Events

Up to 1900 
 1322 - The central tower of Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire, England, falls.
 1462 - The Treaty of Westminster is finalized between Edward IV of England and the Scottish Lord of the Isles.
 1503 - Disfida di Barletta: A tournament between 13 Italian and 13 French knights takes place near Barletta.
 1542 – Catherine Howard, fifth wife of King Henry VIII of England, is executed for adultery.
 1575 - Henry III of France is crowned King.
 1633 – Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the inquisition.
 1660 - Charles XI of Sweden becomes King at the age of 4 years, meaning that a regent rules Sweden until 1672.
 1668 - Spain recognizes Portugal as an independent country.
 1689 - William III and Mary II are crowned King and Queen of England, Ireland and Scotland.
 1692 – At least thirty members of the MacDonald Clan are massacred in Glencoe, Scotland.
 1739 - Battle of Karnal: The army of Persian ruler Nadir Shah defeats the forces of Mughal Emperor of India, Muhammad Shah.
 1857 - British passenger steamer Tempest disappears in the North Atlantic Ocean after leaving New York City, with 150 people on board.
 1858 - Searching for the source of the Nile, Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke become the first Europeans to reach Lake Tanganyika.
 1861 - Francis II of the Two Sicilies surrenders at Gaeta to the army of Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy.
 1880 - Thomas Edison observes the Edison effect.
 1881 - The feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is first published in Paris by the activist Hubertine Auclert.

1901  2000 
 1918 - A magnitude 7.3 earthquake strikes Guangdong province, China.
 1931 – New Delhi becomes the capital city of India.
 1934 - Soviet steamship Cheliuskin sinks in the Arctic Ocean.
 1935 - Bruno Hauptmann is found guilty of kidnapping and murdering the infant son of Charles Lindbergh.
 1944 - Norwegian passenger ship Irma is torpedoed near Kristiansund, killing 61 people. It is revealed after the Second World War that it was a torpedo from the Norwegian Navy that hit the ship.
 1945 – The Royal Air Force bombs the German city of Dresden in World War II.
 1945 - World War II: The Siege of Budapest ends with the unconditional surrender of the German and Hungarian armies to the Red Army.
 1951 - Korean War: The Battle of Chipyong-ni begins.
 1955 – Israel gains four of the seven Dead Sea Scrolls.
 1960 - France becomes the fourth country to own nuclear weapons.
 1961 - A 500,000-year-old rock is discovered near Olancha, California.
 1971 - South Vietnamese troops invade Laos, with American support.
 1978 - A bomb explodes outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, Australia, killing 2 refuse collectors and a police officer.
 1980 - The 1980 Winter Olympics begin in Lake Placid, New York. The games became best known for the Miracle on Ice hockey game on February 22.
 1981 - A series of sewer explosions destroys  more than two miles of streets in Louisville, Kentucky.
 1982 - The Rio Negro massacre occurs in Guatemala.
 1983 - A cinema fire in Turin, Italy, kills 64 people.
 1984 – Konstantin Chernenko becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
 1988 – The Winter Olympic Games open in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Like in 1976, Canada hosts the Olympics without winning a gold medal (They do, however, win a record 14 gold medals when they host the games in Vancouver in 2010).
 1990 - Agreement is reached on a two-stage plan to re-unite Germany.
 1991 – US bombers hit Baghdad in the Gulf War.
 1996 - English pop music group Take That announces that it is splitting. The band re-forms in 2005.
 2000 – The last Peanuts comic strip is printed in newspapers, a day after the death of Charles Schulz.

From 2001 
 2001 – A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hits El Salvador, killing at least 400 people.
 2004 - The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics  announces the discovery of the Universe's largest-known diamond, white dwarf.
 2007 - Taiwan's Opposition leader Ma Ying-jeou resigns as Chairman of the Kuomintang Party.
 2008 – Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd makes a historic apology to Indigenous Australians and the Stolen Generations.
 2010 - A bomb attack in Pune, Maharashtra, India, kills 17 people.
 2011 – After the removal of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the army suspends the constitution, and announces that it will remain in power until elections later in the year.
 2012 - The European Space Agency's Vega rocket is launched from French Guiana.
 2014 - Prime Minister of Italy Enrico Letta announces his intention to resign, less than ten months into the job, after instabilities in his coalition government.
 2014 - Belgium's parliament votes to extend its euthanasia law to terminally-ill children, becoming the first country to allow euthanasia for people of all ages.
 2017 - Kim Jong-nam (older half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un) is murdered at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia.

