Events Pre-1600 63 BC – Cicero gives the fourth and final of the Catiline Orations. 633 – Fourth Council of Toledo opens, presided over by Isidore of Seville. 1033 – The Jordan Rift Valley earthquake destroys multiple cities across the Levant, triggers a tsunami and kills many. 1082 – Ramon Berenguer II, Count of Barcelona is assassinated, most likely by his brother, Berenguer Ramon II. 1408 – Seeking to resubjugate Muscovy, Emir Edigu of the Golden Horde reaches Moscow, burning areas around the city but failing to take the city itself. 1456 – The first of two earthquakes measuring 7.2 strikes Italy, causing extreme destruction and killing upwards of 70,000 people. 1484 – Pope Innocent VIII issues the Summis desiderantes affectibus, a papal bull that deputizes Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger as inquisitors to root out alleged witchcraft in Germany. 1496 – King Manuel I of Portugal issues a decree ordering the expulsion of Jews from the country. 1560 – Ten-year-old Charles IX becomes king of France, with Queen Mother Catherine de' Medici as regent. 1578 – Sir Francis Drake, after sailing through Strait of Magellan, raids Valparaíso.
1601–1900 1649 – The town of Raahe () is founded by Count Per Brahe the Younger.Tietoa Raahesta – InfoFinland (in Finnish)Jukka Joutsi: Raahe (in Finnish) 1757 – Seven Years' War: Battle of Leuthen: Frederick II of Prussia leads Prussian forces to a decisive victory over Austrian forces under Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine. 1766 – In London, auctioneer James Christie holds his first sale. 1770 – 29th Regiment of Foot privates Hugh Montgomery and Matthew Kilroy are found guilty for the manslaughter of Crispus Attucks and Samuel Gray respectively in the Boston Massacre. 1775 – At Fort Ticonderoga, Henry Knox begins his historic transport of artillery to Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1776 – Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest academic honor society in the U.S., holds its first meeting at the College of William & Mary. 1831 – Former U.S. President John Quincy Adams takes his seat in the House of Representatives. 1847 – Jefferson Davis is elected to the U.S. Senate. 1848 – California Gold Rush: In a message to the United States Congress, U.S. President James K. Polk confirms that large amounts of gold had been discovered in California. 1865 – Chincha Islands War: Peru allies with Chile against Spain. 1895 – New Haven Symphony Orchestra of Connecticut performs its first concert.
1901–present 1914 – The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition begins in an attempt to make the first land crossing of Antarctica. 1919 – Ukrainian War of Independence: The Polonsky conspiracy is suppressed and its participants are executed by the Kontrrazvedka. 1921 – The Football Association bans women's football in England from league grounds, a ban that stays in place for 50 years. 1933 – The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, repealing Prohibition in the United States. 1934 – Abyssinia Crisis: Italian troops attack Wal Wal in Abyssinia, taking four days to capture the city. 1935 – Mary McLeod Bethune founds the National Council of Negro Women in New York City. 1936 – The Soviet Union adopts a new constitution and the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic is established as a full Union Republic of the USSR. 1941 – World War II: In the Battle of Moscow, Georgy Zhukov launches a massive Soviet counter-attack against the German army. 1941 – World War II: Great Britain declares war on Finland, Hungary and Romania. 1943 – World War II: Allied air forces begin attacking Germany's secret weapons bases in Operation Crossbow. 1945 – Flight 19, a group of TBF Avengers, disappears in the Bermuda Triangle. 1952 – Beginning of the Great Smog in London. A cold fog combines with air pollution and brings the city to a standstill for four days. Later, a Ministry of Health report estimates 4,000 fatalities as a result of it. 1955 – The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge and form the AFL–CIO. 1955 – The Civil Rights Movement: the Montgomery bus boycott begins, led by E. D. Nixon and Rosa Parks. 1958 – Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) is inaugurated in the United Kingdom by Queen Elizabeth II when she speaks to the Lord Provost in a call from Bristol to Edinburgh. 1958 – The Preston By-pass, the UK's first stretch of motorway, opens to traffic for the first time. (It is now part of the M6 and M55 motorways.) 1964 – Vietnam War: For his heroism in battle earlier in the year, Captain Roger Donlon is awarded the first Medal of Honor of the war. 1964 – Lloyd J. Old discovers the first linkage between the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and disease—mouse leukemia—opening the way for the recognition of the importance of the MHC in the immune response. 1971 – Battle of Gazipur: Pakistani forces are defeated as India cedes Gazipur to Bangladesh. 1977 – Egypt breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria, Iraq and South Yemen in retaliation to preventing President Anwar el-Sadat from pursuing negotiations with Israel at the Tripoli confer. 1983 – Dissolution of the Military Junta in Argentina. 1991 – Leonid Kravchuk is elected the first president of Ukraine. 1994 – The Budapest Memorandum is signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary. 1995 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lanka's government announces the conquest of the Tamil stronghold of Jaffna. 1995 – Azerbaijan Airlines Flight A-56 crashes near Nakhchivan International Airport in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan, killing 52 people. 2001 – Space Shuttle Endeavour launches on STS-108, carrying the Expedition 4 crew to the International Space Station. 2005 – The Civil Partnership Act comes into effect in the United Kingdom, and the first civil partnership is registered there. 2005 – The 6.8 Lake Tanganyika earthquake shakes the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing six people. 