Events Pre-1600 1066 – Following the death of Harold II at the Battle of Hastings, Edgar the Ætheling is proclaimed King of England by the Witan; he is never crowned, and concedes power to William the Conqueror two months later. 1211 – Battle of the Rhyndacus: The Latin emperor Henry of Flanders defeats the Nicaean emperor Theodore I Laskaris. 1529 – The Siege of Vienna ends when Austria routs the invading Ottoman forces, ending its European expansion. 1582 – Adoption of the Gregorian calendar begins, eventually leading to near-universal adoption.
1601–1900 1651 – Qing forces capture the island of Zhoushan. Zhu Yihai, Prince of Lu, resident of the island and regent of the Southern Ming, flees to Kinmen. 1781 – The Battle of Raft Swamp marks the last battle fought in North Carolina during the American Revolutionary War with a Patriot victory. It occurred four days before the British surrender at Yorktown. 1783 – The Montgolfier brothers' hot air balloon makes the first human ascent, piloted by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier. 1793 – Queen Marie Antoinette of France is tried and convicted of treason. 1815 – Napoleon begins his exile on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. 1864 – American Civil War: The Union garrison of Glasgow, Missouri surrenders to Confederate forces. 1888 – The "From Hell" letter allegedly sent by Jack the Ripper is received by investigators.
1901–present 1910 – Airship America is launched from New Jersey in the first attempt to cross the Atlantic by a powered aircraft. 1923 – The German Rentenmark is introduced in Germany to counter hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic. 1928 – The airship Graf Zeppelin completes its first trans-Atlantic flight, landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, United States. 1932 – Tata Airlines (later to become Air India) makes its first flight. 1939 – The New York Municipal Airport (later renamed LaGuardia Airport) is dedicated. 1940 – President Lluís Companys of Catalonia is executed by the Francoist government. 1944 – World War II: Germany replaces the Hungarian government after Hungary announces an armistice with the Soviet Union. 1951 – Mexican chemist Luis E. Miramontes completes the synthesis of norethisterone, the basis of an early oral contraceptive. 1954 – Hurricane Hazel devastates the eastern seaboard of North America, killing 95 and causing massive floods as far north as Toronto. 1956 – FORTRAN, the first modern computer language, is first shared with the coding community. 1965 – Vietnam War: A draft card is burned during an anti-war rally by the Catholic Worker Movement, resulting in the first arrest under a new law. 1966 – The Black Panther Party is created by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. 1970 – During the construction of Australia's West Gate Bridge, a span of the bridge falls and kills 35 workers. The incident is the country's worst industrial accident to this day. 1979 – Supporters of the Malta Labour Party ransack and destroy the Times of Malta building and other locations associated with the Nationalist Party. 1979 – A coup d'état in El Salvador overthrows President Carlos Humberto Romero and begins the 12 year-long Salvadoran Civil War. 1987 – Aero Trasporti Italiani Flight 460 crashes near Conca di Crezzo, Italy, killing all 37 people on board. 1987 – A coup d'état in Burkina Faso overthrows and kills then President Thomas Sankara. 1989 – Wayne Gretzky becomes the all-time leading points scorer in the NHL. 1990 – Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen Cold War tensions and open up his nation. 1991 – The "Oh-My-God particle", an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray measured at 40,000,000 times that of the highest energy protons produced in a particle accelerator, is observed at the University of Utah HiRes observatory in Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. 1991 – The leaders of the Baltic States, Arnold Rüütel of Estonia, Anatolijs Gorbunovs of Latvia and Vytautas Landsbergis of Lithuania, signed the OSCE Final Act in Helsinki, Finland.Mitä Missä Milloin, Kansalaisen vuosikirja 1993, p. 21. Helsinki: Otava, 1992. ISBN 951-1-12269-X. (in Finnish) 1994 – The United States, under the Clinton administration, returns Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to the island. 1997 – The Cassini probe launches from Cape Canaveral on its way to Saturn. 2001 – NASA's Galileo spacecraft passes within of Jupiter's moon Io. 2003 – China launches Shenzhou 5, its first crewed space mission. 2006 – The 6.7 Kiholo Bay earthquake rocks Hawaii, causing property damage, injuries, landslides, power outages, and the closure of Honolulu International Airport. 2007 – Seventeen activists in New Zealand are arrested in the country's first post-9/11 anti-terrorism raids. 2008 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes down 733.08 points, or 7.87%, the second worst percentage drop in the Dow's history. 2013 – The 7.2 Bohol earthquake strikes the Philippines. At least 215 were killed. 2016 – One hundred and ninety-seven nations amend the Montreal Protocol to include a phase-out of hydrofluorocarbons. 2018 – 13-year-old American girl, Jayme Closs, is kidnapped from her Barron, Wisconsin home after her parents were both murdered.
