• 331 BC - Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela.
• 911 - During a siege in Constantinople, the Theotokos appeared at the church in Blachernae holding her veil over the praying faithful, among them St. Andrew of Constantinople.
• 959 - Edgar the Peaceable becomes king of all England.
• 1189 - Gerard de Ridefort, grandmaster of the Knights Templar since 1184, is killed in the Siege of Acre.
• 1787 - Russians under Suvorov defeat the Turks at Kinburn.
• 1791 - First session of the French Legislative Assembly.
• 1795 - Belgium is conquered by France.
• 1800 - Spain cedes Louisiana to France via the Treaty of San Ildefonso.
• 1811 - The first steamboat to sail the Mississippi River arrives in New Orléans, Louisiana.
• 1814 - Opening of the Congress of Vienna, intended to redraw the Europe's political map after the defeat of Napoléon the previous spring.
• 1827 - The Russian army under Ivan Paskevich storms Yerevan, ending a millennium of Muslim domination in Armenia.
• 1829 - South African College is founded in Cape Town, South Africa; later to separate into the University of Cape Town and the South African College Schools.
• 1843 - News of the World began publication in London.
• 1847 - German inventor and industrialist Werner von Siemens founds Siemens AG & Halske.
• 1854 - The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury by Aaron Lufkin Dennison relocates to Waltham, Massachusetts, to become the Waltham Watch Company, a pioneer in the American System of Watch Manufacturing.
• 1869 - Austria issues the world's first postcards.
• 1880 - John Philip Sousa becomes leader of the United States Marine Corps Band.
• 1880 - First electric lamp factory opened by Thomas Edison.
• 1887 - Balochistan conquered by the British Empire.
• 1890 - The Yosemite National Park and the Yellowstone National Park are established by the U.S. Congress.
• 1891 - In the U.S. state of California, Stanford University opens its doors.
• 1894 - First meeting of The Owl Club of Cape Town.
• 1898 - Czar Nikolay II expels Jews from major Russian cities.
• 1898 - The Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration is founded under the name k.u.k. Exportakademie.
• 1903 - Baseball: The Boston Americans play the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the modern World Series.
• 1905 - František Pavlík is killed in a demonstration in Prague, inspiring Leoš Janáček to the piano composition 1. X. 1905.
• 1908 - Ford puts the Model T car on the market at a price of US$825.
• 1910 - Los Angeles Times bombing: A large bomb destroys the Los Angeles Times building in downtown Los Angeles, California, killing 21.
• 1918 - World War I: Arab forces under T. E. Lawrence (a/k/a "Lawrence of Arabia") capture Damascus.
• 1920 - Sir Percy Cox landed in Basra to assume his responsibilities as high commissioner in Iraq.
• 1926 - An oil field accident cost aviator Wiley Post his left eye, but he used the settlement money to buy his first aircraft.
• 1928 - The Soviet Union introduces its First Five-Year Plan.
• 1931 - The George Washington Bridge linking New Jersey and New York opens.
• 1931 - The second (and current) Waldorf-Astoria Hotel is opened in New York.
• 1936 - Francisco Franco is named head of the Nationalist government of Spain.
• 1938 - Germany annexes the Sudetenland.
• 1939 - After a one-month Siege of Warsaw, hostile forces entered the city.
• 1940 - The Pennsylvania Turnpike, often considered the first superhighway in the United States, opens to traffic.
• 1942 - USS Grouper torpedoes Lisbon Maru not knowing she was carrying British PoWs from Hong Kong
• 1942 - First flight of the Bell XP-59 "Aircomet".
• 1943 - World War II: Naples falls to Allied soldiers.
• 1946 - Nazi leaders sentenced at Nuremberg Trials.
• 1946 - Mensa International is founded in the United Kingdom.
• 1947 - The F-86 Sabre flies for the first time.
• 1949 - The People's Republic of China is declared by Mao Zedong.
• 1957 - First appearance of "In God We Trust" on U.S. paper currency.
• 1958 - NASA created to replace NACA.
• 1960 - Nigeria gains independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1961 - East and West Cameroon merge as Federal Republic of Cameroon.
• 1961 - Baseball: Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees engage in an epic battle to break Babe Ruth's single season home run record of 60 in 1927. Maris ends up hitting his 61st against the Boston Red Sox, passing Ruth
• 1964 - The Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of University of California, Berkeley.
• 1964 - Japanese Shinkansen ("bullet trains") begin high-speed rail service from Tokyo to Osaka.
• 1965 - Apostasia of 1965, a political move in Greece designed to overthrow the Prime Minister, George Papandreou.
• 1965 - General Suharto crushes an attempted coup in Indonesia.
• 1966 - West Coast Airlines Flight 956 crashes with eighteen fatal injuries and no survivors 5.5 miles south of Wemme, Oregon. This accident marks the first loss of a DC-9.
• 1968 - The Guyanese government takes over the British Guiana Broadcasting Service (BGBS).
• 1969 - The Concorde supersonic transport plane breaks the sound barrier for the first time.
• 1971 - Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida, United States.
• 1975 - The Seychelles gain internal self-government. The Ellice Islands split from Gilbert Islands and take the name Tuvalu.
• 1975 - Thrilla in Manila: Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in a boxing match in Manila, Philippines.
• 1978 - Tuvalu gains independence from the United Kingdom.
• 1978 - The Voltaic Revolutionary Communist Party is founded.
• 1979 - The United States returns sovereignty of the Panama canal to Panama.
• 1982 - Helmut Kohl replaces Helmut Schmidt as Chancellor of Germany through a Constructive Vote of No Confidence.
• 1982 - EPCOT Center opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, United States.
• 1982 - Sony launches the first consumer compact disc player (model CDP-101).
• 1985 - The Israeli air force bombs PLO Headquarters in Tunis.
• 1987 - The Whittier Narrows earthquake shook the San Gabriel Valley, registering as a magnitude 5.9.
• 1989 - Denmark: World's first legal modern same-sex civil union called "registered partnership"
• 1991 - New Zealand's Resource Management Act 1991 commences.
• 1994 - Palau gains independence from the United Nations trusteeship administered by the United States of America.
• 1998 - Vladimir Putin became a permanent member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.
• 2004 - Baseball: Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki gets his 258th hit of the season, breaking George Sisler's 84-year-old single-season record.
• 2005 - Bombing kills 23 people in Bali.
• 2006 - Age discrimination in employment is made illegal in the United Kingdom.
• 2007 - Most of the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 came into force in the United Kingdom.

Births