, who had been arrested for illegally carrying a revolver.
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November 25 4
  • 1984 Thirty-six top musicians gather in a Notting Hill studio and record Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.
  • 1970 In Japan, author Yukio Mishima and one compatriot commit ritualistic seppuku after an unsuccessful coup attempt.
  • 1952 Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opens at the Ambassadors Theatre in London's West End after a premiere in Nottingham, UK. It will become the longest continuously running play in history.
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November 26 2
  • 1942 Casablanca, the movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premieres in New York City.
  • 1922 The Toll of the Sea debuts as the first general release film to use two-tone Technicolor. (The Gulf Between was the first film to do so, but it was not widely distributed.)
November 29 1
  • 1982 Michael Jackson releases Thriller, the best-selling music album of all time.
December 1 1
  • 1941 World War II: Fiorello La Guardia, Mayor of New York City and Director of the Office of Civilian Defense, signs Administrative Order 9, creating the Civil Air Patrol.
December 2 1
  • 2016 Thirty-six people die in a fire at a converted Oakland, California, warehouse serving as an artist collective.
December 3 3
  • 1979 In Cincinnati, 11 fans are suffocated in a crush for seats on the concourse outside Riverfront Coliseum before a Who concert.
  • 1960 The musical Camelot debuts at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. It will become associated with the Kennedy administration.
  • 1954 Väinö Linna's war novel The Unknown Soldier (Tuntematon sotilas) is published.
December 4 1
  • 1971 During a concert by Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention at the Montreux Casino, an audience member fires a flare gun into the ceiling, causing a fire that destroys the venue. The incident served as the inspiration for Deep Purple's 1973 song Smoke on the Water.
December 5 1
  • 1895 New Haven Symphony Orchestra of Connecticut performs its first concert.
December 6 2
  • 1969 Altamont Free Concert: At a free concert performed by the Rolling Stones, eighteen-year old Meredith Hunter is stabbed to death by Hells Angels security guards.
  • 1933 In United States v. One Book Called Ulysses Judge John M. Woolsey rules that James Joyce's novel Ulysses is not obscene despite coarse language and sexual content, a leading decision affirming free expression.
December 7 3
  • 1972 Apollo 17, the last Apollo Moon mission, is launched. The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they leave the Earth.
  • 1842 First concert of the New York Philharmonic, founded by Ureli Corelli Hill.
  • 1732 The Royal Opera House opens at Covent Garden, London, England.
December 9 2
  • 2012 A plane crash in Mexico kills seven people including singer Jenni Rivera.
  • 1960 The first episode of Coronation Street, the world's longest-running television soap opera, is broadcast in the United Kingdom.
December 10 1
  • 1909 Selma Lagerlöf becomes the first female writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
December 14 3
  • 2017 The Walt Disney Company announces that it would acquire 21st Century Fox, including the 20th Century Fox movie studio, for $52.4 billion.
  • 1925 Wozzeck, Alban Berg's first opera, is premiered at the Berlin State Opera conducted by Erich Kleiber.
  • 1918 Giacomo Puccini's comic opera Gianni Schicchi premieres at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
December 15 2
  • 1939 Gone with the Wind (highest inflation adjusted grossing film) receives its premiere at Loew's Grand Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
  • 1893 Symphony No. 9 ("From the New World" a.k.a. the "New World Symphony") by Antonín Dvořák premieres in a public afternoon rehearsal at Carnegie Hall in New York City, followed by a concert premiere on the evening of December 16.
December 19 1
  • 1995 The United States Government restores federal recognition to the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Native American tribe.
December 20 2
  • 2007 The Portrait of Suzanne Bloch (1904), by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, and O Lavrador de Café by Brazilian modernist painter Cândido Portinari, are stolen from the São Paulo Museum of Art in Brazil. Both will be recovered a few weeks later.
  • 1946 It's a Wonderful Life premieres at the Globe Theatre in New York to mixed reviews.
December 21 1
  • 1879 the fictional character of Nora Helmer is first portrayed by Betty Hennings at a showing of A Doll's House at the Royal Danish Theatre.
December 23 3
  • 1955 The first film adaptation of Väinö Linna's novel The Unknown Soldier, directed by Edvin Laine, premieres.
  • 1893 The opera Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck is first performed.
  • 1815 The novel Emma by Jane Austen is first published.
December 24 1
  • 1968 Apollo program: The crew of Apollo 8 enters into orbit around the Moon, becoming the first humans to do so. They performed ten lunar orbits, took the Earthrise photograph, broadcast live TV pictures, and read the first ten verses of Genesis.
December 26 1
  • 1811 A theater fire in Richmond, Virginia kills 72 people, including the Governor of Virginia George William Smith and the president of the First National Bank of Virginia Abraham B. Venable.
December 27 1
  • 1927 Kern and Hammerstein's musical play Show Boat, considered to be the first true American musical play, opens at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Broadway.
December 29 2
  • 1989 Czech writer, philosopher and dissident Václav Havel is elected the first post-communist President of Czechoslovakia.
  • 1913 Cecil B. DeMille starts filming Hollywood's first feature film, The Squaw Man.
December 30 1
  • 1903 A fire at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, Illinois kills at least 605.
December 31 1
  • 1995 The final comic of Calvin and Hobbes is published.