374 - 9th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet
1832 - HMS Beagle/Charles Darwin reaches St-Pauls (1°N, 29°W)
1840 - American Charles Wilkes discovers Shackleton Ice Shelf, Antarctica
1948 - Miranda, famous moon of Uranus, photographed for 1st time
1961 - Explorer 9 (S-56a) is launched.
1962 - North Sea flood of 1962: Flooding in the coastal areas of West Germany kills 315 and destroys the homes of about 60,000 people.
1994 - 6.5 earthquake strikes SE Sumatra, kills 200

1493 - While on board the Niña, Christopher Columbus writes an open letter (widely distributed upon his return to Portugal) describing his discoveries and the unexpected items he came across in the New World.
1552 - Dutch coast hit by heavy storm
1564 – Was born Galileo Galilei — Italian astronomer
1804 - New Jersey becomes last northern state to abolish slavery
1918 - Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania adopt Gregorian calendar
1949 - Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux begin excavations at Cave 1 of the Qumran Cavess where they will eventually discover the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls.

869 – Died Kyril from Thessaloniki, one of the founder of the first Slavic alphabet.
1468 – Died Johannes Gutenberg - the inventor of the technique of printing with movable type.
1663 – Canada become French province.
1779 - British Captain James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians, near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.
1859 - Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.
1912 - Arizona is admitted as the 48th U.S. state.

1633 - Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition.
1668 - Spain recognizes Portugal as an independent nation.
1852 – Was born Johan Роден е Johan Ludvig Emil Dreyer, Danish-Ireland astronomer.
1955 - Israel obtains 4 of the 7 Dead Sea Scrolls.
1990 - An agreement is reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany.
2001 - El Salvador Earthquake (2001); killing at least 400.
2004 - The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announces the discovery of the universe's largest known diamondwhite dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star "Lucy" after The Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".
2011 - For the first time in more than 100 years the Umatilla, an American Indian tribe, are able to hunt and harvest a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park, restoring a centuries-old tradition guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1855.

660 BC - Traditional date for the foundation of Japan by Emperor Jimmu.
1809 - Robert Fulton patents steamboat
1814 - Norway's independence proclaimed
1895 - -17°F (-27.2°C) in Braemar, Grampian (UK record)
1895 - Georgetown became part of Washington, D.C.
1929 - Vatican City (world's smallest country) made an enclave of Rome
1970 - Japan becomes 4th nation to put a satellite (Osumi) in orbit
1997 - Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off for mission STS-82 to service the Hubble Space Telescope.