AD 60 – The earliest date for which the day of the week is known. A graffito in Pompeii identifies this day as a dies Solis (Sunday). In modern reckoning, this date would have been a Wednesday.
1685 – James II of England and VII of Scotland becomes King upon the death of his brother Charles II.
1778 – American Revolutionary War: In Paris the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce are signed by the United States and France signaling official recognition of the new republic.
1815 – New Jersey grants the first American railroad charter to John Stevens.
1843 – The first minstrel show in the United States, The Virginia Minstrels, opens at Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City.
1918 – British women over the age of 30 who meet minumum property qualifications, get the right to vote when Representation of the People Act 1918 is passed by Parliament.
1951 – The Broker, a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derails near Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. The accident kills 85 people and injures over 500 more. The wreck is one of the worst rail disasters in American history.
1952 – Elizabeth II becomes queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms upon the death of her father, George VI. At the exact moment of succession, she was in a tree house at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya.
1959 – Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated circuit.
1959 – At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.
1978 – The Blizzard of 1978, one of the worst Nor’easters in New England history, hit the region, with sustained winds of 65 mph and snowfall of four inches an hour.
Births
1695 – Nicolaus II Bernoulli, Swiss-Russian mathematician and theorist (d. 1726)
1726 – Patrick Russell, Scottish surgeon and zoologist (d. 1805)
1756 – Aaron Burr, American colonel and politician, 3rd Vice President of the United States (d. 1836)
1895 – Babe Ruth, American baseball player and coach (d. 1948)
1911 – Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States (d. 2004)
1912 – Eva Braun, German wife of Adolf Hitler (d. 1945)
1913 – Mary Leakey, English-Kenyan archaeologist and anthropologist (d. 1996)
1932 – François Truffaut, French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1984)
Deaths
1685 – Charles II of England (b. 1630)
1804 – Joseph Priestley, English chemist and theologian (b. 1733)
1918 – Gustav Klimt, Austrian painter and illustrator (b. 1862)
1993 – Arthur Ashe, American tennis player and sportscaster (b. 1943)
2012 – Antoni Tàpies, Spanish painter and sculptor (b. 1923)