393 – Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his eight-year-old son Honorius co-emperor.
971 – Using crossbows, Song dynasty troops soundly defeat a war elephant corps of the Southern Han at Shao.
1556 – The deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hits Shaanxi province, China. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000.
1570 – James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, regent for the infant King James VI of Scotland, is assassinated by firearm, the first recorded instance of such.
1719 – The Principality of Liechtenstein is created within the Holy Roman Empire.
1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Geneva Medical College of Geneva, New York, becoming the United States’ first female doctor.
1870 – In Montana, U.S. cavalrymen kill 173 Native Americans, mostly women and children, in what becomes known as the Marias Massacre.
1909 – RMS Republic, a passenger ship of the White Star Line, becomes the first ship to use the CQD distress signal after colliding with another ship, the SS Florida, off the Massachusetts coastline, an event that kills six people. The Republic sinks the next day.
1941 – Charles Lindbergh testifies before the U.S. Congress and recommends that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with Adolf Hitler.
1957 – Inventor Walter Frederick Morrison sells the rights to his flying disc to the Wham-O toy company, which later renames it the “Frisbee”.
Trieste was a Swiss-designed Italian-built deep-diving research bathyscaphe_ which with its crew of two reached a record maximum depth of about 35,797 ft. in the deepest known part of the Earth’s oceans
1960 – The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record by descending to 35,797 ft in the Pacific Ocean.
1986 – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first members: Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.
1997 – Madeleine Albright becomes the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State.
2002 – U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan and subsequently murdered.
Births
1719 – John Landen, English mathematician and theorist (d. 1790)
1737 – John Hancock, American general and politician, 1st Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1793)
1832 – Édouard Manet, French painter (d. 1883)
1855 – John Browning, American weapons designer, founded the Browning Arms Company (d. 1926)
1916 – David Douglas Duncan, American photographer and journalist
1922 – Leon Golub, American painter and academic (d. 2004)
1930 – Derek Walcott, Saint Lucian poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2017)
Deaths
1252 – Isabella, Queen of Armenia
1567 – Jiajing Emperor of China (b. 1507)
1944 – Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter and illustrator (b. 1863)
1977 – Toots Shor, American businessman, founded Toots Shor’s Restaurant (b. 1903)
1999 – Jay Pritzker, American businessman, co-founded the Hyatt Corporation (b. 1922)
2005 – Johnny Carson, American talk show host, television personality, and producer (b. 1925)
2007 – E. Howard Hunt, American CIA officer (b. 1918)