| | 588 BC - Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon lays siege to Jerusalem under Zedekiah's reign. The siege lasts until July 18, 586 BC. |
| | 69 - Otho seizes power in Rome, proclaiming himself Emperor of Rome, but only survives for three months before committing suicide. |
| | 1559 - Elizabeth I of England is crowned in Westminster Abbey by Owen Oglethorpe, the Bishop of Carlisle, instead of the Archbishop of Canterbury. |
| | 1582 - Russia cedes Livonia and Estonia to Poland. |
| | 1759 - The British Museum opens. |
| | 1777 - American Revolutionary War: New Connecticut (present day Vermont) declares its independence. |
| | 1782 - Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris goes before the U.S. Congress to recommend establishment of a national mint and decimal coinage. |
| | 1844 - University of Notre Dame receives its charter from Indiana. |
| | 1870 - A political cartoon for the first time symbolizes the United States Democratic Party with a donkey ("A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion" by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly). |
| | 1885 - Wilson Bentley takes the first photograph of a snowflake. |
| | 1892 - James Naismith publishes the rules for basketball. |
| | 1908 - Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, the first Greek-letter organization by and for Black college women is established. |
| | 1919 - The Boston Molasses Disaster kills 21 people. |
| | 1919 - Ignace Paderewski becomes Premier of Poland. |
| | 1919 - Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the most prominent socialists in Germany, were tortured and murdered by the Freikorps. |
| | 1936 - The first building to be completely covered in glass is completed in Toledo, Ohio (the building was for the Owens-Illinois Glass Company). |
| | 1943 - World War II: Japanese driven off Guadalcanal. |
| | 1943 - World War II: Soviet counter-offensive at Voronezh begun. |
| | 1943 - The world's largest office building, The Pentagon, is dedicated (Arlington, Virginia). |
| | 1947 - The brutalized corpse of Elizabeth Short ("The Black Dahlia") is found in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, California. Her murderer has never been found and it has become a notorious case in the history of American crime. |
| | 1951 - Ilse Koch, The "Bitch of Buchenwald", wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment in a court in West Germany. |
| | 1966 - First Military Coup in Nigeria, government of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa is overthrown. |
| | 1967 - In the first ever Super Bowl, the Green Bay Packers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10. |
| | 1969 - The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 5. |
| | 1970 - After a 32-month fight for independence from Nigeria, Biafra surrenders. |
| | 1970 - Muammar al-Qaddafi is proclaimed premier of Libya. |
| | 1973 - Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, President of the United States Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam. |
| | 1974 - Happy Days premieres on ABC. |
| | 1975 - Portugal grants independence to Angola. |
| | 1976 - Gerald Ford's would-be assassin, Sara Jane Moore, is sentenced to life in prison. |
| | 1977 - The Kälvesta air disaster kills 22 people, the worst air crash in Sweeden's history. |
| | 1986 - The Living Seas opens at EPCOT Center in Walt Disney World, Florida. |
| | 1986 - The HBO and Cinemax pay cable television services initiate scrambling of their national satellite feeds on Galaxy 1 with the Videocipher II system. |
| | 1990 - AT&T's long distance telephone network suffers a cascade switching failure. |
| | 1991 - The United Nations deadline for the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from occupied Kuwait expires, preparing the way for the start of Operation Desert Storm. |
| | 1992 - The international community recognizes the independence of Slovenia and Croatia from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. |
| | 1993 - Salvatore Riina, the Mafia boss known as 'The Beast', is arrested in Sicily after three decades as a fugitive |
| | 1995 - The first episode of Star Trek: Voyager airs. |
| | 1999 - The Racak incident: 45 Albanians in the Kosovo village of Racak were killed by Yugoslav security forces. |
| | 2001 - Wikipedia, a free Wiki content encyclopedia, goes online. |
| | 2005 - An intense solar flare blasted X rays across the solar system. ESA's SMART-1 lunar orbiter discovered elements such as calcium,aluminum,silicon,iron, and other surface elements on the moon. |