1743 - Henry Pelham becomes British Prime Minister.
1778 - The United States Flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte rendered a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.
1779 - James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.
1797 - French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Cape St. Vincent
1803 - Chief Justice John Marshall declares that any act of U.S. Congress that conflicts with the Constitution is void.
1804 - Karadjordje leads the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire.
1831 - Ras Marye of Yejju marches into Tigray and defeats and kills Dejazmach Sabagadis in the Battle of Debre Abbay.
1835 - The original Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is formed in Kirtland, Ohio.
1849 - In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken.
1855 - Texas is linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas.
1944 - World War II: Anti-Japanese revolt on Java.
1945 - World War II: On the second day of the bombing of Dresden , the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony.
1945 - World War II: Prague is bombed probably due to a mistake in the orientation of the pilots bombing Dresden.
1945 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially starting the U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relationship.
1945 - World War II: Mostar is liberated by Yugoslav partisans.
1949 - The Knesset (Israeli parliament) convenes for the first time.
1949 - The Asbestos Strike begins in Canada. The strike marks the beginning of the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.
1956 - The XX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union begins in Moscow. On the last night of the meeting, Premier Nikita Khrushchev condemns Joseph Stalin's crimes in a secret speech.
1961 - Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized at the University of California.
1962 - First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy takes television viewers on a tour of the White House.
1979 - In Kabul, Muslims kidnap the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs who is later killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police.
1981 - Stardust Disaster: A fire in a Dublin nightclub kills 48 people
1983 - United American Bank of Knoxville, Tennessee collapses. Its president, Jake Butcher is later convicted of fraud.
1989 - Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal Disaster.
1989 - Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill the author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie.
1989 - The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System are placed into orbit.
1990 - 92 people are killed aboard Indian Airlines Flight 605 at Bangalore, India.
1994 - Andrei Chikatilo, a Russian serial killer is executed by shooting.
1996 - China launches a Long March 3 rocket, carrying the Intelsat 708 satellite. The rocket flies off course 3 seconds after liftoff and crashes into a rural village.
1998 - Authorities in the United States announce that Eric Robert Rudolph is a suspect in an Alabama abortion clinic bombing.
2000 - The spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker enters orbit around asteroid 433 Eros, the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.
2002 - The Tullaghmurray Lass sinks off the coast of Kilkeel, County Down, Northern Ireland killing three members of the same family on board.
2004 - In a suburb of Moscow, Russia, the roof of the Transvaal water park collapses, killing more than 25 people, and wounding more than 100 others.
2005 - Lebanon's former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, is assassinated, prompting the country to fall into chaos.
2005 - Seven people are killed and 151 wounded in a series of bombings by suspected Al-Qaeda-linked militants that hit the Philippines' Makati financial district in Metro Manila, Davao City, and General Santos City.
2008 - Northern Illinois University shooting: a gunman opened fire in a lecture hall of the DeKalb County, Illinois university resulting in 24 casualties; 6 fatalities (including gunman) and 18 injured.
