1904 - Konservativ Ungdom (Young Conservatives) in Denmark is founded by Carl F. Herman von Rosen. Still existing today, it is the oldest political youth organization in Denmark and believed to be one of the oldest in the world.
1912 - First Balkan War: The Greek army captures Korçë that had been under Ottoman rule.
1914 - World War I: Battle of the Falkland Islands
1935 - The Japanese military police launches a violent suppression of the religious sect Oomoto, beginning with a crackdown on the sect's operational bases of Ayabe and Kameoka in Kyoto Prefecture and the arrest of its leader Onisaburo Deguchi.
1941 - World War II: The Japanese invade the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong, Malaya and the Dutch East Indies. They also invade the portions of Shanghai administered by European powers and bomb American bases in the Philippines. Because of the time difference, these events
1941 - World War II: First Japanese attack on Wake Island.
1941 - Holocaust: Gas vans are first used as a means of execution, at the Chelmno extermination camp near Łódź in Poland.
1942 - Holocaust: in Ternopil, Ukraine, the German SS organizes the deportation of the last 1,400 Ternopil Jews to the death camp in Belzec. The chief of the Gestapo, SS-Sturmbannführer Heinrich Müller, bore overall responsibility for the mass murder of the Jews of Ternopil and Berezhany county.
1949 - Chinese Civil War: The capital of the Republic of China is moved from Nanjing to Taipei, Taiwan.
1953 - Dwight D. Eisenhower gives the Atoms for Peace speech.
1963 - Pan Am Flight 214 crashes outside Elkton, Maryland with a loss of 81 people.
1966 - The Greek SS Heraklion sinks in a storm in the Aegean Sea, killing over 200.
1969 - An Olympic Airways Douglas DC-6 crashes in Keratea during a storm, killing 93 people.
1972 - United Airlines Flight 553 crashes near Chicago Midway Airport, killing 45 people.
1974 - A plebiscite results in the abolition of monarchy in Greece.
1980 - Mark David Chapman shoots and kills John Lennon in front of The Dakota apartment building.
1982 - Activist Norman Mayer threatens to blow up the Washington Monument, before being killed by United States Park Police.
1982 - In Suriname several opponents of the military government are killed.
1987 - The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is signed.
1987 - The Queen Street Massacre: Frank Vitkovic shoots and kills 8 people at the offices of Australia Post in Melbourne, Australia before being killed himself.
1991 - The leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine sign an agreement dissolving the Soviet Union and establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States.
1991 - The Romanian Constitution is adopted in a referendum.
1993 - The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is signed into law by US President Bill Clinton.
1998 - Tadjena massacre: 81 people are killed by armed groups in Algeria.
2002 - The Caribbean Community Heads of Government meet with the Government of Cuba and declare the date to be "CARICOM-Cuba Day"
2004 - The Cuzco Declaration is signed in Cuzco, Peru, establishing the South American Community of Nations.
2005 - Ante Gotovina, Croatian army general accused of war crimes, is captured in the Playa de las Américas, Tenerife by the Spanish police.
