Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is burned at the stake at Oxford after retracting the last of seven recantations that same day.

Pocahontas (Rebecca Rolfe) dies of either small pox or pneumonia while in England with her husband, John Rolfe.

Almost the entire city of New Orleans, Louisiana, is destroyed by fire.

Lewis and Clark begin their trip home after an 8,000 mile trek of the Mississippi basin and the Pacific Coast.

Emperor Tu Duc orders that Christian priests are to put to death.

British forces in India lift the siege of Lucknow, ending the Indian Mutiny.

The Battle of Bentonville, N.C. ends, marking the last Confederate attempt to stop Union General William Sherman.

1906

Ohio passes a law that prohibits hazing by fraternities.

Frenchman Henri Farman carries a passenger in a bi-plane for the first time.

The U.S. Senate grants ex-President Teddy Roosevelt an annual pension of $10,000.

The Germans launch the 'Michael' offensive, better remembered as the First Battle of the Somme.

President Calvin Coolidge presents the Congressional Medal of Honor to Charles Lindbergh, a captain in the US Army Air Corps Reserve, for making the first solo trans-Atlantic flight. On June 11, 1927, Lindbergh had received the first Distinguished Flying Cross ever awarded.

Singer Kate Smith records "God Bless America" for Victor Records.

The last Italian post in East Libya, North Africa, falls to the British.

Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall reports that the U.S. military has doubled to 2.9 million since the start of the Korean War.

Alcatraz Island, the federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay, California, closes.

The United States launches Ranger 9, last in a series of unmanned lunar explorations.

Two U.S. platoons in Vietnam refuse their orders to advance.

As North Vietnamese forces advance, Hue and other northern towns in South Vietnam are evacuated.

President Jimmy Carter announces to the U.S. Olympic Team that they will not participate in the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow as a boycott against Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

A Soviet submarine crashes into the USS Kitty Hawk off the coast of Japan.