362 A mysterious fire destroyed the temple of Apollo at Daphne outside Antioch.
1383 The 1383-1385 Crisis in Portugal: King Fernando diedwithout a male heir to the Portuguese throne, sparking a period of civil war and disorder.
1633 Battle of southern Fujian sea: The Ming dynasty defeated the Dutch East India Company.
1707 – Scilly naval disaster: four British Royal Navy ships ran aground near the Isles of Scilly because of faulty navigation. Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and thousands of sailors drowned.
1730 Construction of the Ladoga Canal completed.
1734 Daniel Boone, American pioneer and hunter, was born (d. 1820).
1746 The College of New Jersey (later renamed Princeton University) received its charter.
1784 Russia founded a colony on Kodiak Island, Alaska.
1790 Warriors of the Miami tribe under Chief Little Turtle defeated United States troops under General Josiah Harmar in the Northwest Indian War.
1797 André-Jacques Garnerin made the first recorded parachute jump 1,000 metres (3,200 feet) above Paris,.
1811 Franz Liszt, Hungarian pianist and composer, was born (d. 1886).
1836 Sam Houston was inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas.
1844 The Great Anticipation: Millerites, followers of William Miller, anticipate the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ.
1875 First telegraphic connection in Argentina.
1877 The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland killed 207 miners.
1878 The first rugby match under floodlights took place in Salford, between Broughton and Swinton.
1883 The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City opened with a performance of Gounod’s Faust.
1895 In Paris an express train overran a buffer stop and crossed more than 30 metres of concourse before plummeting through a window at Gare Montparnasse.
1907 Panic of 1907: A run on the stock of the Knickerbocker Trust Company set events in motion that led to a depression.
1910 Dr. Crippen was convicted of poisoning his wife.
1919 Doris Lessing, British writer, Nobel Prize laureate, was born.
1924 Toastmasters International was founded.
1934 Federal Bureau of Investigation agents shot and killed notorious bank robber Pretty Boy Floyd.
1944 World War II: Battle of Aachen: The city of Aachen fell to American forces after three weeks of fighting, making it the first German city to fall to the Allies.
1946 Deepak Chopra, Indian-American physician and writer, was born.
1953 Laos gained independence from France
1957 Vietnam War: First United States casualties in Vietnam.
1960 Independence of Mali from France.
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announced that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval “quarantine” of the Communist nation.
1963 A BAC One-Eleven prototype airliner crashed in UK with the loss of all on board.
1964 Jean-Paul Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but turned it down.
1964 A Multi-Party Parliamentary Committee selected the design which became the new official Flag of Canada.
1966 The Supremes became the first all-female music group to attain a No. 1 selling album (The Supremes A’ Go-Go).
1966 The Soviet Union launched Luna 12.
1968 Apollo 7 safely splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times.
1970 Tunku Abdul Rahman resigned as Prime Minister of Malaysia.
1972 Poet James K. Baxter died.
1972 Vietnam War: In Saigon, Henry Kissinger and South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu met to discuss a proposed cease-fire.
1975 The Soviet unmanned space mission Venera 9 landed on Venus.
1976 Red Dye No. 4 was banned by the US Food and Drug Administration after it is discovered that it causes tumors in the bladders of dogs.
1981 The TGV railway service between Paris and Lyon was inaugurated.
1983 Two correctional officers are killed by inmates at the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. The incident inspires the Supermax model of prisons.
1991 Dimitrios Arhondonis, was elected 270th Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch as Patriarch Bartholomew I of the Orthodox church.
1999 Maurice Papon, an official in the Vichy France government during World War II, is jailed for crimes against humanity.
2005 Tropical Storm Alpha formed in the Atlantic Basin, making the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record with 22 named storms.
2006 A Panama Canal expansion proposal was approved by 77.8% of voters in a National referendum.
2007 Raid on Anuradhapura Air Force Base carried out by 21 Tamil Tiger commandos.
2008 India launched its first unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-1.
