| 1246 | Henry Raspe is elected anti-king by the Rhenish prelates in France. | |
| 1455 | King Henry VI is taken prisoner by the Yorkists at the Battle of St. Albans, during the War of the Roses. | |
| 1804 | The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially begins as the Corps of Discovery departs from St. Charles, Missouri. | |
| 1856 | U.S. Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane for Sumner’s earlier condemnation of slavery, which included an insult to Brooks’ cousin, Senator Andrew Butler. | |
| 1863 | Union General Ulysses S. Grant‘s second attack on Vicksburg fails and a siege begins. | |
| 1868 | The “Great Train Robbery” takes place as seven members of the Reno Gang make off with $98,000 in cash from a train’s safe in Indiana. | |
| 1872 | The Amnesty Act restores civil rights to Southerners. | |
| 1882 | The United States formally recognizes Korea. | |
| 1908 | The Wright brothers register their flying machine for a U.S. patent. | |
| 1939 | Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini sign a “Pact of Steel” forming the Axis powers. | |
| 1947 | The Truman Doctrine brings aid to Turkey and Greece. | |
| 1967 | The children’s program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood premiers. | |
| 1972 | Ceylon becomes the Republic of Sri Lanka as its constitution is ratified. | |
| 1985 | Baseball player Pete Rose passes Hank Aaron as National League run scoring leader with 2,108. | |
| 1990 | In the Middle East, North and South Yemen merge to become a single state. | |
| 1992 | Johnny Carson’s final appearance on The Tonight Show on NBC, after 30 years as the program’s host. | |
| 2004 | An EF4 tornado with a record-setting width of 2.5 miles wipes out Hallam, Nebraska, killing 1 person. | |
| 2004 | Fahrenheit 9-11, directed by Michael Moore, becomes the first documentary ever to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. | |
| 2010 | Following a 200-year search for the tomb of Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus his remains are reburied in Frombork Cathedral | |
| 2011 | An EF5 tornado kills at least 158 people in Joplin, Missouri, the largest death toll from a tornado since record-keeping began in 1950. | |
| 2015 | The Republic of Ireland, long known as a conservative, predominantly Catholic country, becomes the first nation in the world to legalize gay marriage in a public referendum. |
Murphy applied for a fork lift operator post at a famous Irish firm based in Dublin.
