557 – Constantinople was severely damaged by an earthquake.
835 – Sweet Dew Incident: Emperor Wenzong of the Tang Dynasty conspired to kill the powerful eunuchs of the Tang court, but the plot is foiled.
1287 St. Lucia’s flood: The Zuider Zee sea wall in the Netherlandscollapsed, killing more than 50,000 people.
1503 Nostradamus, French astrologer, was born (d. 1566).
1542 Princess Mary Stuart became Queen Mary I of Scotland.
1630 – Anne Conway, English philosopher and author was born (d. 1679).
1751 The Theresian Military Academy was founded as the first Military Academy in the world.
1782 The Montgolfier brothers’ first balloon lifts on its first test flight.
1843 The first Auckland A&P Show was held.
1851 – Mary Tappan Wright, American novelist and short story writer was born, (d. 1916).
1895 King George VI was born (d. 1952).
1896 The Glasgow Underground Railway was opened by the Glasgow District Subway Company.
1897 – Margaret Chase Smith, American educator and politician, was born (d. 1995).
1900 Max Planck presented a theoretical derivation of his black-body radiation law.
1902 The Commercial Pacific Cable Company laid the first Pacific telegraph cable, from Ocean Beach, San Francisco to Honolulu, Hawaii.
1903 The Wright Brothers made their first attempt to fly with the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
1911 Roald Amundsen‘s team, Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, and Oscar Wisting and Amundsen, became the first to reach the South Pole.
1918 Friedrich Karl von Hessen, a German prince elected by the Parliament of Finland to become King Väinö I, renounces the Finnish throne.
1922 Don Hewitt, American creator of 60 Minutes, was born (d. 2009).
1932 Charlie Rich, American musician, was born (d. 1995).
1946 Patty Duke, American actress, was born.
1948 Kim Beazley, Australian politician, was born.
1949 Cliff Williams, English bassist (AC/DC), was born.
1951 – Lindsay Perigo, New Zealand broadcaster, first leader of Libertarianz Party, was born.
1958 The 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition became the first expedition to reach The Pole of Relative Inaccessibility in the Antarctic.
1958 Scottish singer-songwriter Mike Scott, (The Waterboys), was born.
1958 Spider Stacy, English musician (The Pogues), was born.
1960 – Ian Meckiff of Australia was run out by the West Indies, causing the first Tied Test in the history of cricket.
1962 NASA‘s Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to fly by Venus.
1963 – Baldwin Hills Reservoir wall burst, killing five people and damaging hundreds of homes in Los Angeles.
1964 Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States – The United States Supreme Court rules that the U.S. Congress can use its Commerce Clause power to fight discrimination.
1972 Apollo programme: Eugene Cernan was the last person to walk on the moon, after he and Harrison Schmitt completed the third and final Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) of Apollo 17. This was the last manned mission to the moon of the 20th century.
1981 Israel‘s Knesset passes The Golan Heights Law, extending Israeli law to the area of the Golan Heights.
1994 Construction began on the Three Gorges Dam in the Yangtze River.
2004 The Millau viaduct, the highest bridge in the world, near Millau,Francewas officially opened.
2008 President George W. Bush made his fourth and final (planned) trip to Iraq as president and almost got struck by two shoes thrown at him by Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi during a farewell conference in Baghdad.
2009 – The New Zealand government recognised the Māori (Tino Rangatiratanga) flag as the preferred national Māori flag.
2012 – 28 people, including the gunman, were killed in a mass shootingin Sandy Hook village, Newtown, Connecticut.
2013 – A reported coup attempt in South Sudan led to continued fighting and hundreds of casualties.
2017 –United States Congress voted on the repeal of net neutrality regulations.
2017 – The Walt Disney Company announced it would acquire 21st Century Fox, including the 20th Century Fox movie studio, for $52.4 billion.
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