1245 – Thomas, the first known Bishop of Finland, is granted resignation after confessing to torture and forgery
1613 – Mikhail I is unanimously elected Tsar by a national assembly, beginning the Romanov dynasty of Imperial Russia.
1804 – The first self-propelling steam locomotive makes its outing at the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Wales.
1808 – Without a previous declaration of war, Russian troops cross the border to Sweden at Abborfors in eastern Finland, thus beginning the Finnish War, in which Sweden will lose the eastern half of the country (i.e. Finland) to Russia.
1842 – John Greenough is granted the first U.S. patent for the sewing machine.
1866 – Lucy B. Hobbs became the first woman to graduate from a dental school. The school was the Ohio College of Dental Surgery in Cincinnati.
1878 – The first telephone directory is issued in New Haven, Connecticut.
1916 – World War I: In France, the Battle of Verdun begins.
1925 – The New Yorker publishes its first issue.
1947 – Edwin Land demonstrated the Polaroid Land Camera to the Optical Society of America in New York City. It was the first camera to take, develop and print a picture on photo paper all in about 60 seconds. The photos were black and white. The camera went on sale the following year.
1972 – United States President Richard Nixon visits the People’s Republic of China to normalize Sino-American relations
1972 – The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.
1975 – Watergate scandal: Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are sentenced to prison
1995 – Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.
1999 – India’s Prime Minister Atal Bihair Vajpayee concluded two days of meeting with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Mohammad Nowaz Sharif
