1248 – The rebuilding of the Cologne Cathedral in Cologne, Germany, began after being destroyed by fire.
1805 – A peace treaty between the U.S. and Tunis was signed on board the USS Constitution.
1848 – The Oregon Territory was established.
1900 – An international force, consisting of eight nations, lifted the siege of Peking. It was the end to the Boxer Rebellion, which was aimed at purging China of foreigners.
1917 – China declared war on Germany and Austria during World War I.
1919 – About 1 million tons of ice and rock broke off of a glacier near Mont Blanc, France. Nine people were killed in the incident.
1935 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. The act created unemployment insurance and pension plans for the elderly.
1941 – The U.S. Congress appropriated the funds to construct the Pentagon (approximately $83 million). The building was the new home of the U.S. War Department.
1941 – U.S. President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued the Atlantic Charter. The charter was a statement of principles that renounced aggression.
1944 – The federal government allowed the manufacture of certain domestic appliances to resume on a limited basis.
1945 – It was announced by U.S. President Truman that Japan had surrendered unconditionally. The surrender ended World War II.
1947 – Pakistan became independent from British rule.
1962 – A U.S. mail truck was held up in Plymouth, MA. The robbers got away with more that $1.5 million dollars.
1969 – British troops arrived in Northern Ireland to intervene in sectarian violence between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
1973 – The U.S. bombing of Cambodia ended. The halt marked the official end to 12 years of combat in Indochina by the U.S.
1992 – The U.S. announced that emergency airlifts of food to Somalia would begin. The action was being taken to stop mass deaths due to starvation.
1995 – Shannon Faulkner became the first female cadet in the history of The Citadel, South Carolina’s state military college. She quit the school less than a week later.
2000 – Valujet was ordered to pay $11 million in fines and restitution for hazardous waste violations in the crash that killed 110 people in 1996.
2015 – In Havana, Cuba, the U.S. Embassy was re-opened after being closed 54 years earlier.
