• 1026 - Pope John XIX crowns Conrad II as Holy Roman Emperor.
• 1484 - William Caxton printed his translation of Aesop's Fables.
• 1552 - Guru Amar Das becomes the Third Sikh Guru.
• 1636 - Utrecht University is founded in The Netherlands.
• 1808 - Charles IV of Spain abdicates in favor of his son, Ferdinand VII.
• 1812 - An earthquake destroys Caracas, Venezuela.
• 1839 - The first Henley Royal Regatta is held.
• 1852 - Decree regarding streets of Paris passed
• 1881 - Thessaly is freed and becomes part of Greece again.
• 1913 - Balkan War: Bulgarian forces take Adrianople.
• 1917 - World War I: First Battle of Gaza - British troops are halted after 17,000 Turks block their advance.
• 1934 - Driving test introduced in the United Kingdom.
• 1942 - World War II: In Poland, Auschwitz receives its first female prisoners.
• 1945 - World War II: In Iwo Jima, US forces declare Iwo Jima "secure."
• 1953 - Jonas Salk announces his polio vaccine.
• 1958 - The United States Army launches Explorer 3.
• 1958 - The African Regroupment Party (PRA) is launched at a meeting in Paris.
• 1965 - A truck loses control down Moosic Street, Scranton, Pennsylvania, killing the driver. This accident later inspired the 1974 Harry Chapin song, "30,000 Pounds of Bananas."
• 1967 - Ten thousand people gather for the Central Park Be-In.
• 1971 - East Pakistan declares its independence from Pakistan to form People's Republic of Bangladesh and Bangladesh Liberation War begins.
• 1975 - The Biological Weapons Convention enters into force.
• 1976 - Queen Elizabeth II sent out the first royal email, from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment.
• 1977 - Focus on the Family is founded by Dr. James Dobson
• 1979 - Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter sign the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty in Washington, DC.
• 1982 - A groundbreaking ceremony for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is held in Washington, DC.
• 1995 - The Schengen Treaty goes into effect.
• 1996 - The International Monetary Fund approves a $10.2 billion loan for Russia.
• 1997 - Thirty-nine bodies found in the Heaven's Gate cult suicides.
• 1998 - Oued Bouaicha massacre in Algeria; 52 people killed with axes and knives, 32 of them babies under the age of 2.
• 1999 - The "Melissa worm" infects Microsoft word processing and e-mail systems around the world.
• 1999 - A jury in Michigan finds Dr. Jack Kevorkian guilty of second-degree murder for administering a lethal injection to a terminally ill man.
• 2005 - The Taiwanese government calls on 1 million Taiwanese to demonstrate in Taipei, in opposition to the Anti-Secession Law of the People's Republic of China. Around 200,000 to 300,000 attend the walk.
• 2006 - In Scotland, the prohibition of smoking in all substantially enclosed public places comes into force.
• 2006 - The military junta ruling Myanmar officially named Naypyidaw, a new city in Mandalay Division, as the new capital. Yangon had formerly been the nation's capital.

Births