| | 1765 - After a public campaign by the writer Voltaire, judges in Paris posthumously exonerate Jean Calas of murdering his son. Calas had been tortured and executed in 1762 on the charge, though his son had actually committed suicide. |
| | 1796 - Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais. |
| | 1841 - The Supreme Court of the United States rules in the Amistad case, concerning captive Africans who seized control of the slave-trading ship carrying them: the court rules that they had been taken into slavery illegally. |
| | 1842 - Giuseppe Verdi's third opera Nabucco premieres in Milan; its success establishes Verdi as one of Italy's foremost opera writers. |
| | 1856 - Sigma Alpha Epsilon: was founded in the Johnston Mansion House on the University of Alabama |
| | 1916 - Pancho Villa leads 1,500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico, killing 17. |
| | 1924 - Italy annexes Fiume. |
| | 1932 - The first Ford Flathead engine left the assembly line at Ford Motor Company. |
| | 1933 - Great Depression: The U.S. Congress begins its first 100 days of enacting New Deal legislation. President Franklin D. Roosevelt submits the Emergency Banking Act to Congress. |
| | 1935 - Hitler announced the creation of a new air force. |
| | 1945 - World War II: Bombing of Tokyo - American B-29 bombers attack Tokyo, Japan with incendiary bombs. The resulting fire storm kills over 100,000 people. |
| | 1954 - McCarthyism: CBS television broadcasts the See It Now episode, "A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy," produced by Edward R. Murrow. |
| | 1959 - The Barbie doll debuts. |
| | 1964 - The first Ford Mustang rolls off the assembly line at Ford Motor Company. |
| | 1966 - Ronnie Kray murders George Cornell in the Blind Beggar pub. |
| | 1976 - Forty-two people die in a Cavalese cable-car disaster, the worst cable-car accident to date. |
| | 1981 - Ketchup is declared a vegetable, to help public schools in the USA with the balanced meal plan. |
| | 1984 - The Competitive Enterprise Institute in founded in Washington, D.C. |
| | 1986 - United States Navy divers find the largely intact but heavily-damaged crew compartment of the Space Shuttle Challenger. The bodies of all seven astronauts were still inside. |
| | 1987 - Rock band U2 release the album The Joshua Tree. |
| | 1990 - Dr. Antonia Novello is sworn in as Surgeon General of the United States, becoming the first female and Hispanic American to serve in that position. |
| | 1993 - Rodney King testifies at the federal trial of four Los Angeles, California police officers accused of violating King's civil rights when they beat him during an arrest. |
| | 1997 - Rapper Notorious B.I.G. is shot and killed in Los Angeles. |
| | 2000 - The Tampa Bay Lightning National Hockey League club names Vincent Lecavalier the youngest captain of any sports team (19 years 43 days old), passing Detroit Red Wing Steve Yzerman's old record (21 years 149 days). |
| | 2004 - John Allen Muhammad is sentenced to death for his part in the Beltway sniper attacks of October 2002. Lee Boyd Malvo is sentenced to life in prison. |
| | 2004 - The Federal Building in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was officially renamed the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse, in honor of Ronald Reagan (40th President of the United States). |
| | 2005 - Dan Rather presents his final broadcast of the CBS Evening News. |
| | 2006 - Liquid Water discovered on Enceladus, the sixth largest moon of Saturn. |