1066 – Edward the Confessor dies childless, sparking a succession crisis that will eventually lead to the Norman conquest of England.
1477 – Battle of Nancy: Charles the Bold is killed and Burgundy becomes part of France.
1500 – Duke Ludovico Sforza conquers Milan.
1527 – Felix Manz, a leader of the Anabaptist congregation in Zürich, Switzerland, is executed by drowning.
1554 – A great fire occurs in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
1675 – Battle of Colmar: The French army beats Brandenburg.
1757 – Louis XV of France survives an assassination attempt by Robert-François Damiens, the last person to be executed in France by drawing and quartering, the traditional and gruesome form of capital punishment used for regicides.
1781 – American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia, is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold.
1859 – 1st steamboat sails, Red River
1892 – 1st successful auroral photograph made
1903 – SF-Hawaii telegraph cable opens for public use
1911 – San Francisco has its first air meet
1913 – First Balkan War: During the Battle of Lemnos, Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it did not venture for the rest of the war.
1919 – The German Workers’ Party, which would become the Nazi Party, is founded.
1925 – Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming becomes the first female governor in the United States.
1933 – Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay.
1944 – The Daily Mail becomes the first transoceanic newspaper.
1945 – The Soviet Union recognizes the new pro-Soviet government of Poland.
1970 – The 7.1 Mw Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme). Between 10,000–15,621 were killed and 26,783 were injured.
1972 – United States President Richard Nixon orders the development of a Space Shuttle program.
1976 – The Khmer Rouge proclaim the Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea.
1985 – Discovery moves to launch pad for STS 51-C mission
2005 – Eris, the most massive and second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System, is discovered by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz using images originally taken on October 21, 2003, at the Palomar Observatory.
2014 – A launch of the communication satellite GSAT-14 aboard the GSLV MK.II D5 marks the first successful flight of an Indian cryogenic engine.
