• 238 - Gordian I and his son Gordian II are proclaimed Roman emperors.
• 1621 - The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony sign a peace treaty with Massasoit of the Wampanoags.
• 1622 - Jamestown massacre: Algonquian Indians kill 347 English settlers around Jamestown, Virginia, a third of the colony's population.
• 1630 - Massachusetts Bay Colony outlaws the possession of cards, dice, and gaming tables.
• 1638 - Anne Hutchinson is expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony for religious dissent.
• 1765 - The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Stamp Act, which introduced a tax to be levied directly on its American colonies.
• 1784 - The Emerald Buddha is moved with great ceremony to its current place in Wat Phra Kaew, Thailand.
• 1809 - Charles XIII succeeds Gustav IV Adolf to the Swedish throne.
• 1829 - The three protecting powers (Britain, France and Russia) establish the borders of Greece.
• 1849 - The Austrians defeat the Piedmontese at the Battle of Novara.
• 1871 - In North Carolina, William Woods Holden becomes the first governor of a U.S. state to be removed from office by impeachment.
• 1873 - A law is approved by the Spanish National Assembly in Puerto Rico to abolish slavery.
• 1888 - The Football League is formed.
• 1894 - The first playoff game for the Stanley Cup starts.
• 1895 - First display (a private screening) of motion pictures by Auguste and Louis Lumière.
• 1923 - The first radio broadcast of ice hockey is made by Foster Hewitt.
• 1933 - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs into law a bill legalizing the sale of beer and wine.
• 1939 - World War II: Germany takes Memel from Lithuania.
• 1941 - Washington's Grand Coulee Dam begins to generate electricity.
• 1942 - World War II: In the Mediterranean Sea, Britain's Royal Navy confronts Italy's Regia Marina in the Second Battle of Sirte.
• 1943 - World War II: the entire population of Khatyn in Belarus is burnt alive by German occupation forces.
• 1945 - The Arab League is founded when a charter is adopted in Cairo, Egypt.
• 1954 - Closed since 1939, the London bullion market reopens.
• 1960 - Arthur Leonard Schawlow & Charles Hard Townes receive the first patent for a laser.
• 1975 - A fire at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in Decatur, Alabama causes dangerous lowering of cooling water levels.
• 1978 - Karl Wallenda of the The Flying Wallendas dies after falling off a tight-rope between two hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
• 1979 - Margaret Thatcher puts down an early day motion censuring the government, which leads to the defeat of the Labour government of James Callaghan.
• 1984 - Teachers at the McMartin preschool in Manhattan Beach, California are charged with Satanic ritual abuse of the children in the school. The charges are later dropped as completely unfounded.
• 1989 - Clint Malarchuk of the Buffalo Sabres suffers a near-fatal injury when another player accidentally slits his throat.
• 1993 - The Intel Corporation ships the first Pentium chips (80586), featuring a 60 MHz clock speed, 100+ MIPS, and a 64 bit data path.
• 1995 - Cosmonaut Valeriy Polyakov returns after setting a record for 438 days in space.
• 1997 - Tara Lipinski, age 14 years and 10 months, becomes the youngest champion of the women's world figure skating competition.
• 1997 - The Comet Hale-Bopp has its closest approach to earth.
• 2004 - Ahmed Yassin, co-founder and leader of the Palestinian Sunni Islamist militant group Hamas, and bodyguards are killed in the Gaza Strip when hit by Israeli Air Force AH-64 Apache fired Hellfire missiles.
• 2006 - ETA, armed Basque separatist group, declares permanent ceasefire.
• 2006 - BC Ferries' M/V Queen of the North runs aground on Gil Island British Columbia and sinks; 101 on board, 2 presumed deaths.
• 2006 - Three Christian Peacemaker Teams Hostages are freed by British forces in Baghdad after 118 days captivity and the death of their colleague, American Tom Fox.
• 2008 - The French Swimmer Alain Bernard sets the world record of 47.50 for the 100 m freestyle long course after winning the European LC Championships 2008.

Births