2007 - Luigi Comencini, Italian film director (b. 1916)
2009 - Damouré Zika, 85, Nigerien film actor and traditional healer, after long illness.
2009 - Shawn Mackay, 26, Australian rugby union player (Brumbies), cardiac arrest following car accident.
2009 - Wally Holmes, 83, British rugby union player (Nuneaton, England).
2009 - Jan Tollarparn Eriksson, 69, Swedish jazz pianist.
2009 - Dwight Crandell, 86, American vulcanologist, heart attack.
2009 - Steve Cannon, 81, American radio personality (WCCO), cancer.
Events
402 - Stilicho stymies the Visigoths under Alaric in the Battle of Pollentia.
1320 - The Scots reaffirm their independence by signing the Declaration of Arbroath.
1327 - The poet Petrarch first sees his idealized love, Laura, in the church of Saint Clare in Avignon.
1385 - John, Master of the Order of Aviz, is made king John I of Portugal.
1652 - Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck establishes a resupply camp at the Cape of Good Hope, which eventually becomes Cape Town.
1667 - An earthquake devastates Dubrovnik, then an independent city-state.
1782 - Rama I succeeds King Taksin of Siam (modern day Thailand), who is overthrown in a coup d'état.
1793 - During the French Revolution, the Committee of Public Safety becomes the executive organ of the republic, and the period known as the Reign of Terror begins.
1808 - John Jacob Astor incorporates the American Fur Company.
1814 - Napoleon abdicates and is then exiled to Elba.
1830 - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is organized by Joseph Smith, Jr. and others at Fayette, New York.
1860 - Joseph Smith III, creates the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints by reorganizing the previous church organized by his father, Joseph Smith, Jr.
1862 - American Civil War: The Battle of Shiloh begins
1865 - American Civil War: The Battle of Sayler's Creek
1866 - The Grand Army of the Republic, an American patriotic organization composed of Union veterans of the American Civil War, is founded. It lasts until 1956.
1893 - Salt Lake Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is dedicated by Wilford Woodruff.
1895 - Oscar Wilde is arrested (in the Cadogan Hotel, London) after losing a libel case against the John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry.
1903 - The Kishinev pogrom in Kishinev (Bessarabia) begins, forcing tens of thousands of Jews to later seek refuge in Israel and the Western world.
1909 - Robert Peary and Matthew Henson allegedly reach the North Pole.
1911 - Dedë Gjon Luli Dedvukaj, Leader of the Malësori Albanians, raises the Albanian flag in the town of Tuzi, Montenegro, for the first time after Gjergj Kastrioti (Skenderbeg).
1917 - World War I: The United States declares war on Germany (see President Woodrow Wilson's address to Congress).
1919 - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi orders a General Strike.
1923 - The first Prefects Board in Southeast Asia is formed in Victoria Institution, Malaysia.
1926 - Walter Varney Airlines makes its first commercial flight (Varney is the root company of United Airlines).
1930 - Gandhi raises a lump of mud and salt and declares, "With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire." Thus he starts the Salt Satyagraha.
1936 - Tupelo-Gainesville tornado outbreak: Another tornado from the same storm system as the Tupelo tornado hits Gainesville, Georgia, killing 203.
1941 - World War II: Operation Castigo begins. Germany invades the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and Greece.
1947 - The first Tony Awards are presented for theatrical achievements.
1957 - Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis buys the Hellenic National Airlines (TAE) and founds Olympic Airlines.
1965 - Launch of Early Bird, the first communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit.
1968 - In Richmond, Indiana's downtown district, a double explosion kills 41 and injures 150.
1970 - Newhall Incident: Four California Highway Patrol officers are killed.
1973 - The American League of Major League Baseball begin using the Designated Hitter
1984 - Members of Cameroon's Republican Guard unsuccessfully attempt to overthrow the government headed by Paul Biya.
1992 - A general strike is declared by communist groups in Nepal.
1994 - The Rwandan Genocide begins when the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira is shot down.
1998 - Pakistan tests medium-range missiles capable of hitting India.
2004 - Rolandas Paksas becomes the first president of Lithuania to be peacefully removed from the post by impeachment.
2005 - Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani becomes the Iraqi president; Shiite Arab Ibrahim al-Jaafari is named premier the next day.
2006 - NZSL (New Zealand sign language) is made an official language of New Zealand.
2009 - A 6.3 magnitude earthquake strikes near L'Aquila, Italy, killing at least 293 and injuring more than 1,500.
2012 - The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad unilaterally declares the independence of Azawad from Mali.
