1079 - Omar Khayyám completes the Iranian calendar.
1454 - Thirteen Years' War: Delegates of the Prussian Confederation pledge allegiance to Casimir IV of Poland, and the Polish king agrees to help in their struggle for independence from the Teutonic Knights.
1788 - The First Fleet arrives at Norfolk Island in order to found a convict settlement.
1820 - The Missouri Compromise is signed into law by President James Monroe. The compromise allows Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, but makes the rest of the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase territory slavery-free.
1834 - York, Upper Canada is incorporated as Toronto.
1940 - Winter War: An armistice is signed by Finland and the Soviet Union.
1945 - A communist-dominated government under Petru Groza assumes power in Romania.
1946 - Vietnam War: Ho Chi Minh signs an agreement with France which recognizes Vietnam as an autonomous state in the Indochinese Federation and the French Union.
1951 - The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg begins.
1953 - Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov succeeds Joseph Stalin as Premier and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1957 - United Kingdom colonies Gold Coast and British Togoland become the independent Republic of Ghana.
1957 - Israel withdraws its troops from the Sinai Peninsula.
1964 - Nation of Islam's Elijah Muhammad officially gives boxing championCassius Clay the name Muhammad Ali meaning "Beloved of Allah".
1975 - Algiers Accord: Iran and Iraq announce a settlement of their border dispute.
1981 - After 19 years presenting the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite signs off for the last time.
1984 - Twelve-month-long strike in British coal industry begins.
1987 - The British ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes in about 90 seconds killing 193.
1988 - Three unarmed members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army are killed by the SAS on the territory of Gibraltar in the conclusion of Operation Flavius.
1992 - The Michelangelo computer virus begins to affect computers.
1992 - Founding of the Council of the Baltic Sea States.
1994 - Referendum in Moldova results in the electorate voting against possible reunification with Romania.
1997 - Picasso's painting Tête de Femme is stolen from a London gallery, and is recovered a week later.
2006 - South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds signs a bill into legislation that would ban most abortions in the state.
2007 - Former White House aide I. Lewis Libby, Jr. is found guilty on four of five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice trial.