Births Pre-1600 70 BC – Virgil, Roman poet (died 19 BC) 1265 – Temür Khan, Emperor Chengzong of Yuan (died 1307) 1440 – Henry III, Landgrave of Upper Hesse, German noble (died 1483) 1471 – Konrad Mutian, German epigrammatist and academic (died 1526) 1542 – Akbar, Mughal emperor (died 1605) 1561 – Richard Field, English cathedral dean (died 1616) 1564 – Henry Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (died 1613) 1599 – Cornelis de Graeff, Dutch mayor and regent of Amsterdam (died 1664)
1601–1900 1608 – Evangelista Torricelli, Italian physicist and mathematician (died 1647) 1622 – Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie, Swedish statesman and military man (died 1686) 1686 – Allan Ramsay, Scottish poet and playwright (died 1758) 1701 – Marie-Marguerite d'Youville, Canadian nun and saint, founded Grey Nuns (died 1771) 1711 – Elisabeth Therese of Lorraine, Queen of Sardinia (died 1741) 1762 – Samuel Adams Holyoke, American composer and educator (died 1820) 1765 – Sir George Pocock, 1st Baronet, English politician and peer (died 1840) 1767 – Gabriel Richard, French-born American Roman Catholic priest, missionary, educator, and politician (died 1832) 1775 – Bernhard Crusell, Finnish composer (died 1838) 1784 – Thomas Robert Bugeaud, French general and politician, Governor-General of Algeria (died 1849) 1785 – José Miguel Carrera, Chilean general and politician (died 1821) 1789 – William Christopher Zeise, Danish chemist who prepared Zeise's salt, one of the first organometallic compounds (died 1847) 1802 – Louis-Eugène Cavaignac, French general and politician, head of state of France in 1848 (died 1857) 1814 – Mikhail Lermontov, Russian author, poet, and painter (died 1841) 1816 – John Robertson, English-Australian politician, 5th Premier of New South Wales (died 1891) 1818 – Alexander Dreyschock, Czech pianist and composer (died 1869) 1825 – Marie of Prussia, Queen of Bavaria (died 1889) 1829 – Asaph Hall, American astronomer and academic (died 1907) 1833 – John Alexander MacPherson, Australian politician, 7th Premier of Victoria (died 1894) 1836 – James Tissot, French painter and illustrator (died 1902) 1840 – Honoré Mercier, Canadian journalist, lawyer, and politician, 9th Premier of Quebec (died 1894) 1844 – Friedrich Nietzsche, German composer, poet, and philosopher (died 1900) 1858 – John L. Sullivan, American boxer, actor, and journalist (died 1918) 1865 – Charles W. Clark, American singer and educator (died 1925) 1872 – Wilhelm Miklas, Austrian educator and politician, 3rd President of Austria (died 1956) 1872 – August Nilsson, Swedish pole vaulter, shot putter, and tug of war competitor (died 1921) 1874 – Alfred, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (died 1899) 1878 – Paul Reynaud, French lawyer and politician, 118th Prime Minister of France (died 1966) 1879 – Jane Darwell, American actress (died 1967) 1881 – P. G. Wodehouse, English novelist and playwright (died 1975) 1882 – Charley O'Leary, American baseball player and coach (died 1941) 1884 – Archibald Hoxsey, American pilot (died 1910) 1887 – Frederick Fleet, English sailor and lookout on the Titanic (died 1965) 1888 – S. S. Van Dine, American author and critic (died 1939) 1890 – Álvaro de Campos, Portuguese poet and engineer (died 1935) 1893 – Carol II of Romania, King of Romania (died 1953) 1894 – Moshe Sharett, Ukrainian-Israeli lieutenant and politician, 2nd Prime Minister of Israel (died 1965) 1897 – Johannes Sikkar, Estonian soldier and politician, Prime Minister of Estonia in exile (died 1960) 1899 – Adolf Brudes, Polish-German racing driver (died 1986) 1900 – Mervyn LeRoy, American actor, director, and producer (died 1987)
