• 534 - A second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus is published.
• 1384 - Jadwiga is crowned King of Poland, although she's a woman.
• 1491 - An auto de fe, held in the Brasero de la Dehesa outside of Ávila, concludes the case of the Holy Child of La Guardia with the public execution of several Jewish and converso suspects.
• 1532 - Francisco Pizarro and his men capture Inca Emperor Atahualpa.
• 1632 - The Battle of Lützen, where King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden is killed.
• 1776 - American Revolutionary War: Hessian mercenaries capture Fort Washington from the Patriots.
• 1776 - American Revolution: The United Provinces (Low Countries) recognize the independence of the United States.
• 1805 - Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Schöngrabern - Russian forces under Bagration delay the pursuit by French troops under Murat.
• 1821 - American Old West: Missouri trader William Becknell arrives in Santa Fe, New Mexico over a route that became known as the Santa Fe Trail.
• 1849 - A Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group; his sentence is later commuted to hard labor.
• 1857 - Second relief of Lucknow. The most Victoria Crosses won in a single day with 24.
• 1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Campbell's Station near Knoxville, Tennessee. Confederate troops unsuccessfully attack Union forces.
• 1885 - Canadian rebel leader of the Métis and "Father of Manitoba", Louis Riel is executed for treason.
• 1907 - Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory become Oklahoma and are admitted as the 46th U.S. state.
• 1907 - Cunard Line's RMS Mauretania sister ship of RMS Lusitania, sets sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England to New York City.
• 1914 - The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens.
• 1938 - LSD is first synthesized by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland.
• 1940 - World War II: In response to Germany's leveling of Coventry, England two days before, the Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg.
• 1940 - Holocaust: In occupied Poland, the Nazis close off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world.
• 1943 - World War II: American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway.
• 1944 - Dueren, Germany is completely destroyed by Allied bombers.
• 1945 - Cold War: The United States Army secretly admits 88 German scientists and engineers to help in the development of rocket technology.
• 1945 - UNESCO is founded.
• 1965 - Venera program: The Soviet Union launches the Venera 3 space probe toward Venus, the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet.
• 1973 - Skylab program: NASA launches Skylab 4 with a crew of three astronauts from Cape Canaveral, Florida for an 84-day mission.
• 1973 - U.S. President Richard Nixon signs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline.
• 1979 - The first line of Bucharest Metro (Line M1) is opened from Timpuri Noi to Semanatoarea in Bucharest, Romania.
• 1988 - The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR declares that Estonia was "sovereign" but stopped short of declaring independence.
• 1988 - In the first open election in more than a decade, voters in Pakistan elect populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be Prime Minister of Pakistan.
• 1989 - A death squad composed of El Salvadoran army troops kills six Jesuit priests and two others at Jose Simeon Canas University.
• 1989 - UNESCO adopts the Seville Statement on Violence at the twenty-fifth session of its General Conference.
• 1997 - After nearly 18 years of incarceration, the People's Republic of China releases Wei Jingsheng, a pro-democracy dissident, from jail for medical reasons.
• 2000 - Bill Clinton becomes the first U.S. President to visit Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War.

Births