• 911 - Signing of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte between Charles the Simple and Rollo of Normandy.
• 1156 - Siege of Shirakawa-den in Japan.
• 1302 - Battle of the Golden Spurs (Guldensporenslag in Dutch) - a coalition around the Flemish cities defeats the king of France's huge knightly army.
• 1346 - Charles IV of Luxembourg elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
• 1405 - Chinese fleet commander Zheng He set sail to explore the world for the first time.
• 1476 - Giuliano della Rovere is appointed bishop of Coutances.
• 1576 - Martin Frobisher sights Greenland.
• 1616 - Samuel de Champlain returns to Quebec.
• 1735 - Mathematical calculations suggest it was on this day that Pluto moved from the ninth to the eighth most distant planet from the Sun for the last time before 1979.
• 1740 - Pogrom: Jews are expelled from Little Russia.
• 1750 - Halifax, Nova Scotia almost completely destroyed by fire.
• 1776 - Captain James Cook begins third voyage.
• 1789 - Jacques Necker dismissed as Finance Minister for France sparking the Storming of the Bastille.
• 1796 - The U.S. takes possession of Detroit from Great Britain under terms of the Jay Treaty.
• 1798 - The United States Marine Corps is re-established; they'd been disbanded after the American Revolutionary War.
• 1804 - Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr mortally wounds former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
• 1811 - Italian scientist Amedeo Avogadro publishes his memoir about molecular content of gases.
• 1848 - The Waterloo railway station in London opens.
• 1859 - A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is published.
• 1864 - Confederate forces attempt an invasion of Washington, D.C.
• 1882 - The British Mediterranean fleet begins the Bombardment of Alexandria in Egypt as part of the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War.
• 1889 - Tijuana, Mexico was founded
• 1893 - The first cultured pearl is obtained by Kokichi Mikimoto.
• 1895 - The brothers Lumière show film for scientists.
• 1897 - Salomon August Andrée leaves Spitsbergen to try to reach the North pole by balloon. He later crashes and dies.
• 1906 - Gillette-Brown murder inspires Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy
• 1914 - Babe Ruth debuts in Major league baseball.
• 1919 - Eight-hour working day and free Sunday made into law in the Netherlands.
• 1921 - Truce called in the Irish War of Independence; see Irish calendar.
• 1921 - Former US President William Howard Taft sworn in as 10th Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, becoming the only person to ever be both President and Chief Justice.
• 1921 - Outer Mongolia becomes independent (from the Republic of China).
• 1922 - Hollywood Bowl opens.
• 1936 - Triborough Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic.
• 1940 - World War II: Vichy France regime formally established. Henri Philippe Pétain becomes Prime Minister of France.
• 1943 - Massacres of Poles in Volhynia
• 1943 - World War II: Allied invasion of Sicily - German and Italian troops launch a counter-attack on Allied forces in Sicily.
• 1944 - Franklin D. Roosevelt says he'll run for a fourth term as President of the United States.
• 1950 - Pakistan joins the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank.
• 1955 - The phrase In God We Trust is added to all US currency.
• 1957 - Prince Karim Husseini Aga Khan IV inherits the office of Imamat as the 49th Imam of Shia Imami Ismaili worldwide, after the death of Sir Sultan Mahommed Shah Aga Khan III
• 1960 - Independence of Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger.
• 1960 - To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is first published.
• 1962 - First transatlantic satellite television transmission.
• 1971 - Copper mines in Chile nationalized.
• 1973 - A Brazilian Boeing 707 crashes near Paris on approach to Orly Airport, killing 123 people of the 134 on-board.
• 1977 - Martin Luther King is posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom.
• 1978 - Los Alfaques Disaster: a truck carrying liquid gas crashes and explodes at a coastal campsite in Tarragona, Spain killing 216 tourists.
• 1979 - The space station Skylab returns to Earth.
• 1983 - A Boeing 727 crashes into hilly terrain after a tail strike in Cuenca, Ecuador, claiming 119 lives.
• 1987 - According to the United Nations, the world population crossed the 5,000,000,000 (5 billion) mark.
• 1990 - Oka Crisis, First Nations land dispute in Quebec, Canada begins.
• 1991 - A Nationair DC-8 crashed during an emergency landing at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing 261. The Canadian charter was ferrying Hajj pilgrims on behalf of Nigeria Airways.
• 1991 - Total solar eclipse in Hawaii and Mexico.
• 1995 - Full diplomatic relations are established between the United States and Vietnam.
• 1995 - Srebrenica Genocide: Serb army from Yugoslavia and Bosnia, capture the Bosniak town of Srebrenica. More than eight thousands inhabitants are murdered. It is generally regarded to be the most horrific event in recent European history.
• 1995 - A Cubana de Aviacion Antonov An-24 crashes into the Caribbean off southeast Cuba killing 44 people.
• 2003 - Lahore-Delhi bus service resumed after suspension of 18 months.
• 2004 - CIA Director George Tenet leaves his position at the agency.
• 2006 - 209 people are killed in a series of bomb attacks in Mumbai, India.

Births