2006 - Hilton Ruiz, Puerto Rican-American jazz pianist (b. 1952)
2009 - Jean Dausset, 92, French immunologist, Nobel Prize in Medicine (1980).
Events
1508 - Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, is defeated in Friulia by Venetian forces; he is forced to sign a three-year truce and cede several territories to Venice.
1513 - Italian Wars: Battle of Novara. Swiss troops defeat the French under Louis de la Tremoille, forcing the French to abandon Milan. Duke Massimiliano Sforza is restored.
1523 - Gustav Vasa is elected King of Sweden, marking the end of the Kalmar Union.
1654 - Charles X succeeds his abdicated cousin Queen Christina to the Swedish throne.
1683 - The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, opens as the world's first university museum.
1752 - A devastating fire destroys one-third of Moscow, including 18,000 homes.
1808 - Napoleon's brother, Joseph Bonaparte is crowned King of Spain.
1809 - Sweden promulgates a new Constitution, which restores political power to the Riksdag of the Estates after 20 years of Enlightened absolutism.
1882 - More than 100,000 inhabitants of Bombay are killed as a cyclone in the Arabian Sea pushes huge waves into the harbour.
1882 - The Shewan forces of Menelik defeat the Gojjame army in the Battle of Embabo. The Shewans capture Negus Tekle Haymanot of Gojjam, and heir victory leads to a Shewan hegemony over the territories south of the Abay River.
1889 - The Great Seattle Fire destroys the entirety of downtown Seattle, Washington.
1894 - Governor Davis H. Waite orders the Colorado state militia to protect and support the miners engaged in the Cripple Creek miners' strike.
1906 - Paris Métro Line 5 is inaugurated with a first section from Place d'Italie to the Gare d'Orléans (today known as Gare d'Austerlitz).
1912 - The eruption of Novarupta in Alaska begins. It is the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.
1921 - The Southwark Bridge in London, is opened for traffic by King George V and Queen Mary.
1925 - The Chrysler Corporation is founded by Walter Percy Chrysler.
1932 - The Revenue Act of 1932 is enacted, creating the first gas tax in the United States, at a rate of 1 cent per US gallon (1/4 ¢/L) sold.
1933 - The first drive-in theater opens, in Camden, New Jersey, United States.
1934 - New Deal: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Securities Act of 1933 into law, establishing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Judge Joseph Crater is declared dead in absentia.
1939 - German dictator Adolf Hitler gives a public address to returning German volunteers who fought as Legion Kondor during the Spanish Civil War.
1944 - World War II: Battle of Normandy begins. D-Day, code named Operation Overlord, commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The allied soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history.
1971 - A midair collision between a Hughes Airwest Douglas DC-9 jetliner and a United States Marine Corps McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II jet fighter near Duarte, California claims 50 lives.
1974 - A new Instrument of Government is promulgated making Sweden a parliamentary monarchy.
1977 - Apple Computer's first mass produced microcomputer product, the Apple II goes on sale.
1981 - A passenger train travelling between Mansi and Saharsa, India, jumps the tracks at a bridge crossing the Bagmati river. The government places the official death toll at 268 plus another 300 missing; however, it is generally believed that the actual figure is closer to 1,000 killed.
1982 - 1982 Lebanon War begins: Forces under Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon invade southern Lebanon in their "Operation Peace for the Galilee," eventually reaching as far north as the capital Beirut.
1984 - The Indian Army attacks the Golden Temple in Amritsar following an order from Indira Gandhi. Official casualties are 576 combatants killed and 335 wounded; independent observers estimate that thousands of unarmed Sikh civilians are also killed in the crossfire. A total death count adds up to almost 6,000.
1985 - The grave of "Wolfgang Gerhard" is exhumed in Embu, Brazil; the remains found are later proven to be those of Josef Mengele, Auschwitz's "Angel of Death". Mengele is thought to have drowned while swimming in February, 1979.
1990 - U.S. District court judge Jose Gonzales rules that the rap album As Nasty As They Wanna Be by 2 Live Crew violates Florida's obscenity law; he declares that the predominant subject matter of the record is "directed to the 'dirty' thoughts and the loins, not to the intellect and the mind."
1993 - Mongolia holds its first direct presidential elections.
1999 - In Australian Rules Football, Tony Lockett breaks the record for career goals, previously 1299 by Gordon Coventry and which had stood since 1937.
1999 - At the Putim maximum security prison in Brazil, 345 prisoners run from the main gate in the largest jailbreak in Brazilian history, marking the 10th escape for the three-year-old facility. In the ensuing manhunt, two fugitives are killed and five innocent bystanders are accidentally jailed.
2002 - Eastern Mediterranean Event. A near-Earth asteroid estimated at 10 metres diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya. The resulting explosion is estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb.
2004 - Tamil is established as a Classical language by the President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in a joint sitting of the two houses of the Indian Parliament.
2005 - The United States Supreme Court upholds a federal law banning marijuana, including medical marijuana, in Gonzales v. Raich.
