• 668 - Eastern Roman Emperor Constans II is assassinated in his bath at Syracuse, Italy.
• 921 - Saint Ludmila is murdered at the command of her daughter-in-law at Tetin.
• 1556 - Vlissingen ex-emperor Charles V returns to Spain.
• 1584 - San Lorenzo del Escorial Palace in Madrid is finished.
• 1600 - Battle of Sekigahara
• 1616 - The first non-aristocratic, free public school in Europe is opened in Frascati, Italy.
• 1683 - Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is founded by 13 immigrant families.
• 1762 - Battle of Signal Hill
• 1776 - American Revolutionary War: British land at Kip's Bay during the New York Campaign.
• 1789 - The United States Department of State is established (formerly known as Department of Foreign Affairs).
• 1812 - The French army under Napoleon reaches the Kremlin in Moscow.
• 1820 - Constitutionalist revolution in Lisbon, Portugal; (see Portugal's crises of the Nineteenth Century.
• 1821 - Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica jointly declare independence from Spain.
• 1830 - The Liverpool to Manchester railway line opens (see also deaths, below).
• 1831 - The locomotive John Bull operates for the first time in New Jersey on the Camden and Amboy Railroad.
• 1835 - The HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reaches the Galápagos Islands.
• 1851 - Saint Joseph's University is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• 1862 - American Civil War: Confederate forces capture Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
• 1873 - Franco-Prussian War: The last German troops leave France upon completion of payment of indemnity.
• 1883 - The Bombay Natural History Society is founded in Bombay (now Mumbai), India.
• 1894 - First Sino-Japanese War: Japan defeats China in the Battle of Pyongyang.
• 1914 - World War I: The Battle of Aisne begins between Germany and France.
• 1916 - World War I: Tanks are used for the first time in battle, at the Battle of the Somme.
• 1928 - Sir Alexander Fleming notices a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory, discovering what later became known as penicillin.
• 1928 - Tich Freeman becomes the only bowler to take 300 wickets in an English cricket season.
• 1931 - In Scotland, the two-day Invergordon Mutiny against Royal Navy pay cuts begins.
• 1935 - Nuremberg Laws deprive German Jews of citizenship.
• 1935 - Nazi Germany adopts a new national flag with the swastika.
• 1940 - World War II: The climax of the Battle of Britain, when the Royal Air Force shoot down large numbers of Luftwaffe.
• 1941 - The U.S. Attorney General rules that the Neutrality Act isn't violated when U.S. ships carry war materiel to British territories, opening the door for the Lend-Lease Act.
• 1942 - World War II: The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Wasp is torpedoed at Guadalcanal.
• 1944 - Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meet in Quebec as part of the Octagon Conference to discuss strategy.
• 1945 - A hurricane in southern Florida and the Bahamas destroys 366 planes and 25 blimps at NAS Richmond.
• 1947 - The U.S. Air Force is separated from the US Army to become a separate branch.
• 1947 - RCA releases the 12AX7 vacuum tube.
• 1948 - The F-86 Sabre sets the world aircraft speed record at 1080 km/h.
• 1950 - Korean War: United States forces land at Incheon, Korea.
• 1952 - United Nations gives Eritrea to Ethiopia.
• 1957 - West Germany holds its third parliamentary election. Konrad Adenauer remains chancellor.
• 1958 - A Central Railroad of New Jersey commuter train runs through an open drawbridge at the Newark Bay, killing 58.
• 1959 - Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the United States.
• 1961 - Hurricane Carla strikes Texas with winds of 175 miles per hour.
• 1962 - The Soviet ship Poltava heads toward Cuba, one of the events that sets into motion the Cuban Missile Crisis.
• 1963 - The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing kills four children at an African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama, United States.
• 1966 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to a sniper attack at the University of Texas at Austin, writes a letter to the United States Congress urging the enactment of gun control legislation.
• 1968 - The Soviet Zond 5 spaceship is launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.
• 1972 - A magnitude 4.5 earthquake shakes Northern Illinois.
• 1972 - An SAS domestic flight from Gothenburg to Stockholm was hijacked and flown to Malmö-Bulltofta Airport.
• 1974 - Air Vietnam flight 727 is hijacked, then crashes while attempting to land with 75 on board.
• 1975 - The French department of Corse (the entire island of Corsica) is divided into two: Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud.
• 1981 - The United States Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice on the United States Supreme Court.
• 1981 - The John Bull becomes the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world when the Smithsonian Institution operates it under its own power outside Washington, DC.
• 1981 - Vanuatu becomes a member of the United Nations.
• 1983 - Israeli premier Menachem Begin resigns.
• 1987 - U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze sign a treaty to establish centers to reduce the risk of nuclear war.
• 1989 - The U.S. Congress recognizes Terry Anderson's continued captivity in Beirut.
• 1990 - France announces it'll send 4,000 troops to the Persian Gulf
• 1993 - Liechtenstein Prince Hans-Adam II disbands parliament
• 1997 - Google was founded.
• 1998 - WorldCom and MCI Communications finish their landmark merger, forming MCI WorldCom which would later be renamed WorldCom and become the largest bankruptcy in United States history.
• 2004 - NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced a lockout of the players union and cessation of operations by the NHL head office.
• 2007 - Over 3000 Taiwanese Americans and their supporters rallied in front of UN in New York City to demonstrate the dedication that UN should accept Taiwan. At the same time, over 300,000 Taiwanese people rally in Taiwan to make the same plea.

Births