1866 – The Royal Aeronautical Society is formed in London.
1908 – A long-distance radio message is sent from the Eiffel Tower for the first time.
1932 – Hattie Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate. Hattie Ophelia Wyatt Caraway was an American political figure who became the first woman elected to serve a full term as a United States Senator. Caraway represented Arkansas. She was the first woman to preside over the Senate.
1967 – Dr. James Bedford becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation.
1971 – The Harrisburg Seven: Rev. Philip Berrigan and five other activists are indicted on charges of conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger and of plotting to blow up the heating tunnels of federal buildings in Washington, D.C.
1998 – Nineteen European nations agree to forbid human cloning.
2004 – The world’s largest ocean liner, RMS Queen Mary 2, makes its maiden voyage.
2010 – An earthquake in Haiti occurs, killing over 100,000 people and destroying much of the capital Port-au-Prince.
Births
1822 – Étienne Lenoir, Belgian engineer, designed the internal combustion engine (d. 1900)
1856 – John Singer Sargent, American painter and academic (d. 1925)
1944 – Joe Frazier, American boxer (d. 2011)
1997 – Theo Eric Simko, born New York City, junior at Wesleyan University
Deaths
1519 – Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1459)
1665 – Pierre de Fermat, French mathematician and lawyer (b. 1601)