1587 – Queen Elizabeth I of England signs death warrant for Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots
1669 – French King Louis XIV limits freedom of religion
1788 – 1st US steamboat patent issued, by Georgia to Briggs & Longstreet
1835 – Slavery is abolished in Mauritius.
1884 – The first volume (A to Ant) of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.
1893 – Thomas A. Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey.
1924 – The United Kingdom recognizes the USSR.
1942 – Voice of America, the official external radio and television service of the United States government, begins broadcasting with programs aimed at areas controlled by the Axis powers.
1946 – The Parliament of Hungary abolishes the monarchy after nine centuries, and proclaims the Hungarian Republic.
1968 – Canada’s three military services, the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force, are unified into the Canadian Forces.
1979 – The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns to Tehran, Iran after nearly 15 years of exile.
1998 – Rear Admiral Lillian E. Fishburne becomes the first female African American to be promoted to rear admiral.
2002 – Daniel Pearl, American journalist and South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal, kidnapped January 23, 2002, is beheaded and mutilated by his captors.
2003 – Space Shuttle Columbia on mission STS-107 disintegrates during reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
2005 – King Gyanendra of Nepal carries out a coup d’état to capture the democracy, becoming Chairman of the Councils of ministers.
2009 – The first cabinet of Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir was formed in Iceland, making her the country’s first female prime minister and the world’s first openly LGBT head of government.