2006 – Commodore Frank Bainimarama overthrows the government in Fiji. 2007 – Westroads Mall shooting: Nineteen-year-old Robert A. Hawkins kills nine people, including himself, with a WASR-10 at a Von Maur department store in Omaha, Nebraska. 2013 – Militants attack a Defense Ministry compound in Sanaa, Yemen, killing at least 56 people and injuring 200 others. 2014 – Exploration Flight Test-1, the first flight test of Orion, is launched. 2017 – The International Olympic Committee bans Russia from competing at the 2018 Winter Olympics for doping at the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Births Pre-1600 852 – Zhu Wen, Chinese emperor (died 912) 1377 – Jianwen Emperor of China (died 1402) 1389 – Zbigniew Oleśnicki, Polish cardinal and statesman (died 1455) 1443 – Pope Julius II (died 1513) 1470 – Willibald Pirckheimer, German lawyer and author (died 1530) 1495 – Nicolas Cleynaerts, Flemish philologist and lexicographer (died 1542) 1537 – Ashikaga Yoshiaki, Japanese shōgun (died 1597) 1539 – Fausto Sozzini, Italian theologian and author (died 1604) 1547 – Ubbo Emmius, Dutch historian and geographer (died 1625) 1556 – Anne Cecil, Countess of Oxford, English countess (died 1588) 1596 – Henry Lawes, English composer (died 1662)
1601–1900 1661 – Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, English lawyer and politician, Secretary of State for the Northern Department (died 1724) 1666 – Francesco Scarlatti, Italian violinist and composer (died 1741) 1687 – Francesco Geminiani, Italian violinist and composer (died 1762) 1697 – Giuseppe de Majo, Italian organist and composer (died 1771) 1782 – Martin Van Buren, American lawyer and politician, 8th President of the United States (died 1862) 1784 – George Shepherd, English illustrator and painter (died 1862) 1803 – Fyodor Tyutchev, Russian poet and diplomat (died 1873) 1820 – Afanasy Fet, Russian poet and author (died 1892) 1822 – Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz, American philosopher and academic, co-founded Radcliffe College (died 1907) 1829 – Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière, French-Canadian lawyer and politician, 4th Premier of Quebec (died 1908) 1830 – Christina Rossetti, English poet and author (died 1894) 1839 – George Armstrong Custer, American general (died 1876) 1841 – Marcus Daly, Irish-American businessman (died 1900) 1849 – Eduard Seler, German anthropologist, ethnohistorian, linguist, and academic (died 1922) 1855 – Clinton Hart Merriam, American zoologist, ornithologist, entomologist, and ethnographer (died 1942) 1859 – John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, English admiral and politician, 2nd Governor-General of New Zealand (died 1935) 1861 – Konstantin Korovin, Russian-French painter and set designer (died 1939) 1862 – John Henry Leech, English entomologist (died 1900) 1863 – Paul Painlevé, French mathematician and politician, 84th Prime Minister of France (died 1933) 1866 – John Beresford, Irish polo player (died 1944) 1866 – Traian Demetrescu, Romanian poet and author (died 1896) 1867 – Antti Aarne, Finnish author and academic (died 1925) 1867 – Józef Piłsudski, Polish field marshal and politician, 15th Prime Minister of Poland (died 1935) 1868 – Arnold Sommerfeld, German physicist and academic (died 1951) 1869 – Ellis Parker Butler, American author and poet (died 1937) 1870 – Vítězslav Novák, Czech composer and educator (died 1949) 1872 – Harry Nelson Pillsbury, American chess player (died 1906) 1875 – Arthur Currie, Canadian general (died 1933) 1879 – Clyde Vernon Cessna, American pilot and businessman, founded the Cessna Aircraft Corporation (died 1954) 1881 – René Cresté, French actor and director (died 1922) 1886 – Rose Wilder Lane, American journalist and author (died 1968) 1886 – Pieter Oud, Dutch historian, academic, and politician, Minister of Finance of the Netherlands (died 1968) 1886 – Nikolai Uglanov, Soviet politician (died 1937) 1888 – Sabás Reyes Salazar, Mexican Catholic priest (died 1927) 1890 – David Bomberg, English painter, illustrator, and academic (died 1957) 1890 – Fritz Lang, Austrian-American director, producer, and screenwriter (died 1976) 1891 – Paul Kogerman, Estonian chemist and academic (died 1951) 1894 – Charles Robberts Swart, South African lawyer and politician, 1st State President of South Africa (died 1982) 1895 – Elbert Frank Cox, American mathematician and academic (died 1969) 1896 – Ann Nolan Clark, American historian, author, and educator (died 1995) 1896 – Carl Ferdinand Cori, Czech-American biochemist and pharmacologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1984) 1897 – Nunnally Johnson, American director, producer, and screenwriter (died 1977) 1897 – Gershom Scholem, German-Israeli philosopher and historian (died 1982) 1898 – Josh Malihabadi, Indian-Pakistani poet and translator (died 1982) 1898 – Grace Moore, American soprano and actress (died 1947) 1900 – Jimmy Dimmock, English footballer (died 1972)
1901–present
1901 – Walt Disney, American animator, director, producer, and screenwriter, co-founded The Walt Disney Company (died 1966) 1901 – Milton H. Erickson, American psychiatrist and author (died 1980) 1901 – Werner Heisenberg, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1976) 1902 – Emeric Pressburger, Hungarian-English director, producer, and screenwriter (died 1988) 1902 – Strom Thurmond, American educator, general, and politician, 103rd Governor of South Carolina (died 2003) 1903 – Johannes Heesters, Dutch-German actor and singer (died 2011) 1903 – C. F. Powell, English-Italian physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1969) 1905 – Francisco Javier Arana, Guatemalan Army colonel and briefly Guatemalan head of state (died 1949) 1905 – Otto Preminger, Austrian-American actor, director, and producer (died 1986) 1907 – Lin Biao, Chinese general and politician, 2nd Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China (died 1971) 1907 – Giuseppe Occhialini, Italian-French physicist and academic (died 1993) 1910 – Abraham Polonsky, American director and screenwriter (died 1999)