Births

Up to 1900 
 1457 - Mary of Burgundy, Holy Roman Empress (d. 1482)
 1480 - Girolamo Aleandro, Italian cardinal (d. 1542)
 1539 - Elisabeth of Hesse, Electress Palatine (d. 1582)
 1599 - Pope Alexander VII (d. 1667)
 1683 – Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, Italian painter (d. 1754)
 1721 - John Reid, Scottish general (d. 1807)
 1728 - John Hunter, Scottish anatomist (d. 1793)
 1734 - Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec, French explorer and naval officer (d. 1797)
 1766 - Thomas Balthus, English economist (d. 1834)
 1768 - Edouard Adolphe Casimir Joseph Mortier, Marshal of France (d. 1835)
 1769 - Ivan Krylov, Russian writer (d. 1844)
 1805 – Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, German mathematician (d. 1859)
 1831 - John Aaron Rawlins, 29th United States Secretary of War (d. 1869)
 1834 - Heinrich Caro, German chemist (d. 1910)
 1835 - Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, Islamic religious leader (d. 1908)
 1837 - Valentin Zubiaurre, Spanish composer (d. 1914)
 1849 – Lord Randolph Churchill, British politician, father of Winston Churchill (d. 1895)
 1849 - Friedrich Wilhelm Voigt, German impostor, Captain of Köpenick (d. 1922)
 1855 – Paul Deschanel, President of France (d. 1922)
 1866 - Lev Shestov, Russian philosopher (d. 1938)
 1867 - Harold Mahony, Scottish-Irish tennis player (d. 1903)
 1870 - Leopold Godowsky, Polish-American pianist and composer (d. 1938)
 1873 - Feodor Chaliapin, Russian opera singer (d. 1938)
 1876 - Fritz Buelow, German-American baseball player (d. 1933)
 1879 - Sarojini Naidu, Indian freedom fighter (d. 1949)
 1880 - Dimitrie Gusti, Romanian sociologist, ethnologist, historian and philosopher (d. 1955)
 1883 - Hal Chase, American baseball player (d. 1947)
 1884 - Alfred Carlton Gilbert, American athlete, inventor and businessman (d. 1961)
 1885 - George Fitzmaurice, American-French director (d. 1940)
 1885 – Bess Truman, First Lady of the United States (d. 1982)
 1888 – Georgios Papandreou, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1968)
 1891 – Grant Wood, American painter (d. 1942)
 1892 - Robert H. Jackson, 57th United States Attorney General (d. 1954)

