Events Pre-1600 AD 23 – Rebels sack the Chinese capital Chang'an during a peasant rebellion. 1209 – Otto IV is crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Innocent III. 1302 – The Byzantine–Venetian War comes to an end. 1363 – Battle of Lake Poyang: In one of the largest naval battles in history, Zhu Yuanzhang's rebels defeat rival Chen Youliang. 1511 – Formation of the Holy League of Aragon, the Papal States and Venice against France. 1535 – The Coverdale Bible is printed, with translations into English by William Tyndale and Myles Coverdale. 1582 – The Gregorian Calendar is introduced by Pope Gregory XIII.
1601–1900 1602 – Eighty Years' War and the Anglo-Spanish War: A fleet of Spanish galleys are defeated by English and Dutch galleons in the English Channel. 1636 – Thirty Years' War: The Swedish Army defeats the armies of Saxony and the Holy Roman Empire at the Battle of Wittstock. 1693 – Nine Years' War: Piedmontese troops are defeated by the French. 1777 – American Revolutionary War: Troops under George Washington are repelled by British troops under William Howe. 1795 – Napoleon first rises to prominence by suppressing counter-revolutionary rioters threatening the National Convention. 1824 – Mexico adopts a new constitution and becomes a federal republic. 1830 – The Belgian Revolution takes legal form when the provisional government secedes from the Netherlands. 1853 – The Crimean War begins when the Ottoman Empire declares war on the Russian Empire. 1862 – American Civil War: The two-day Second Battle of Corinth ends in a Union victory, with General William Rosecrans protecting the critical rail junction of Corinth, Mississippi from Confederate forces under General Earl Van Dorn. 1876 – The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now known as Texas A&M) opens as the first public college in Texas. 1883 – First meeting of the Boys' Brigade in Glasgow, Scotland. 1895 – Horace Rawlins wins the first U.S. Open Men's Golf Championship.
1901–present 1917 – World War I: The Battle of Broodseinde is fought between the British and German armies in Flanders. 1918 – World War I: An explosion kills more than 100 people and destroys a Shell Loading Plant in New Jersey. 1920 – The Mannerheim League for Child Welfare, a Finnish non-governmental organization, is founded on the initiative of Sophie Mannerheim. 1925 – Great Syrian Revolt: Rebels led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji capture Hama from the French Mandate of Syria. 1925 – S2, a Finnish Sokol class torpedo boat, sinks during a fierce storm near the coast of Pori in the Gulf of Bothnia, taking with it the whole crew of 53. 1927 – Gutzon Borglum begins sculpting Mount Rushmore. 1936 – The Metropolitan Police and various anti-fascist organizations violently clash in the Battle of Cable Street. 1941 – Norman Rockwell's Willie Gillis character debuts on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. 1957 – Sputnik 1 becomes the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth. 1958 – The current constitution of France is adopted. 1960 – Eastern Airlines flight 375 crashes on takeoff from Boston's Logan International Airport, killing 62 people of the 72 aboard. 1963 – Hurricane Flora kills 6,000 in Cuba and Haiti. 1965 – Pope Paul VI begins the first papal visit to the Americas. 1966 – Basutoland becomes independent from the United Kingdom and is renamed Lesotho. 1967 – Omar Ali Saifuddien III of Brunei abdicates in favour of his son. 1983 – Richard Noble sets a new land speed record of at the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. 1985 – The Free Software Foundation is founded. 1991 – The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty is opened for signature. 1992 – The Rome General Peace Accords end a 16-year civil war in Mozambique. 1992 – El Al Flight 1862 crashes into two apartment buildings in Amsterdam, killing 43 including 39 on the ground. 1993 – Battle of Mogadishu occurs killing 18 U.S. Special Forces, two UN Peacekeepers and at least 600 Somalian militia men and civilians. 1993 – Tanks bombard the Russian parliament, while demonstrators against President Yeltsin rally outside. 1997 – The second largest cash robbery in U.S. history occurs in North Carolina. 2001 – Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 crashes after being struck by an errant Ukrainian missile. Seventy-eight people are killed. 2003 – The Maxim restaurant suicide bombing in Israel kills twenty-one Israelis, both Jews and Arabs. 2004 – SpaceShipOne wins the Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight. 2006 – WikiLeaks is launched. 2010 – The Ajka plant accident in Hungary releases a million cubic metres of liquid alumina sludge, killing nine, injuring 122, and severely contaminating two major rivers. 2017 – Joint Nigerien-American Special Forces are ambushed by Islamic State militants outside the village of Tongo Tongo.
