1410 The Peace of Bicêtre between the Armagnac and Burgundian factions was signed.
1570 A tidal wave in the North Sea devastates the coast from Holland to Jutland, killing more than 1,000 people.
1755 – Marie Antoinette, Queen of France was born (d. 1793).
1783 US General George Washington gave his “Farewell Address to the Army”.
1795 The French Directory succeeded the French National Convention as the government of Revolutionary France.
1861 American Civil War: Western Department Union General John C. Fremont was relieved of command and replaced by David Hunter.
1868 New Zealand officially adopted a standard time to be observed nationally
1882 Oulu, Finland was decimated by the Great Oulu Fire of 1882.
1889 North and South Dakota were admitted as the 39th and 40th U.S. states.
1895 The first gasoline-powered race in the United States. First prize: $2,000
1898 Cheerleading started at the University of Minnesota with Johnny Campbell leading the crowd in cheering on the football team.
1899 The Boers began their 118 day siege of British held Ladysmith during the Second Boer War.
1913 Burt Lancaster, American actor, was born (d. 1994).
1914 Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire.
1917 The Balfour Declaration proclaimed British support for the “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” with the clear understanding “that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities”
1920 KDKA of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania started broadcasting as the first commercial radio station. The first broadcast was the result of the U.S. presidential election, 1920
1930 Haile Selassie was crowned emperor of Ethiopia.
1936 The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was established.
1936 – Italian dictator Benito Mussolini proclaimed the Rome-Berlin Axis, establishing the alliance of the Axis Powers.
1936 – The British Broadcasting Corporation initiated the BBC Television Service, the world’s first regular, high-definition (then defined as at least 200 lines) service.
1938 – Queen Sofia of Spain was born.
1941 Bruce Welch, English musician and songwriter (The Shadows), was born.
1942 At El Alamein in Egypt, the 2nd New Zealand Division opened the way for British armour, allowing the Allies to force a breakthrough and send the Axis forces into retreat.
1944 Keith Emerson, British keyboardist and composer (Emerson, Lake & Palmer), was born.
1947 Howard Hughes performed the maiden (and only) flight of theSpruce Goose; the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built.
1957 The Levelland UFO Case in Levelland, Texas, generated national publicity.
1959 Quiz show scandals: Twenty One game show contestant Charles Van Doren admitted to a Congressional committee that he had been given questions and answers in advance.
1959 The first section of the M1 motorway, the first inter-urban motorway in the United Kingdom, was opened.
1960 Penguin Books was found not guilty of obscenity in the Lady Chatterley’s Lover case.
1961 k.d. lang, Canadian musician, was born.
1963 South Vietnamese President Ngô Ðình Diệm is assassinated following a military coup.
1964 King Saud of Saudi Arabia was deposed by a family coup, and replaced by his half-brother King Faisal.
1965 Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker, set himself on fire in front of the river entrance to the Pentagon to protest the use of napalm in the Vietnam war.
1966 The Cuban Adjustment Act entered force, allowing 123,000 Cubans the opportunity to apply for permanent residence in the United States.
1974 78 died when the Time Go-Go Club in Seoul burned down.
1983 U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
1984 Velma Barfield became the first woman executed in the United States since 1962.
1988 The Morris worm, the first internet-distributed computer worm to gain significant mainstream media attention, was launched from MIT.
1995 Former South African defence minister General Magnus Malan and 10 other former senior military officers were arrested and charged with murdering 13 black people in 1987.
2000 – The first resident crew to the ISS docked on the Soyuz TM-31.
2007 – 50,000–100,000 people demonstrated against the Georgian government in Tbilisi.
2014 – A suicide attack killed 60 at Wagah.
Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia
