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.
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.