Births Pre-1600 1160 – Alys, Countess of the Vexin, daughter of Louis VII of France (died c. 1220) 1274 – Rudolf I, Duke of Bavaria (died 1319) 1276 – Margaret of Brabant (died 1311) 1289 – Louis X of France (died 1316) 1331 – James Butler, 2nd Earl of Ormond, Irish politician, Lord Justice of Ireland (died 1382) 1379 – Henry III of Castile (died 1406) 1507 – Francis Bigod, English noble (died 1537) 1515 – Lucas Cranach the Younger, German painter (died 1586) 1522 – Gabriele Paleotti, Catholic cardinal (died 1597) 1524 – Francisco Vallés, Spanish physician (died 1592) 1532 – Francisco de Toledo, Catholic cardinal (died 1596) 1542 – Robert Bellarmine, Italian cardinal and saint (died 1621) 1550 – Charles IX of Sweden (died 1611) 1562 – Christen Sørensen Longomontanus, Danish astronomer and author (died 1647) 1570 – Péter Pázmány, Hungarian cardinal and philosopher (died 1637) 1579 – Guido Bentivoglio, Italian cardinal (died 1644) 1585 – Anna of Tyrol, Holy Roman Empress (died 1618)
1601–1900 1625 – Jacqueline Pascal, French nun and composer (died 1661) 1626 – Richard Cromwell, English academic and politician, Lord Protector of Great Britain (died 1712) 1633 – Bernardino Ramazzini, Italian physician (died 1714) 1657 – Francesco Solimena, Italian painter and illustrator (died 1747) 1694 – Lord George Murray, Scottish Jacobite General (died 1760) 1720 – Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Italian sculptor and illustrator (died 1778) 1723 – Nikolaus Poda von Neuhaus, German entomologist and author (died 1798) 1759 – Louis François Antoine Arbogast, French mathematician and academic (died 1803) 1768 – Francisco José de Caldas, Colombian naturalist, executed by royalists in the war of independence (died 1816) 1787 – François Guizot, French historian and politician, 22nd Prime Minister of France (died 1874) 1793 – Charles Pearson, English lawyer and politician (died 1862) 1807 – Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, Canadian lawyer and politician, 2nd Premier of Canada East (died 1864) 1814 – Jean-François Millet, French painter and educator (died 1875) 1822 – Rutherford B. Hayes, American general, lawyer, and politician, 19th President of the United States (died 1893) 1835 – Jenny Twitchell Kempton, American opera singer and educator (died 1921) 1836 – Juliette Adam, French author (died 1936) 1837 – Auguste-Réal Angers, Canadian judge and politician, 6th Lieutenant Governor of Quebec (died 1919) 1841 – Prudente de Morais, Brazilian lawyer and politician, 3rd President of Brazil (died 1912) 1841 – Maria Sophie of Bavaria (died 1925) 1843 – Marie-Alphonsine Danil Ghattas, Palestinian nun and Catholic Saint (died 1927) 1858 – Léon Serpollet, French businessman (died 1903) 1861 – Walter Rauschenbusch, American pastor and theologian (died 1918) 1861 – Frederic Remington, American painter, sculptor, and illustrator (died 1909) 1862 – Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, sister-in-law of Vincent van Gogh, who is credited with promoting his posthumous fame (died 1925).Luijtens, Hans. Jo van Gogh-Bonger: The Woman who Made Vincent Famous. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts 2022 1862 – Edward Stratemeyer, American author and publisher (died 1930) 1868 – Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear, Argentinian lawyer and politician, 20th President of Argentina (died 1942) 1874 – John Ellis, English executioner (died 1932) 1876 – Florence Eliza Allen, American mathematician and suffrage activist (died 1960) 1877 – Razor Smith, English cricketer (died 1946) 1879 – Robert Edwards, American artist, musician, and writer (died 1948) 1880 – Damon Runyon, American