2010 - José Saramago, Portuguese writer, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1922)
2011 - Clarence Clemons, American musician and actor (b. 1942)
Events
1178 - Five Canterbury monks see what was possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed. It is believed that the current oscillations of the moon's distance (on the order of metres) are a result of this collision.
1264 - The Parliament of Ireland meets at Castledermot in County Kildare, the first definitively known meeting of this Irish legislature.
1429 - French forces under the leadership of Joan of Arc defeat the main English army under Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of Patay. This turns the tide of the Hundred Years' War.
1767 - Samuel Wallis, an English sea captain, sights Tahiti and is considered the first European to reach the island.
1778 - American Revolutionary War: British troops abandon Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1812 - War of 1812: The U.S. Congress declares war on the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1815 - Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Waterloo leads to Napoleon Bonaparte abdicating the throne of France for the second and final time.
1858 - Charles Darwin receives a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that includes nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin's own. This prompts Darwin to publish his theory.
1873 - Susan B. Anthony is fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election.
1887 - The Reinsurance Treaty between Germany and Russia is signed.
1900 - Empress Dowager Longyu of China orders all foreigners killed, including foreign diplomats and their families.
1908 - Japanese immigration to Brazil begins when 781 people arrive in Santos aboard the Kasato-Maru ship
1923 - Checker Taxi puts its first taxi on the streets.
1928 - Aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean (she was a passenger; Wilmer Stutz was the pilot and Lou Gordon the mechanic).
1930 - Groundbreaking ceremonies for the Franklin Institute held.
1945 - William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) is charged with treason.
1946 - Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, a Socialist calls for a Direct Action Day against the Portuguese in Goa. A road is named after this date in Panjim.
1953 - The Republic of Egypt is declared and the monarchy is abolished.
1953 - A United States Air Force C-124 crashes and burns near Tokyo, Japan killing 129.
1954 - Pierre Mendès-France becomes Prime Minister of France.
1959 - Governor of Louisiana Earl K. Long is committed to a state mental hospital; he responds by having the hospital's director fired and replaced with a crony who proceeds to proclaim him perfectly sane.
1965 - Vietnam War: The United States uses B-52 bombers to attack National Liberation Front guerrilla fighters in South Vietnam.
1979 - SALT II is signed by the United States and the Soviet Union.
1981 - The AIDS epidemic is formally recognized by medical professionals in San Francisco, California.
1983 - Space Shuttle program: STS-7, Astronaut Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.
1984 - A major clash between about 5,000 police and a similar number of miners takes place at Orgreave, South Yorkshire, during the 1984-1985 UK miners' strike
1996 - Ted Kaczynski, suspected of being the Unabomber, is indicted on ten criminal counts.
2001 - Protests occur in Manipur over the extension of the ceasefire between Naga insurgents and the government of India.
2006 - The first Kazakh space satellite, KazSat is launched.
2009 - NASA launches the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter/LCROSS probes to the Moon, the first American lunar mission since Lunar Prospector in 1998.