1901  1950 
 1901 - Paul Lazarsfeld, Austrian-American sociologist (d. 1976)
 1901 - Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Scottish writer (d. 1935)
 1902 - Harold Lasswell, American political scientist (d. 1978)
 1903 - Georgy Beriev, Russian aircraft designer (d. 1979)
 1903 – Georges Simenon, Belgian writer (d. 1989)
 1906 - Agostinho da Silva, Portuguese philosopher (d. 1994)
 1909 - Mario Casariego y Acevedo, Guatemalan cardinal (d. 1983)
 1910 – William Shockley, British-American physicist (d. 1989)
 1911 - Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Pakistani Urdu poet (d. 1984)
 1911 - Jean Muir, American actress (d. 1996)
 1913 - Khalid bin Abdul-Aziz, King of Saudi Arabia (d. 1982)
 1915 – Aung San, Burmese revolutionary, nationalist, general, and politician (d. 1947)
 1915 - lyle Bettger, American actor (d. 2003)
 1916 – John Reed, British singer of Gilbert and Sullivan (d. 2010)
 1918 - Patty Berg, American golfer (d. 2006)
 1919 - Tennessee Ernie Ford, American musician (d. 1991)
 1919 - Eddie Robinson, American football coach (d. 2007)
 1921 - Jeanne Demessieux, French organist, pianist and composer (d. 1968)
 1922 - Francis Pym, British politician
 1922 - Gordon Tullock, American economist and academic (d. 2014)
 1923 – Chuck Yeager, American pilot
 1923 - Michael Anthony Bilandic, 49th Mayor of Chicago (d. 2002)
 1923 - James Abdnor, American politician (d. 2012)
 1925 - Stuart Wagstaff, English-Australian entertainer (d. 2015)
 1928 - Gerald Regan, 19th Premier of Nova Scotia
 1929 – Omar Torrijos, President of Panama (d. 1981)
 1930 - Ernst Fuchs, Austrian painter, sculptor and illustrator (d. 2015)
 1930 - Israel Kirzner, English-American economist, author and academic
 1932 - Barbara Shelley, English actress
 1932 - Sarah Oliver, American actress (d. 1990)
 1933 – Paul Biya, President of Cameroon
 1933 – Kim Novak, American actress
 1933 - Peter L. Pond, American activist and philanthropist (d. 2000)
 1933 - Emanuel Ungaro, French fashion designer
 1934 - George Segal, American actor
 1937 - Rupiah Banda, former President of Zambia
 1937 - Sigmund Jaehn, German cosmonaut
 1938 – Oliver Reed, English actor (d. 1999)
 1939 - Valery Rozhdestvensky, Soviet-Russian cosmonaut (d. 2011)
 1939 - Beate Klarsfeld, German activist
 1940 - Bram Peper, Dutch sociologist and politician, former Mayor of Rotterdam
 1941 – Sigmar Polke, German painter (d. 2010)
 1941 - Bo Svenson, Swedish-American actor
 1942 - Katsuaki Watanabe, CEO of Toyota
 1942 – Peter Tork, American musician (Member of The Monkees)
 1942 - Carol Lynley, American actress
 1944 – Jerry Springer, American television host
 1944 – Stockard Channing, American actress
 1944 - Bo Svenson, American actor
 1945 - Wallis Grahn, Swedish actress (d. 2018)
 1945 - King Floyd, American musician (d. 2006)
 1945 - Simon Schama, British historian
 1945 - Marian Dawkins, British biologist
 1946 – Artur Jorge, Portuguese football coach
 1947 – Mike Krzyzewski, American basketball coach
 1947 - Kevin Bloody Wilson, Australian comedian, singer-songwriter and guitarist
 1948 - Kitten Natividad, Mexican-American actress and dancer
 1949 - Peter Kern, Austrian actor, film director, screenwriter and producer (d. 2015)
 1950 – Peter Gabriel, English musician
 1950 - Bob Daisley, Australian musician

1951  1975 
 1952 - Freddy Maertens, Belgian cyclist
 1956 - Liam Brady, Irish footballer
 1956 - Peter Hook, English musician
 1956 - Princess Alia bint Al Hussein of Jordan
 1958 - Pernilla August, Swedish actress
 1958 - Tip Tipping, English actor and stuntman (d. 1993)
 1959 - Gaston Gingras, Canadian ice hockey player
 1960 – Pierluigi Collina, Italian football referee
 1960 - Pia Sundhage, Swedish soccer player and coach
 1960 - Artur Yusupov, Russian-German chess player
 1961 - Marc Crawford, Canadian ice hockey player and coach
 1961 - Henry Rollins, American singer, actor and writer
 1961 - Richard Tyson, American actor
 1962 - Anibal Acevedo Vila, former Governor of Puerto Rico
 1962 - Hugh Dennis, English actor and comedian
 1964 - Stephen Bowen, American engineer, captain and astronaut
 1964 - Ylva Johansson, Swedish politician
 1965 - Peter O'Neill, 7th Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea
 1967 - Stanimir Stoilov, Bulgarian footballer
 1967 - Johnny Tapia, American boxer (d. 2012)
 1968 - Daisuke Ikeda, Japanese professional wrestler
 1968 – Niamh Kavanagh, Irish singer
 1969 - Joyce DiDonato, American mezzo-soprano
 1970 - Elmer Bennett, American basketball player
 1970 - Karoline Krüger, Norwegian singer-songwriter and pianist
 1971 – Mats Sundin, Swedish ice hockey player
 1971 - Todd Williams, American baseball player
 1974 – Robbie Williams, English singer
 1974 - Ana Patricia Rojo, Mexican actress
 1975 – Ben Collins, English racing driver
 1975 - Tony Dalton, American-born actor

