1686 - Charles Francois Felix operates on King Louis XIV of France's anal fistula after practicing the surgery on several peasants.
1803 - The Battle of Vertières, the last major battle of the Haitian Revolution, is fought, leading to the establishment of the Republic of Haiti, the first black republic in the Western Hemisphere.
1852 - Rose Philippine Duchesne dies in St. Charles, Missouri. She would be canonized on July 3, 1988 by Pope John Paul II.
1865 - Mark Twain's story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is published in the New York Saturday Press.
1883 - American and Canadian railroads institute five standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times.
1903 - The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed by the United States and Panama, giving the Americans exclusive rights over the Panama Canal Zone.
1904 - General Esteban Huertas steps down after the government of Panama fears he wants to stage a coup.
1909 - Two United States warships are sent to Nicaragua after 500 revolutionaries (including two Americans) are executed by order of José Santos Zelaya.
1916 - World War I: First Battle of the Somme ends
1917 - Sigma Alpha Rho, a Jewish high school fraternity, is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1918 - Latvia declares its independence from Russia.
1926 - George Bernard Shaw refuses to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, "I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."
1928 - Release of the animated short Steamboat Willie, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, featuring the second appearances of cartoon stars Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse. This is also considered by the Disney corporation to be Mickey's birthday.
1929 - 1929 Grand Banks earthquake: Off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean, a Richter magnitude 7.2 submarine earthquake, centered on Grand Banks, breaks 12 submarine transatlantic telegraph cables and triggers a tsunami that destroys many south coast communities in the Burin Peninsula area.
1930 - Sōka Kyōiku Gakkai, a Buddhist association later renamed Soka Gakkai, is founded by Japanese educators Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda.
1938 - Trade union members elect John L. Lewis as the first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
1940 - World War II: German leader Adolf Hitler and Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano meet to discuss Benito Mussolini's disastrous invasion of Greece.
1940 - New York City's Mad Bomber places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison.
1942 - Holocaust: German SS carry out selection of Jewish ghetto in Lviv, western Ukraine, arresting 5.000 "unproductive Jews". All get deported to the Belzec death camp.
1943 - World War II: Battle of Berlin (air), 440 Royal Air Force planes bomb Berlin causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF lost nine aircraft and 53 air crew.
1943 - Holocaust: Aktion Emtefest: Nazis liquidate Janowska concentration camp in Lviv, western Ukraine, murdering at least 6.000 surviving Jews.German SS leader Fritz Katzman declares Lviv (Lemberg) to be Judenfrei (free from the Jews).
1947 - Ballantyne's Department Store fire, Christchurch, New Zealand, kills 41 (New Zealand's worst ever fire)
1970 - U.S. President Richard Nixon asks the Congress of the United States for $155 million USD in supplemental aid for the Cambodian government.
1978 - Jonestown incident: In Guyana, Jim Jones leads his Peoples Temple cult in a mass murder-suicide that claims 918 lives in all, 909 of them at Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo J. Ryan is assassinated by members of Peoples Temple shortly beforehand.
1982 - Duk Koo Kim dies unexpectedly from injuries sustained during a 14-round match against Ray Mancini in Las Vegas, Nevada, prompting reforms in the sport of boxing.
1985 - The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, created by Bill Waterson, first appears in 30 newspapers across the U.S.
1985 - Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann's playing career comes to an end when a sack by the Giants' Lawrence Taylor snaps Theismann's legs, this was seen by a national audience on Monday Night Football.
1987 - Iran-Contra Affair: The U.S. Congress issues its final report on the Iran-Contras Affair.
1987 - King's Cross fire: In London, 31 people die in a fire at the city's busiest underground station at King's Cross St Pancras.
1988 - War on Drugs: U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill into law allowing the death penalty for murder in regards to drug traffickers.
1991 - Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon set Anglican Church envoys Terry Waite and Thomas Sutherland free.
1991 - After the siege of Vukovar, the Croatian city of Vukovar capitulates to besieging Yugoslav People's Army and allied Serb paramilitary forces.
1993 - In South Africa, 21 political parties approve a new constitution.
1999 - In College Station, Texas, 12 are killed and 27 injured at Texas A&M University when a massive bonfire under construction collapses.
2002 - Iraq disarmament crisis: United Nations weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix arrive in Iraq.
2003 - In the United Kingdom, the Local Government Act 2003, repealing controversial anti-gay amendment Section 28, becomes effective.
2003 - The congress of the Communist Party of Indian Union (Marxist-Leninist) decides to merge the party into Kanu Sanyal's CPI(ML).
2004 - Russia officially ratifies the Kyoto Protocol.
