48 BC – Pompey the Great is assassinated on the orders of King Ptolemy of Egypt after landing in Egypt.
235 – Pope Pontian resigns. He and Hippolytus, church leader of Rome, are exiled to the mines of Sardinia.
1066 – William the Conqueror invades England beginning the Norman conquest of England.
1538 – Ottoman-Venetian War: The Ottoman Navy scores a decisive victory over a Holy League fleet in the Battle of Preveza.
1787 – The newly completed United States Constitution is voted on by the U.S. Congress to be sent to the state legislatures for approval.
1791 – France becomes the first country to emancipate its Jewish population.
1871 – The Brazilian Parliament passes the Law of the Free Womb, granting freedom to all new children born to slaves, the first major step in the eradication of slavery in Brazil.
1924 – First round-the-world flight completed.
1928 – Sir Alexander Fleming notices a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory, discovering what later became known as penicillin.
1970 – Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser dies of a heart attack in Cairo. Anwar Sadat is named as Nasser’s temporary successor, and will later become the permanent successor.
1973 – The ITT Building in New York City is bombed in protest at ITT’s alleged involvement in the September 11, 1973 coup d’état in Chile.
1994 – The cruise ferry MS Estonia sinks in Baltic Sea, killing 852 people.
2008 – SpaceX launches the first private spacecraft, the Falcon 1 into orbit.
Births
551 BC – Confucius, Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history. (d. 479 BC)
1852 – Henri Moissan, chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1907)
1901 – William S. Paley, American broadcaster, founded CBS (d. 1990)
1901 – Ed Sullivan, American television host (d. 1974)
1905 – Max Schmeling, German boxer (d. 2005)
1924 – Marcello Mastroianni, Italian-French actor and singer (d. 1996)
1925 – Seymour Cray, American computer scientist, founded the CRAY Computer Company (d. 1996)
1967 – Moon Zappa, American actress and author
Deaths
48 BC – Pompey, Roman general and politician (b. 106 BC)
1891 – Herman Melville, American author and poet (b. 1819)
1895 – Louis Pasteur, French chemist and microbiologist (b. 1822)
1964 – Harpo Marx, American comedian, actor, and singer (b. 1888)
1966 – André Breton, French author and poet (b. 1896)
1978 – Pope John Paul I (b. 1912)
1991 – Miles Davis, trumpet player, composer, and bandleader (b. 1926)
2003 – Elia Kazan, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1909)
2016 – Shimon Peres, Polish-born Israeli statesman and politician (b. 1923)