| | 1504 - France cedes Naples to Aragon. |
| | 1606 - Gunpowder Plot: Guy Fawkes is executed for his plotting against Parliament and James I of England. |
| | 1747 - The first venereal diseases clinic opens at London Lock Hospital. |
| | 1910 - The Portuguese republican revolution broke out in the northern city of Porto. |
| | 1814 - Gervasio Antonio de Posadas becomes Supreme Director of Argentina. |
| | 1849 - Corn Laws abolished in the United Kingdom. |
| | 1865 - American Civil War: Confederate General Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief. |
| | 1867 - Maronite nationalist leader Karam leaves Lebanon on board of a French ship for Algeria |
| | 1876 - The United States orders all Native Americans to move into reservations. |
| | 1900 - Datu Muhammad Salleh is shot dead in Kampung Teboh, Tambuan, ending the Mat Salleh Rebellion |
| | 1915 - World War I: Germany uses poison gas against Russians. |
| | 1917 - World War I: Germany announces its U-boats will engage in unrestricted submarine warfare. |
| | 1918 - A series of accidental collisions on a misty Scottish night leads to the loss of two Royal Navy submarines with over a hundred lives, and damage to another five British warships. |
| | 1919 - 1919 Battle of George Square |
| | David Kirkwood being detained by police during the 1919 Battle of George Square1929 - The Soviet Union exiles Leon Trotsky. |
| | 1930 - 3M markets Scotch Tape. |
| | 1936 - The Green Hornet radio show debuts. |
| | 1944 - World War II: American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands. |
| | 1945 - US Army private Eddie Slovik is executed, the first American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion. |
| | 1946 - Yugoslavia's new constitution, modeling the Soviet Union, establishes six constituent republics (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia). |
| | 1950 - President Harry S. Truman announces a program to develop the hydrogen bomb. |
| | 1953 - A flood causes over 1,800 deaths in the Netherlands. |
| | 1956 - Guy Mollet becomes Prime Minister of France. |
| | 1957 - Three students on a junior high school playground in Pacoima, California are among the eight persons killed following the mid-air collision between a Douglas DC-7 airliner and a Northrop F-89 Scorpion fighter jet above the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles. |
| | 1958 - Explorer program: Explorer I - The first successful launch of an American satellite into orbit. |
| | 1958 - James Van Allen discovers the Van Allen radiation belt. |
| | 1961 - Project Mercury: Mercury-Redstone 2 - Ham the Chimp travels into outer space. |
| | 1968 - Viet Cong attack the United States embassy in Saigon. |
| | 1968 - Nauru declares independence from Australia. |
| | 1971 - Project Apollo: Apollo 14 Mission - Astronauts, Shepard, Roosa, & Mitchell, aboard a Saturn V, lift off for a mission to the Fra Mauro. |
| | 1971 - The Winter Soldier Investigation, organized by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War to publicize war crimes and atrocities by Americans and allies in Vietnam, begin in Detroit, Michigan. |
| | 1980 - Thirty-nine people burned to death in the occupation of the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala. |
| | 1988 - Super Bowl XXII: The Washington Redskins win their second championship of the 1980s, 42-10. |
| | 1990 - The first McDonald's opens in Moscow, Russia. |
| | 1993 - Super Bowl XXVII: The Dallas Cowboys defeat the Buffalo Bills, 52-17. |
| | 1995 - President Bill Clinton authorizes a $20 billion loan to Mexico to stabilize its economy. |
| | 1996 - An explosives-filled truck rams into the gates of the Central Bank in Colombo, Sri Lanka killing at least 86 and injuring 1,400. |
| | 1999 - Super Bowl XXXIII: The Denver Broncos defeat the Atlanta Falcons, 34-19. After the game, the TV show Family Guy airs its pilot episode. |
| | 2000 - An Alaska Airlines MD-83 crashes in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Oxnard, California killing all 88 aboard. |
| | 2001 - In the Netherlands a Scottish court convicts a Libyan and acquits another for their part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which crashed into Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. |
| | 2002 - A large section of the Antarctic Larsen Ice Shelf begins disintegrating, eventually consuming about 3,250 km² (1,254 miles²) over a 35-day period. |
| | 2003 - Waterfall train disaster, NSW, Australia. |
| | 2004 - Mystery Science Theater 3000 ends its run on the Sci-Fi Channel. |
| | 2005 - The child molestation trial of superstar Michael Jackson begins in California. |
| | 2006 - Incapacitated Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon officially exits politics after three decades. |