1500 - The fleet of Pedro Alvares Cabral leaves Lisbon for the Indies. The fleet will discover the sea route to Brazil, already Portuguese since the treaty of Tordesillas in 1494.
1566 - David Rizzio, the private secretary to Mary I of Scotland, is murdered in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland.
1765 - After a public campaign by the writer Voltaire, judges in Paris posthumously exonerate Jean Calas of murdering his son. Calas had been tortured and executed in 1762 on the charge, though his son had actually committed suicide.
1776 - Publication of the economics book The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith.
1796 - Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais.
1841 - The Supreme Court of the United States rules in the Amistad case, concerning captive Africans who seized control of the slave-trading ship carrying them: the court rules that they had been taken into slavery illegally.
1842 - Giuseppe Verdi's third opera Nabucco premieres in Milan; its success establishes Verdi as one of Italy's foremost opera writers.
1847 - Mexican-American War: United States forces under General Winfield Scott invade Mexico near Vera Cruz.
1856 - Sigma Alpha Epsilon is founded in the Johnston Mansion House on the University of Alabama
1862 - American Civil War: The first battle between two ironclad warships, a five-hour battle near Hampton Roads, Virginia between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia, results in a draw.
1896 - Prime Minister Francesco Crispi resigns following the Italian defeat at the Battle of Adowa.
1925 - Pink's War, the first RAF operation conducted independently of the Army or Navy, begins.
1932 - The Egyptian University rector "Ahmed Lotfy El-Said" resigns in protest of the transfer of Dr.Taha Hussein without the University's permission. In 2003, an academic group called "March 9" is established in Egypt to defend academic rights and university independence.
1932 - The first Ford Flathead engine leaves the assembly line at Ford Motor Company.
1933 - Great Depression: The United States Congress begins its first 100 days of enacting New Deal legislation. President Franklin D. Roosevelt submits the Emergency Banking Act to the Congress.
1935 - Adolf Hitler announces the creation of a new air force.
1967 - Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defects to the United States.
1975 - Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.
1976 - Forty-two people die in a Cavalese cable-car disaster, the worst cable-car accident to date.
1977 - The 1977 Hanafi Muslim Siege: Approximately a dozen armed Hanafi Muslims take over three buildings in Washington, D.C., killing two people and taking more than 130 hostages. The hostage situation ends two days later.
1984 - The Competitive Enterprise Institute in founded in Washington, D.C.
1986 - United States Navy divers find the largely intact but heavily-damaged crew compartment of the Space Shuttle Challenger. The bodies of all seven astronauts were still inside.
1989 - A strike forces financially-troubled Eastern Air Lines into bankruptcy.
1990 - Dr. Antonia Novello is sworn in as Surgeon General of the United States, becoming the first female and Hispanic American to serve in that position.
1990 - Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, Clyde Wells confirms he will rescind Newfoundland and Labrador's approval of the Meech Lake Accord to amend Canada's constitution, effectively killing the Accord.
1991 - Massive demonstrations are held against Slobodan Milošević in Belgrade. Two people are killed and tanks are in the streets.
1993 - Rodney King testifies at the federal trial of four Los Angeles, California police officers accused of violating King's civil rights when they beat him during an arrest.
2006 - Liquid water is discovered on Enceladus, the sixth largest moon of Saturn.
2007 - The US Justice Department releases an internal audit that found that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had acted illegally in its use of the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about US citizens.