From 1976 
 1976 - Suzanne Maddock, British actress
 1978 - Philippe Jaroussky, French tenor
 1979 – Rafael Marquez, Mexican footballer
 1979 - Rachel Reeves, English politician
 1979 – Mena Suvari, American actress
 1979 - Anders Behring Breivik, Norwegian mass murderer (2011 Norway attacks)
 1980 – Sebastian Kehl, German footballer
 1981 - Sam Burley, American athlete
 1981 - Liam Miller, Irish footballer (d. 2018)
 1983 - Anna Watkins, British rower
 1984 - Eveli Saue, Estonian orienteer and athlete
 1985 - Hedwiges Maduro, Dutch footballer
 1985 – Alexandros Tziolis, Greek footballer
 1986 – Jamie Murray, Scottish tennis player
 1987 – Eljero Elia, Dutch footballer
 1988 - Aston Merrygold, British singer (JLS)
 1989 - Carly McKillip, Canadian singer and actress
 1989 - Rodrigo Possebon, Brazilian footballer
 1990 - Gyaincain Norbu, 11th Panchen Lama
 1990 - Mamadou Sakho, French footballer
 1993 - Alex Sawyer, British actor, director and singer
 1994 - Memphis Depay, Dutch footballer
 1995 - Ayame Koike, Japanese actress

Deaths

Up to 1900 
 721 - Chilperic II (b. 672)
 858 – Kenneth I of Scotland
 1130 - Pope Honorius II
 1141 - Bela II of Hungary (b. 1110)
 1199 - Stefan Nemanja, Serbian Grand Prince (b. 1113)
 1219 - Minamoto no Sanetomo, Japanese shogun (b. 1192)
 1332 - Andronik II Palaiologus, Emperor of the Byzantine Empire (b. 1250)
 1539 - Isabella d'Este, Italian Renaissance figure (b. 1474)
 1542 – Catherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII of England (b. 1521)
 1571 – Benvenuto Cellini, Italian artist (b. 1500)
 1592 - Jacopo Bassano, Italian painter (b. 1510)
 1600 - Gian Paolo Lomazzo, Italian painter (b. 1538)
 1608 - Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski, Lithuanian Prince (b. 1526)
 1660 – Charles X, King of Sweden (b. 1622)
 1662 – Elizabeth of Bohemia (b. 1596)
 1693 - Johann Kaspar Kerli, German organist and composer (b. 1627)
 1728 - Cotton Mather, American Puritan minister (b. 1663)
 1741 - Johann Joseph Fux, Austrian composer (b. 1660)
 1787 - Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, French statesman and diplomat (b. 1717)
 1787 - Roger Joseph Boscovich, Croat-Italian physicist (b. 1711)
 1813 - Samuel Ashe, Governor of North Carolina (b. 1725)
 1837 - Mariano Jose de Larra, Spanish journalist and writer (b. 1809)
 1883 – Richard Wagner, German composer (b. 1813)
 1888 - Jean-Baptiste Lamy, French-American archbishop (b. 1814)
 1889 - Joao Mauricio Wanderley, Brazilian magistrate and politician (b. 1815)

