331 BC – Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela.
959 – Edgar the Peaceful becomes king of all England.
1553 – Coronation of Queen Mary I of England.
1787 – Russians under Alexander Suvorov defeat the Turks at Kinburn.
1791 – First session of the French Legislative Assembly.
1795 – Belgium is conquered by France.
1800 – Spain cedes Louisiana to France via the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso.
1811 – The first steamboat to sail the Mississippi River arrives in New Orleans.
1814 – Opening of the Congress of Vienna, intended to redraw Europe’s political map after the defeat of Napoleon the previous spring.
1827 – Russo-Persian War: The Russian army under Ivan Paskevich storms Yerevan, ending a millennium of Muslim domination of Armenia.
1829 – South African College is founded in Cape Town, South Africa; it will later separate into the University of Cape Town and the South African College Schools.
1832 – Texian political delegates convened at San Felipe de Austin to petition for changes in the governance of Mexican Texas.
1843 – The News of the World tabloid begins publication in London.
1854 – The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury by Aaron Lufkin Dennison relocates to Waltham, Massachusetts, to become the Waltham Watch Company, a pioneer in the American system of watch manufacturing.
1880 – First electric lamp factory is opened by Thomas Edison.
1887 – Balochistan is conquered by the British Empire.
1890 – Yosemite National Park is established by the U.S. Congress.
1891 – Stanford University opens its doors in California.
1898 – The Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration is founded under the name k.u.k. Exportakademie.
1903 – Baseball: The Boston Americans play the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the modern World Series.
1908 – Ford puts the Model T car on the market at a price of US$825.
1910 – Los Angeles Times bombing: A large bomb destroys the Los Angeles Times building in downtown Los Angeles, killing 21.
1918 – World War I: Arab forces under T. E. Lawrence, also known as “Lawrence of Arabia”, capture Damascus.
1920 – Sir Percy Cox lands in Basra to assume his responsibilities as High Commissioner in Iraq.
1928 – The Soviet Union introduces its First five-year plan.
1931 – The George Washington Bridge linking New Jersey and New York opens.
1931 – Spain adopted women’s suffrage.
1936 – Francisco Franco is named head of the Nationalist government of Spain.
1937 – The Japanese city Handa is founded in Aichi Prefecture.
1938 – Germany annexes the Sudetenland.
1939 – After a one-month Siege of Warsaw, hostile Nazi forces enter the city.
1940 – The Pennsylvania Turnpike, often considered the first superhighway in the United States, opens to traffic.
1942 – USS Grouper torpedoes Lisbon Maru not knowing she is carrying British PoWs from Hong Kong
1943 – World War II: Naples falls to Allied soldiers.
1946 – Nazi leaders are sentenced at Nuremberg trials.
1946 – Daegu October Incident occurs in Allied occupied Korea.
1947 – The North American F-86 Sabre flies for the first time.
1949 – The People’s Republic of China is established and declared by Mao Zedong.
1957 – First appearance of In God we trust on U.S. paper currency.
1958 – NASA is created to replace NACA.
1960 – Nigeria gains independence from the United Kingdom.
1961 – The United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is formed, becoming the country’s first centralized military espionage organization.
1961 – East and West Cameroon merge to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon.
1962 – First broadcast of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
1964 – The Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of University of California, Berkeley.
1964 – Japanese Shinkansen (“bullet trains”) begin high-speed rail service from Tokyo to Osaka.
1965 – General Suharto puts down an apparent coup attempt by the 30 September Movement in Indonesia.
1966 – West Coast Airlines Flight 956 crashes with eighteen fatalities and no survivors 5.5 miles south of Wemme, Oregon. This accident marks the first loss of a DC-9.
1968 – The Guyanese government takes over the British Guiana Broadcasting Service (BGBS).
1969 – Concorde breaks the sound barrier for the first time.
1971 – Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida, United States.
1971 – The first brain-scan using x-ray computed tomography (CT or CAT scan) is performed at Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon, London.
1975 – The Seychelles gain internal self-government. The Ellice Islands split from Gilbert Islands and take the name Tuvalu.
1975 – Thrilla in Manila: Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier in a boxing match in Manila, Philippines.
1975 – Al Jackson, Jr. (Booker T. & the M.G.’s), was shot fatally five times in the back in his own home.
1978 – Tuvalu gains independence from the United Kingdom.
1978 – The Voltaic Revolutionary Communist Party is founded.
1979 – Pope John Paul II begins his first pastoral visit to the United States.
1979 – The MTR, the rapid transit railway system in Hong Kong, opens.
1979 – The United States returns sovereignty of the Panama Canal to Panama.
1982 – Helmut Kohl replaces Helmut Schmidt as Chancellor of Germany through a constructive vote of no confidence.
1982 – Epcot opens at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, United States.
1982 – Sony launches the first consumer compact disc player (model CDP-101).
1985 – The Israeli Air Force bombs Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) headquarters in Tunis.
1987 – The 5.9 Mw Whittier Narrows earthquake shakes the San Gabriel Valley with a Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe).
1989 – Denmark introduces the world’s first legal modern same-sex civil union called “registered partnership”.
1991 – The Siege of Dubrovnik begins.
1994 – Palau gains independence from the United Nations (trusteeship administered by the United States of America).
2001 – Militants attack the state legislature building in Srinagar, Kashmir, killing 38.
2009 – The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom takes over the judicial functions of the House of Lords.
2012 – A ferry collision off the coast of Hong Kong kills 38 people and injures 102 others.
2014 – A series of explosions at a gunpowder plant in the village of Gorni Lom in Northwestern Bulgaria completely destroys the factory, killing 15 people.
2015 – Umpqua Community College shooting: a gunman killed nine people at a community college in Roseburg, Oregon.
2015 – Heavy rains triggered a major landslide in the village of El Cambray Dos within Santa Catarina Pinula, killing 280 people.