1889 - Montana is admitted as the 41st U.S. state.
1892 - The New Orleans general strike begins, uniting black and white American trade unionists in a successful four-day general strike action for the first time.
1895 - While experimenting with electricity, Wilhelm Röntgen discovers the X-ray.
1901 - Bloody clashes take place in Athens following the translation of the Gospels into demotic Greek.
1917 - The People's Commissars give authority to Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin.
1923 - Beer Hall Putsch: In Munich, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government.
1935 - A dozen labor leaders come together to announce the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), an organization charged with advancing industrial unionism.
1937 - The Nazi exhibition Der ewige Jude ("The Eternal Jew") opens in Munich.
1939 - Venlo Incident: Two British agents of SIS are captured by the Germans.
1939 - In Munich, Adolf Hitler narrowly escapes the assassination attempt of Georg Elser while celebrating the 16th anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch.
1942 - World War II: French resistance coup in Algiers, in which 400 civilian French patriots neutralize Vichyist XIXth Army Corps after 15 hours of fighting, and arrest several Vichyst generals, allowing the immediate success of Operation Torch in Algiers.
1950 - Korean War: United States Air Force Lt. Russell J. Brown shoots down two North Korean MiG-15s in the first jet aircraft-to-jet aircraft dogfight in history.
1957 - Operation Grapple X, Round C1: Britain conducts its first successful hydrogen bomb test over Kiritimati in the Pacific.
1965 - The British Indian Ocean Territory is created, consisting of Chagos Archipelago, Aldabra, Farquhar and Des Roches islands.
1965 - The Murder (Abolition of the Death Penalty) Act 1965 is given Royal Assent, formally abolishing the death penalty in the United Kingdom.
1965 - The 173rd Airborne is ambushed by over 1,200 Viet Cong in Operation Hump during the Vietnam War.
1966 - Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke becomes the first African American elected to the United States Senate.
1966 - U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law an antitrust exemption allowing the National Football League to merge with the upstart American Football League.
1973 - The right ear of John Paul Getty III is delivered to a newspaper together with a ransom note, convincing his father to pay 2.9 million USD.
1976 - A series of earthquakes spreads panic in the city of Thessaloniki, which is evacuated.
1977 - Manolis Andronikos, a Greek archaeologist and professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, discovers the tomb of Philip II of Macedon at Vergina.
1979 - The Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action) is formed.
1987 - Remembrance Day Bombing: In Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, an Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb explodes, at a ceremony honoring Britain's war dead, killing twelve people.
1989 - Hong Kong's MTR Lam Tin Station comes into service.
2002 - Iraq disarmament crisis: UN Security Council Resolution 1441
2004 - War in Iraq: More than 10,000 U.S. troops and a small number of Iraqi army units participate in a siege on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.
