• 1419 - First Defenestration of Prague.
• 1502 - Christopher Columbus lands at Guanaja in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras during his fourth voyage.
• 1608 - At Ticonderoga (now Crown Point, New York), Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs. This was to set the tone for French-Iroquois relations for the next one hundred years.
• 1619 - In Jamestown, Virginia, the first representative assembly in the Americas, the House of Burgesses, convenes for the first time.
• 1629 - An earthquake in Naples, Italy kills 10,000 people.
• 1729 - Baltimore, Maryland is founded.
• 1733 - First Freemasons lodge opened in what will become the United States.
• 1756 - Bartolomeo Rastrelli presents the newly-built Catherine Palace to Empress Elizabeth and her courtiers.
• 1825 - Malden Island discovered.
• 1863 - Indian Wars: Chief Pocatello of the Shoshone tribe signs the Treaty of Box Elder, promising to stop harassing the emigrant trails in southern Idaho and northern Utah.
• 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of the Crater - Union forces attempt to break Confederate lines by exploding a large bomb under their trenches.
• 1866 - New Orleans's Democratic government ordered police to raid an integrated Republican Party meeting, killing 40 people and injuring 150.
• 1871 - The Staten Island Ferry Westfield's boiler explodes, killing over 85 people.
• 1930 - In Montevideo, Uruguay win the first Football World Cup.
• 1932 - Olympic Games: The Games of the X Olympiad open in Los Angeles, California.
• 1932 - Walt Disney's Flowers and Trees, the first Academy Award winning cartoon and first cartoon short to use Technicolor, premieres.
• 1945 - World War II: Japanese submarine I-58 sinks the USS Indianapolis (CA-35), killing 883 seamen.
• 1953 - Rikidōzan holds a ceremony announcing the establishment of the Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance.
• 1954 - Elvis Presley makes his debut as a public performer.
• 1956 - A Joint resolution of the U.S. Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing "In God We Trust" as the U.S. national motto.
• 1965 - US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid.
• 1966 - England national football team win 1966 FIFA World Cup beating West Germany 4-2 in the Final
• 1969 - Vietnam War: US President Richard M. Nixon makes an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam and meets with President Nguyen Van Thieu and with U.S. military commanders.
• 1971 - Apollo program: Apollo 15 Mission - David Scott and James Irwin on Apollo Lunar Module module, Falcon, land with first Lunar Rover on the moon.
• 1971 - An All Nippon Airways Boeing 727 and a Japanese Air Force F-86 collide over Morioka, Japan killing 162.
• 1974 - Watergate Scandal: US President Richard M. Nixon releases subpoenaed White House recordings after being ordered to do so by the United States Supreme Court.
• 1975 - Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again.
• 1980 - Vanuatu gains independence.
• 1990 - The first Saturn automobile rolls off the assembly line.
• 1997 - Eighteen lives are lost in the Thredbo Landslide in New South Wales, Australia.
• 2002 - The accounting law referred to as "The Sarbanes Oxley Act" was signed into law by United States President George W. Bush.
• 2003 - In Mexico, the last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line.
• 2006 - World's longest running music show Top of the Pops broadcast for the last time on BBC Two. The show had aired for 42 years.
• 2006 - At least 28 Lebanese civilians, including 16 children, were killed when Israel Air Force attacked a building in Qana in what is called the Second Qana massacre.
• 2007 - John Brumby becomes Premier of Victoria following the resignation of Steve Bracks.

Births