| | 1137 - Battle of Rignano between Ranulf of Apulia and Roger II of Sicily. |
| | 1270 - The Eighth Crusade and siege of Tunis end by an agreement between Charles I of Sicily (brother to King Louis IX of France, who had died months earlier) and the sultan of Tunis. |
| | 1340 - Battle of Rio Salado |
| | 1470 - Henry VI of England returns to the English throne after Earl of Warwick defeats Yorkists in battle. |
| | 1831 - In Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave revolt in United States history. |
| | 1864 - Second war of Schleswig ends: Duke Frederick and the Danish Crown recognize Prussia's and Austria's annexation of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg. |
| | 1864 - Helena, Montana is founded after four prospectors discover gold at "Last Chance Gulch." |
| | 1894 - Domenico Melegatti obtains a patent for a procedure to be applied in producing pandoro industrially. |
| | 1905 - Tsar Nicholas II of Russia grants Russia's first constitution, creating a legislative assembly. |
| | 1918 - The Ottoman Empire signs an armistice with the Allies, ending the First World War in the Middle East |
| | 1920 - The Communist Party of Australia founded in Sydney. |
| | 1922 - Benito Mussolini was made Prime Minister of Italy |
| | 1925 - John Logie Baird creates Britain's first television transmitter. |
| | 1929 - The Stuttgart Cable Car is constructed in Stuttgart, Germany. |
| | 1938 - Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, causing a nationwide panic. |
| | 1941 - World War II: Franklin Delano Roosevelt approves US$1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Allied nations. |
| | 1941 - 1,500 Jews from Pidhaytsi (in western Ukraine) were sent by Nazis to Belzec extermination camp. |
| | 1944 - Anne Frank is deported from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. |
| | 1946 - Muffin the Mule, the first major British children's television star, makes his début on BBC Television. |
| | 1947 - The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which is the foundation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is founded. |
| | 1950 - Pope Pius XII witnesses the "Miracle of the Sun" while at the Vatican"[1] |
| | 1953 - Cold War: US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the top secret document National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat. |
| | 1960 - Michael Woodruff performs the first successful kidney transplant in the United Kingdom at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. |
| | 1961 - Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates the hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya; at 58 megatons of yield, it is still the largest nuclear device ever detonated. Nikita Kruschev announces that the scientists had planned to make it 100 megatons, but had reduced the yield so as to avoid breaking all the windows in Moscow. |
| | 1961 - Due to "violations of Lenin's precepts", it is decreed that Josef Stalin's body be removed from its place of honour inside Lenin's tomb and buried near the Kremlin wall with a plain granite marker instead. |
| | 1965 - Vietnam War: Just miles from Da Nang, United States Marines repel an intense attack by wave after wave of Viet Cong forces, killing 56 guerrillas. Among the dead, a sketch of Marine positions was found on the body of a 13-year-old Vietnamese boy who sold drinks to the Marines the day before. |
| | 1966 - The Zodiac Killer kills his first victim, 18-year old Cheri Jo Bates, in Riverside, California. |
| | 1968 - The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, Peter O'Toole and Anthony Hopkins debuts. |
| | 1970 - In Vietnam, the worst monsoon to hit the area in six years causes large floods, kills 293, leaves 200,000 homeless and virtually halts the Vietnam War. |
| | 1972 - US President Richard Nixon approves legislation to increase Social Security spending by US$5.3 billion. |
| | 1974 - "The Rumble in the Jungle": Muhammad Ali knocks out George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire to regain the World Heavyweight Boxing championship. |
| | 1975 - Prince Juan Carlos becomes Spain's acting head of state, taking over for the country's ailing dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco. |
| | 1980 - El Salvador and Honduras sign a peace treaty to put the border dispute fought over in 1969's Football War before the International Court of Justice. |
| | 1983 - The first democratic elections in Argentina after seven years of military rule are held. |
| | 1985 - Space Shuttle Challenger lifts off for mission STS-61-A, its final successful mission. |
| | 1987 - In Japan, NEC releases the first 16-bit home entertainment system, the PC-Engine. |
| | 1988 - Philip Morris buys Kraft Foods for US$13.1 billion. |
| | 1991 - The Madrid Conference for Middle East peace talks opens. |
| | 1995 - Quebec sovereignists narrowly lose a referendum for a mandate to negotiate independence from Canada (vote was 50.6% to 49.4%). |
| | 1997 - British au pair Louise Woodward is found guilty of the baby-shaking death of 8-month-old Matthew Eappen. |
| | 1999 - Miss Saigon closes in London after 4264 performances. |
| | 2001 - George W. Bush throws out the first pitch at Game 3 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium, in what was intended to be a defiant gesture, coming just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks. |
| | 2001 - Michael Jordan returns to the National Basketball Association with the Washington Wizards after 3½ years (the Wizards lose 93-91 to the New York Knicks). |
| | 2002 - Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC is shot and killed execution style in a Merrick Boulevard recording studio. |
| | 2002 - British Digital terrestrial television (DTT) Service Freeview starts transmitting throughout parts of the United Kingdom |
| | 2004 - A 163-metre (535 foot) radio mast in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, UK collapses in a fire. |
| | 2004 - In Punjab, India the expelled BSP leader Satnam Singh Kainth launches Bahujan Samaj Party (Kainth). |
| | 2005 - The rebuilt Dresden Frauenkirche (destroyed in the firebombing of Dresden during World War II) is reconsecrated after a thirteen-year rebuilding project. |
| | 2006 - The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex surpasses the 13,000 points mark for the first time in its history. |
| | 2006 - The Bridgewater Bridge in Tasmania is closed to traffic after structural faults are found. |