1901  2000 
 1905 - Konstantin Savitsky, Russian painter (b. 1844)
 1906 - Albert Gottschalk, Danish painter (b. 1866)
 1909 - Hugo Egmont Horring, Prime Minister of Denmark (b. 1842)
 1916 - Carlos Antonio Mendoza, 3rd President of Panama (b. 1856)
 1934 - Jozsef Pusztai, Slovenian-Hungarian writer (b. 1864)
 1942 - Epitacio Pessoa, President of Brazil (b. 1865)
 1943 - Neyyire Neyir, Turkish actress (b. 1902)
 1954 - Agnes MacPhail, Canadian politician (b. 1890)
 1956 - Jan Lukasiewicz, Polish mathematician (b. 1878)
 1958 – Dame Christabel Pankhurst, British suffragette (b. 1880)
 1958 - Georges Rouault, French painter (b. 1871)
 1964 – Werner Heyde, German psychiatrist (b. 1902)
 1968 - Mae Marsh, American actress (b. 1895)
 1974 - Ustad Amir Khan, Indian classical singer (b. 1912)
 1975 - Andre Beaufre, French general (b. 1902)
 1976 - Murtala Mohammed, Nigerian military leader (b. 1938)
 1976 - Lily Pons, French-American soprano and actress (b. 1904)
 1980 – Marian Rejewski, Polish mathematician (b. 1905)
 1982 - Zeng Jinlian, tallest woman ever (b. 1964)
 1988 - John Curulewski, American guitarist (Styx) (b. 1950)
 1991 - Arno Breker, German sculptor (b. 1900)
 1992 – Nikolay Bogolyubov, Russian mathematician (b. 1909)
 1993 - Willoughby Gray, British actor (b. 1916)

From 2001 
 2002 – Waylon Jennings, American musician (b. 1937)
 2004 - Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, Chechen politician (b. 1952)
 2005 – Maurice Trintignant, French racing driver (b. 1917)
 2006 – Peter Frederick Strawson, British philosopher (b. 1919)
 2007 - Johanna Sallstrom, Swedish actress (b. 1974)
 2008 – Kon Ichikawa, Japanese movie director and producer (b. 1915)
 2008 – Henri Salvador, French singer and guitarist (b. 1917)
 2010 – John Reed, British singer of Gilbert and Sullivan (b. 1916)
 2011 – Inese Jaunzeme, Latvian javelin thrower (b. 1932)
 2013 - Pieter Kooijmans, Dutch politician (b. 1933)
 2014 - Balu Mahendra, Indian moviemaker and screenwriter (b. 1939)
 2014 - Richard Moller Nielsen, Danish footballer and coach (b. 1937)
 2014 - Piero D'Inzeo, Italian equestrian show jumper (b. 1923)
 2014 - Ralph Waite, American actor (b. 1928)
 2015 - Kesava Reddy, Indian writer (b. 1946)
 2015 - Stan Chambers, American journalist (b. 1923)
 2016 - Antonin Scalia, United States Supreme Court Justice (b. 1936)
 2016 - O. N. V. Kurup, Indian poet, lyricist and politician (b. 1931)
 2016 - Trifon Ivanov, Bulgarian footballer (b. 1965) 
 2016 - Christopher Zeeman, British mathematician (b. 1925)
 2017 - Sara Coward, British actress (b. 1948)
 2017 - Kim Jong-nam, half-brother of Kim Jong-un (b. 1971)
 2017 - Jan Grabowski, Polish speedway rider (b. 1950)
 2017 - Lucky Pulpit, American-trained racehorse (b. 2001)
 2017 - E-dubble, American rapper (b. 1982)
 2017 - Harold Denton, American public servant (b. 1936)
 2017 - Bruce Lansbury, English-American television producer (b. 1930)
 2017 - Seijun Suzuki, Japanese director, screenwriter and actor (b. 1923)
 2018 - Joseph Bonnel, French footballer (b. 1939)
 2018 - Dobri Dobrev, Bulgarian ascetic and philanthropist (b. 1914)
 2018 - Tito Francona, American baseball player (b. 1933)
 2018 - Henrik, Prince Consort of Denmark (b. 1934)
 2018 - Josefina Samper, Spanish communist and feminist (b. 1927)

Observances 
 World Radio Day

Days of the year