EVENTS
- 1821 – The Santa Fe Trail is used by a trader for the first time.
- 1896 – First transmission of electricity between a power plant and a city was sent from the Niagara Falls hydroelectric plant to Buffalo, New York.
- 1904 – The vacuum tube, precursor to the transistor, is invented by John Ambrose Fleming.
- 1918 – Hungary was proclaimed an independent republic following the break up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
- 1933 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced the U.S. and Soviet Russia had resumed diplomatic relations, suspended since 1919.
- 1940 – Warsaw ghetto sealed. The largest Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland, the Warsaw ghetto, was created in October 1940 by a German decree. According to the decree, all Jews in the city had to move to the ghetto, which was closed off by a 10 feet wall and had soldiers and police guarding it from the outside 24 hours a day. The ghetto was the scene of one of the largest Jewish uprisings during the Second World War in 1943.
- 1945 – UNESCO founded. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a special branch of the United Nations which promotes peace and well-being through education, scientific collaboration and cultural understanding and exchange. It is headquartered in Paris, France and has 195 state members.
- 1959 – The Sound of Music, a Broadway musical, opens.
- 1965 – Soviets launch Venera 3. Part of the Venera program, it was the first space probe to land on another planet – Venus. Unfortunately, due to technical issues, it was not able to send any data back to Earth. The first space probe to send data from another planet to Earth was Venera 7.
- 1988 – Estonians declare sovereignty from USSR. Estonians issued the Estonian Sovereignty Declaration as part of the Singing Revolution. The Declaration declared Estonian sovereignty from the Soviet Union and declared Estonian laws paramount over Soviet laws. The day is now celebrated as the Day of Declaration of Sovereignty.
- 1989 – South African President F.W. de Klerk announced the abandonment of the Separate Amenities Act, thus opening the country’s beaches to all races.
- 1995 – The United Nations charged Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, and his military commander, Ratko Mladic, with genocide.
- 2001 – The first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, is released.
BIRTHDAYS
- 42 B – C Tiberius (Roman Emperor)
- 1922 – José Saramago (Portuguese author, Nobel Prize laureate)
- 1930 – Chinua Achebe (Nigerian author, poet, academic)
- 1952 – Shigeru Miyamoto (Nintendo game designer)
- 1964 – Dwight Gooden (Baseball pitcher)
- 1970 – Marth Plimpton (Actress)
- 1977 – Maggie Gyllnehaal (Actress)
- 1977 – Oksana Baiul (Figure Skater)
- 1982 – Amare Stoudemire (NBA basketball player)
DEATHS
- 1724 – Jack Sheppard (English criminal)
- 1885 – Louis Riel (Canadian politician)
- 1960 – Clark Gable (American actor)
- 1980 – Jayan (Indian actor)
- 2006 – Milton Friedman (American economist, Nobel Prize laureate)