4004 BC – The world was created at approximately six o’clock in the evening, according to the Ussher chronology.
794 – Emperor Kanmu relocates the Japanese capital to Heiankyo (now Kyoto).
1383 – The 1383–85 Crisis in Portugal: King Fernando dies without a male heir to the Portuguese throne, sparking a period of civil war and disorder.
1575 – Foundation of Aguascalientes.
1633 – Battle of Liaoluo Bay: The Ming dynasty defeats the Dutch East India Company.
1707 – Scilly naval disaster: four British Royal Navy ships run aground near the Isles of Scilly because of faulty navigation. Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell and thousands of sailors drown.
1777 – American Revolutionary War: American defenders of Fort Mercer on the Delaware River repulse repeated Hessian attacks in the Battle of Red Bank.
1784 – Russia founds a colony on Kodiak Island, Alaska.
1790 – Warriors of the Miami people under Chief Little Turtle defeat United States troops under General Josiah Harmar at the site of present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the Northwest Indian War.
1797 – André-Jacques Garnerin makes the first recorded parachute jump from one thousand meters (3,200 feet) above Paris.
1836 – Sam Houston is inaugurated as the first President of the Republic of Texas.
1844 – The Great Anticipation: Millerites, followers of William Miller, anticipate the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day became known as the Great Disappointment.
1859 – Spain declares war on Morocco.
1941 – World War II: French resistance member Guy Môquet and 29 other hostages are executed by the Germans in retaliation for the death of a German officer.
1943 – World War II: in the Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless.
1946 – Soviet Operation Osoaviakhim takes place, recruiting of thousands of military-related technical specialists from the Soviet occupation zone of post-World-War-II Germany for employment in the Soviet Union.
1957 – Vietnam War: First United States casualties in Vietnam.
1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: US President John F. Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval “quarantine” of the Communist nation.
1963 – A BAC One-Eleven prototype airliner crashes in UK with the loss of all on board.
1964 – Jean-Paul Sartre is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, but turns down the honor.
1964 – Canada: A Multi-Party Parliamentary Committee selects the design which becomes the new official flag of Canada.
1966 – The Soviet Union launches Luna 12.
1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 7 safely splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times.
1972 – Vietnam War: In Saigon, Henry Kissinger and South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu meet to discuss a proposed cease-fire that had been worked out between Americans and North Vietnamese in Paris.
1975 – The Soviet unmanned space mission Venera 9 lands on Venus.
2007 – Raid on Anuradhapura Air Force Base is carried out by 21 Tamil Tiger commandos. All except one died in this attack. Eight Sri Lanka Air Force planes are destroyed and 10 damaged.
2008 – India launches its first unmanned lunar mission Chandrayaan-1.