| | 314 - Pope Miltiades ends his reign as the Catholic Pope. |
| | 532 - Nika riots in Constantinople. |
| | 1158 - Vladislav II becomes King of Bohemia. |
| | 1569 - First recorded lottery in England. |
| | 1571 - Austrian nobility is granted freedom of religion. |
| | 1693 - Mt. Etna erupts in Sicily, Italy. |
| | 1759 - In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the first American life insurance company is incorporated. |
| | 1787 - William Herschel discovers Titania and Oberon, two moons of Uranus. |
| | 1794 - Robert Forsythe, a US Marshal was killed in Augusta, Georgia when trying to serve court papers, the first US Marshal to die in action. |
| | 1805 - Michigan Territory is created. |
| | 1861 - Alabama secedes from the United States. |
| | 1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Arkansas Post - General John McClernand and Admiral David Dixon Porter capture the Arkansas River for the Union. |
| | 1867 - Benito Juárez becomes Mexican president again. |
| | 1879 - Anglo-Zulu War begins. |
| | 1880 - Total solar eclipse blackens the sky of San Francisco one day after the funeral of Emperor Norton. |
| | 1902 - Popular Mechanics magazine was published for the first time. |
| | 1908 - Grand Canyon National Monument is created. |
| | 1912 - Bread and Roses Strike begins in Lawrence, Massachusetts. |
| | 1919 - Romania annexes Transylvania. |
| | 1922 - First use of insulin to treat diabetes in a human patient. |
| | 1923 - Troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area to force Germany to pay its reparation payments. |
| | 1935 - Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly solo from Hawaii to California. |
| | 1938 - Frances Moulton is the first woman to become president of a U.S. national bank.[citation needed] |
| | 1942 - Japan declares war on the Netherlands and invades the Netherlands East Indies. |
| | 1942 - The Japanese capture Kuala Lumpur. |
| | 1943 - The United States and United Kingdom give up territorial rights in China. |
| | 1946 - Enver Hoxha declares the People's Republic of Albania with himself as dictator. |
| | 1946 - Porfirio Barba-Jacob's ashes go back to Colombia. |
| | 1949 - First recorded case of snowfall in Los Angeles, California. |
| | 1957 - The African Convention is founded in Dakar. |
| | 1960 - Chad declares its independence. |
| | 1962 - Eruption of the Huascaran volcano in Peru; 4,000 deaths. |
| | 1963 - The Whisky a Go Go night club in Los Angeles, the first disco in the USA, is opened. |
| | 1964 - United States Surgeon General Luther Leonidas Terry reports smoking may be hazardous to health. First such statement from U.S. government. |
| | 1972 - East Pakistan becomes Bangladesh. |
| | 1973 - Beginning of the Watergate burglars trial. |
| | 1974 - The world's first surviving set of sextuplets are born to Susan Rosenkowitz in Cape Town, South Africa. |
| | 1980 - Nigel Short, 14, is the youngest chess player to be awarded the degree of International Master. |
| | 1982 - A cold snap sends temperatures to record lows in dozens of cities throughout the Midwestern United States. |
| | 1986 - The Gateway Bridge, Brisbane in Queensland, Australia is officially opened. |
| | 1990 - 300,000 march in favor of Lithuanian independence. |
| | 1992 - Paul Simon is the first major artist to tour South Africa after the end of the cultural boycott. |
| | 1994 - Irish Government announces the end of a 15-year broadcasting ban on the IRA and its political arm Sinn Féin |
| | 1995 - The WB Television Network begins operations. |
| | 1996 - Haiti becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty. |
| | 1998 - Sidi-Hamed massacre in Algeria; over 100 people killed. |
| | 2001 - The Federal Trade Commission approved the merger of AOL and Time Warner to form AOL Time Warner. |
| | 2003 - Illinois governor George H. Ryan announces decision to grant clemency to all inmates of death row. |
| | 2005 - Black Tuesday bushfires swept across the southern Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. |