India celebrates Birthday of the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi
829 – Theophilos succeeds his father Michael II as Byzantine Emperor.
1187 – Siege of Jerusalem: Saladin captures Jerusalem after 88 years of Crusader rule.
1263 – The battle of Largs is fought between Norwegians and Scots.
1470 – A rebellion organised by Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick forces King Edward IV of England to flee to the Netherlands, restoring Henry VI to the throne.
1528 – William Tyndale, the renowned English Reformer and Bible translator published his famous work The Obedience of a Christian Man
1535 – Jacques Cartier discovers the area where Montreal is now located.
1552 – Conquest of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible.
1780 – John André, British Army officer of the American Revolutionary War, is hanged as a spy by American forces.
1789 – George Washington sends proposed Constitutional amendments (The United States Bill of Rights) to the States for ratification.
1814 – Battle of Rancagua: Spanish Royalists troops under Mariano Osorio defeats rebel Chilean forces of Bernardo O’Higgins and José Miguel Carrera.
1835 – The Texas Revolution begins with the Battle of Gonzales: Mexican soldiers attempt to disarm the people of Gonzales, Texas, but encounter stiff resistance from a hastily assembled militia.
1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Saltville: Union forces attack Saltville, Virginia, but are defeated by Confederate troops.
1889 – In Colorado, Nicholas Creede strikes it rich in silver during the last great silver boom of the American Old West.
1919 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed.
1925 – John Logie Baird performs the first test of a working television system.
1928 – The “Prelature of the Holy Cross and the Work of God”, commonly known as Opus Dei, is founded by Josemaría Escrivá.
1937 – Dominican Republic strongman Rafael Trujillo orders the execution of the Haitian population living within the borderlands; approximately 20,000 are killed over the next five days.
1941 – World War II: In Operation Typhoon, Germany begins an all-out offensive against Moscow.
1942 – World War II: Ocean Liner RMS Queen Mary accidentally rams and sinks her own escort ship, HMS Curacoa, off the coast of Ireland, killing 239 crewmen aboard the Curacoa.
1944 – World War II: German troops end the Warsaw Uprising.
1950 – Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz is first published.
1958 – Guinea declares its independence from France.
1959 – The anthology series The Twilight Zone premieres on CBS television.
1967 – Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first African-American justice of United States Supreme Court.
1990 – Xiamen Airlines Flight 8301 is hijacked and lands at Guangzhou, where it crashes into two other airliners on the ground, killing 128.
1996 – Aeroperú Flight 603, a Boeing 757, crashes into the Pacific Ocean shortly after takeoff from Lima, Peru, killing 70.
2007 – President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea walks across the Military Demarcation Line into North Korea on his way to the second Inter-Korean Summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.