1779 - Spain declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the siege of Gibraltar begins.
1815 - Battle of Ligny and Battle of Quatre Bras, two days before Waterloo.
1836 - The formation of the London Working Men's Association gives rise to the Chartist Movement.
1846 - The Papal conclave of 1846 concludes. Pope Pius IX is elected pope, beginning the longest reign in the history of the papacy (not counting St. Peter).
1858 - Abraham Lincoln delivers his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois.
1858 - Battle of Morar takes place during the Indian Mutiny.
1871 - The University Tests Act allows students to enter the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham without religious tests, except for courses in theology.
1883 - The Victoria Hall theatre panic in Sunderland, England kills 183 children
1891 - John Abbott becomes Canada's third prime minister.
1897 - A treaty annexing the Republic of Hawaii to the United States is signed; the Republic would not be dissolved until a year later.
1903 - Roald Amundsen commences the first east-west navigation of the Northwest Passage by leaving Oslo, Norway.
1904 - Eugen Schauman assassinates Nikolai Bobrikov, Governor-General of Finland.
1904 - Irish author James Joyce begins a relationship with Nora Barnacle, and subsequently uses the date to set the actions for his novel Ulysses; traditionally "Bloomsday".
1911 - A 772 gram stony meteorite strikes the earth near Kilbourn, Columbia County, Wisconsin damaging a barn.
1915 - The foundation of the British Women's Institute.
1922 - General election in Irish Free State: large majority to pro-Treaty Sinn Féin.
1925 - The most famous Young Pioneer camp of the USSR, Artek, is established.
1930 - Sovnarkom establishes decree time in the USSR.
1940 - World War II: Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain becomes Premier of Vichy France.
1940 - A Communist government is installed in Lithuania.
1948 - The storming of the cockpit of the Miss Macao passenger seaplane, operated by a subsidiary of the Cathay Pacific Airways, marks the first skyjacking of a commercial plane.
1958 - Imre Nagy, Pál Maléter and other leaders of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising executed.
1961 - Rudolf Nureyev defects at Le Bourget airport in Paris.
1967 - The three-day Monterey International Pop Music Festival begins in Monterey, California.
1972 - Red Army Faction member Ulrike Meinhof is captured by police in Langenhagen.
1972 - The largest single-site hydro-electric power project in Canada starts at Churchill Falls, Labrador.
1976 - Soweto uprising: a non-violent march by 15,000 students in Soweto, South Africa turns into days of rioting when police open fire on the crowd and kill 566 children.
1977 - Oracle Corporation is incorporated in Redwood Shores, California, as Software Development Laboratories (SDL) by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates.
1989 - Imre Nagy, the former Hungarian Prime Minister, is reburied in Budapest.
1994 - A Chinese operated Tupolev TU-154 crashes 10 minutes after takeoff killing 160.
1997 - The Dairat Labguer massacre in Algeria; 50 people are killed.
2000 - Israel complies with UN Security Council Resolution 425 after 22 years of it issuance, which calls on Israel to completely withdraw from Lebanon. Israel withdraws from all of Lebanon, except the disputed Sheba Farms.