1901–present 1901 – Enrique Jardiel Poncela, Spanish playwright and novelist (died 1952) 1905 – C. P. Snow, English chemist and author (died 1980) 1906 – Hiram Fong, American soldier and politician (died 2004) 1906 – Alicia Patterson, American journalist and publisher, co-founded Newsday (died 1963) 1906 – Victoria Spivey, American singer-songwriter and pianist (died 1976) 1907 – Varian Fry, American journalist and author (died 1967) 1908 – Herman Chittison, American pianist (died 1967) 1908 – John Kenneth Galbraith, Canadian-American economist and diplomat, 7th United States Ambassador to India (died 2006) 1909 – Jesse L. Greenstein, American astronomer and academic (died 2002) 1909 – Robert Trout, American journalist (died 2000) 1910 – Edwin O. Reischauer, Japanese-American scholar and diplomat, United States Ambassador to Japan (died 1990) 1912 – Nellie Lutcher, American singer and pianist (died 2007) 1913 – Wolfgang Lüth, German U-boat captain (died 1945) 1914 – Mohammed Zahir Shah, Afghan king (died 2007) 1916 – Al Killian, American trumpet player and bandleader (died 1950) 1916 – George Turner, Australian author and critic (died 1997) 1917 – Jan Miner, American actress (died 2004) 1917 – Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., American historian and critic (died 2007) 1917 – Paul Tanner, American trombonist and educator (died 2013) 1919 – Malcolm Ross, American captain, balloonist, and physicist (died 1985) 1919 – Chuck Stevenson, American race car driver (died 1995) 1920 – Chris Economaki, American sportscaster and actor (died 2012) 1920 – Patricia Jessel, Hong Kong-English actress (died 1968) 1920 – Peter Koch, American industrial engineer and wood scientist (died 1998) 1920 – Mario Puzo, American author and screenwriter (died 1999) 1920 – Henri Verneuil, Turkish-French director, producer, and screenwriter (died 2002) 1921 – Angelica Rozeanu, Romanian-Israeli table tennis player (died 2006) 1922 – Agustina Bessa-Luís, Portuguese author (died 2019) 1922 – Tommy Edwards, American singer-songwriter (died 1969) 1922 – Preben Munthe, Norwegian economist and politician, State Conciliator of Norway (died 2013) 1923 – Italo Calvino, Italian novelist, short story writer, and journalist (died 1985) 1923 – Antonio Fontán, Spanish journalist and politician (died 2010) 1923 – Eugene Patterson, American journalist and activist (died 2013) 1923 – Lindsay Thompson, Australian politician, 40th Premier of Victoria (died 2008) 1924 – Marguerite Andersen, German-Canadian author and educator (died 2022) 1924 – Lee Iacocca, American businessman and author (died 2019) 1924 – Warren Miller, American director and screenwriter (died 2018) 1925 – Mickey Baker, American-French guitarist (died 2012) 1925 – Aurora Bautista, Spanish actress (died 2012) 1925 – Tony Hart, English painter and television host (died 2009) 1926 – James E. Akins, American soldier and diplomat, United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (died 2010) 1926 – Agustín García Calvo, Spanish philosopher and poet (died 2012) 1926 – Michel Foucault, French historian and philosopher (died 1984)