newspaperman and short story writer. (died 1946) 1881 – Walther von Brauchitsch, German field marshal (died 1948) 1884 – Ramchandra Shukla, Indian historian and author (died 1941) 1888 – Lucy Tayiah Eads, American tribal chief (died 1961) 1888 – Oscar Mathisen, Norwegian speed skater (died 1954) 1890 – Alan L. Hart, American physician and author (died 1962) 1890 – Osman Cemal Kaygılı, Turkish writer and journalist (died 1945) 1892 – Engelbert Dollfuss, Austrian soldier and politician, 14th Federal Chancellor of Austria (died 1934) 1892 – Hermann Glauert, English aerodynamicist and author (died 1934) 1892 – Robert Lawson, American author and illustrator (died 1957) 1895 – Buster Keaton, American film actor, director, and producer (died 1966) 1895 – Richard Sorge, German journalist and spy (died 1944) 1896 – Dorothy Lawrence, English reporter, who secretly posed as a man to become a soldier during World War I (died 1964) 1900 – August Mälk, Estonian author and playwright (died 1987)
1901–present 1903 – Bona Arsenault, Canadian genealogist, historian, and politician (died 1993) 1903 – John Vincent Atanasoff, American physicist and academic, invented the Atanasoff–Berry computer (died 1995) 1903 – Pierre Garbay, French general (died 1980) 1903 – Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Austrian-German lawyer and general, convicted Nuremberg war criminal (died 1946) 1906 – Mary Celine Fasenmyer, American mathematician (died 1996) 1907 – Alain Daniélou, French-Swiss historian and academic (died 1994) 1910 – Frankie Crosetti, American baseball player and coach (died 2002) 1910 – Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı, Turkish poet and author (died 1956) 1911 – Mary Two-Axe Earley, Canadian indigenous women's rights activist (died 1996) 1913 – Martial Célestin, Haitian lawyer and politician, 1st Prime Minister of Haiti (died 2011) 1914 – Jim Cairns, Australian economist and politician, 4th Deputy Prime Minister of Australia (died 2003) 1914 – Brendan Gill, American journalist and essayist (died 1997) 1916 – Vitaly Ginzburg, Russian physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2009) 1916 – Jan Murray, American comedian, actor, and game show host (died 2006) 1916 – George Sidney, American director and producer (died 2002) 1916 – Ken Wood, inventor of the Kenwood Chef food mixer (died 1997) 1917 – Violeta Parra, Chilean singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 1967) 1918 – Kenichi Fukui, Japanese chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1998) 1921 – Stella Pevsner, American children's author (died 2020) 1922 – Malcolm Baldrige Jr., American businessman and politician, 26th United States Secretary of Commerce (died 1987) 1922 – Shin Kyuk-ho, South Korean-Japanese businessman, founded Lotte Group (died 2020) 1922 – Don Lenhardt, American baseball player and coach (died 2014) 1923 – Charlton Heston, American actor, director and gun rights activist (died 2008) 1924 – Donald J. Sobol, American soldier and author (died 2012) 1925 – Roger Wood, Belgian-American journalist (died 2012) 1926 – Raymond Watson, American businessman (died 2012) 1927 – Wolf Kahn, American painter and academic (died 2020) 1928 – Alvin Toffler, German-American journalist and author (died 2016) 1928 – Torben Ulrich, Danish-American tennis player (died 2023) 1929 – Scotty Beckett, American actor and singer (died 1968) 1929 – John E. Mack, American psychiatrist and author (died 2004) 1929 – Leroy Van Dyke, American singer-songwriter and guitarist 1931 – Terence Conran, English designer and businessman (died 2020) 1931 – Basil D'Oliveira, South African-English cricketer and footballer (died 2011)