1692 - Port Royal, Jamaica, is hit by a catastrophic earthquake; in just three minutes, 1,600 people are killed and 3,000 are seriously injured.
1776 - Richard Henry Lee presents the "Lee Resolution" to the Continental Congress. The motion is seconded by John Adams and leads to the United States Declaration of Independence.
1800 - David Thompson reaches the mouth of the Saskatchewan River in Manitoba.
1832 - Asian cholera reaches Quebec, brought by Irish immigrants, and kills about 6,000 people in Lower Canada.
1862 - The United States and Britain agree to suppress the slave trade.
1863 - During the French intervention in Mexico, Mexico City is captured by French troops.
1866 - 1,800 Fenian raiders are repelled back to the United States after they loot and plunder around Saint-Armand and Frelighsburg, Quebec.
1880 - War of the Pacific: The Battle of Arica, assault and capture of Morro de Arica (Arica Cape), that ended the Campaña del Desierto (Desert Campaign).
1892 - Benjamin Harrison becomes the first President of the United States to attend a baseball game.
1945 - Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes was premiered in London
1948 - Edvard Beneš resigns as President of Czechoslovakia rather than signing a Constitution making his nation a Communist state.
1955 - Lux Radio Theater signs off the air permanently. The show launched in New York in 1934, and featured radio adaptations of Broadway shows and popular films.
1965 - The Supreme Court of the United States decides on Griswold v. Connecticut, effectively legalizing the use of contraception by married couples.
1967 - The Israeli forces enter Jerusalem during the Six-Day War.
1968 - The body of assassinated U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy lies in state at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York.
1971 - The United States Supreme Court overturns the conviction of Paul Cohen for disturbing the peace, setting the precedent that vulgar writing is protected under the First Amendment.
1975 - Sony introduces the Betamax videocassette recorder for sale to the public.
1977 - 500 million people watch on television as the high day of Jubilee gets underway for Queen Elizabeth II.
1981 - The Israeli Air Force destroys Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor during Operation Opera. The facility could have been used to make nuclear weapons.
1982 - Priscilla Presley opens Graceland to the public; the bathroom where Elvis Presley died five years earlier is kept off-limits.
1987 - Washington Dulles International Airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport are transferred to The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.
1989 - A Surinam Airways DC-8 Super 62 crashes near Paramaribo Airport, Suriname, killing 168.
1991 - Mount Pinatubo explodes generating an ash column 7 km (4.5 miles) high.
1995 - The long range Boeing 777 enters service with United Airlines.
1998 - James Byrd, Jr. is dragged to death by Shawn Allen Berry, Lawrence Russel Brewer, and John William King in Jasper, Texas in a racially-motivated hate crime.
2001 - Tony Blair's Labour Party wins another landslide victory in the General Election.
2006 - British Houses of Parliament temporarily shut down due to anthrax alert.
