Events

Up to 1900 
 571 BC - Servius Tullius, King of Rome, celebrates his victory over the Etruscans.
 1120 - The White Ship sinks in the English Channel, drowning over 300 people, including William Adelin, son and heir to King Henry I of England.
 1177 - Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and Raynald of Chatillon defeats Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard.
 1343 - An earthquake and tsunami damage the area around Naples.
 1487 - Elizabeth of York is crowned Queen of England.
 1491 - The Siege of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, begins.
 1610 - Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc discovers the Orion Nebula.
 1667 – A deadly earthquake rocks Shemakha, in the Caucasus, killing 80,000 people.
 1703 - The Great Storm of 1703 across southern Great Britain reaches its height.
 1758 – French and Indian War: British forces capture Fort Duquesne from French control.
 1758 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is founded.
 1759 - Beirut and Damascus are destroyed by an earthquake, killing between 30,000 and 40,000 people.
 1783 – American Revolutionary War: The last British troops leave New York City three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris.
 1795 - Stanislaus August Poniatowski, the last King of independent Poland, is forced to abdicate and is exiled to Russia.
 1833 - A massive undersea earthquake affects Sumatra.
 1839 – A cyclone slams India with high winds and a 40 foot storm surge, destroying the port city of Coringa (never to be entirely rebuilt again). The storm wave sweeps inland, taking with it 20,000 ships and thousands of people. An estimated 300,000 deaths result from the disaster.
 1863 – American Civil War: Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant defeat Confederate forces under Braxton Bragg in the Battle of Chattanooga. The Union therefore take control of Tennessee.
 1867 – Alfred Nobel patents dynamite.
 1885 – The Banff National Park in Alberta becomes the first National Park in Canada.

1901  1950 
 1905 – Prince Carl of Denmark arrives in Norway to become King Haakon VII.
 1915 - The Ku Klux Klan is re-founded in Stone Mountain, Georgia, United States.
 1926 - A November tornado outbreak strikes the Midwestern United States, killing 76 people, including 51 in Arkansas alone.
 1941 - HMS Barham is sunk by a German torpedo during World War II.
 1943 – Statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina was re-established at the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia.
 1944 – World War II: US forces defeat Japanese forces in the Battle of Peleliu, in Palau, in the western Pacific Ocean.
 1947 – New Zealand ratifies the Statute of Westminster and thus becomes independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom.
 1947 - Red Scare: Hollywood Ten - Hollywood Movie Studios make a blacklist of alleged Communists.
 1950 – The People's Republic of China joins the Korean War, sending thousands of troops across the Yalu river border to fight United Nations forces.

1951  2000 
 1953 – For the first time, the England national football team loses against a team from Continental Europe; the Hungary national football team, by 6-3 at Wembley Stadium.
 1958 - French Sudan gains autonomy.
 1960 - The Mirabal sisters are murdered in the Dominican Republic.
 1963 – President John F. Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
 1970 - In Japan, Yukio Mishima and one compatriot (someone from the same country) commit ritualistic suicide after an unsuccessful coup attempt.
 1973 - In Greece, Georgios Papadopoulos is overthrown in a coup led by Dimitrios Ioannidis.
 1975 – Suriname gains independence from the Netherlands.
 1975 – The dictators of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay form Operation Condor, which aims to track down and kill anyone who expresses left-wing opinions.
 1980 - Saye Zerbo, in Burkina Faso, overthrows President Sangoule Lamizana, in a coup.
 1984 – 36 top musicians gather in a Notting Hill studio and record Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas" in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.
 1986 - The Iran Contra Affair begins as United States Attorney General Edwin Meese announces that profits from secret weapons sales to Iran were illegally diverted to anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua.
 1986 - The King Fahd Causeway opens, linking Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
 1987 – Typhoon Nina pummels the Philippines with category 5 winds of 165 mph and a surge that swallows entire villages. at least 1,036 deaths caused by the storm.
 1992 – The Czechoslovakia Federal Assembly votes to split the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia from January 1, 1993.
 1996 - An ice storm affects the central United States, killing 26 people.
 1999 - The UN creates the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
 2000 - The 2000 Baku earthquake, at magnitude 7, kills 26 people.

From 2001 
 2002 – Reported assassination attempt on Turkmen president Saparmurat Niyazov.
 2008 - Cyclone Nisha strikes northern Sri Lanka, killing 15 people.
 2008 – 'Yellow Shirt' anti-government demonstrators begin a week-long blockade of Bangkok Airport, forcing the Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat to resign.
 2009 – Torrential rain in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, causes major flooding, killing 100 people, many of them pilgrims participating in the Hajj Pilgrimage.
 2012 - A fire at a clothing factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, kills over 100 people.
 2012 - Sebastian Vettel wins the Formula One World Championship for the third year in a row, becoming the youngest driver to win three Formula One World Championships.
 2014 - Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes is hit on the neck by a ball during a match. He dies two days later.
 2016 - Former President of Cuba Fidel Castro dies aged 90.

Births

Up to 1900 
 1454 - Catherine Cornaro, Queen of Cyprus (d. 1510)
 1501 - Yi Hwang, Korean Confucian scholar (d. 1570)
 1562 – Lope de Vega, Spanish poet and playwright (d. 1635)
 1577 – Piet Hein, Dutch naval commander (d. 1629)
 1609 – Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV of France, Wife of King Charles I of England (d. 1669)
 1638 – Catherine of Braganza, Queen-Consort of England and Scotland (d. 1705)
 1666 - Giuseppe Giovanni Battista Guarneri, Italian violin maker (d. 1740)
 1714 - Yoriyuki Arima, Japanese mathematician (d. 1783)
 1752 - Johann Friedrich Reichhardt, German composer, writer and music critic (d. 1814)
 1758 - John Armstrong, Jr., American politician (d. 1843)
 1778 - Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, British writer (d. 1856)
 1787 - Franz Xaver Gruber, Austrian composer (d. 1863)
 1809 - Adolph E. Borie, American politician (d. 1880)
 1810 - Nikolay Pirogov, Russian surgeon and educator (d. 1881)
 1817 - John Bigelow, American statesman and writer (d. 1911)
 1835 – Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-born American businessman (d. 1919)
 1844 – Karl Benz, German inventor (d. 1929)
 1845 – José María de Eça de Queiroz, Portuguese writer (d. 1900)
 1846 – Carrie Nation, American temperance activist (d. 1911)
 1856 - Sergei Taneyev, Russian composer (d. 1915)
 1861 - Spyridon Samaras, Greek composer (d. 1917)
 1865 - Gustaf Söderström, Swedish tug of war competitor, shot putter and discus thrower (d. 1958)
 1868 - Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse (d. 1937)
 1870 - Winthrop Ames, American director, playwright and producer (d. 1937)
 1872 - Robert Maysack, American gymnast (d. 1960)
 1873 - Myers Y. Cooper, Governor of Ohio (d. 1958)
 1874 - Joe Gans, American boxer (d. 1910)
 1876 - Princess Victoria Melita of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Grand Duchess of Hesse (d. 1936)
 1879 - August Kirch, German politician (d. 1959)
 1880 - John Flynn, Australian minister (d. 1951)
 1881 – Pope John XXIII (d. 1963)
 1887 - Nikolai Vavilov, Russian botanist and geneticist (d. 1943)
 1891 - Onishiki Uichiro, Japanese sumo wrestler (d. 1941)
 1895 – Ludovik Svoboda, Czech statesman (d. 1979)
 1895 – Anastas Mikoyan, Soviet politician (d. 1978)
 1896 - Benjamin Travis Laney, Governor of Arkansas (d. 1977)
 1896 - Virgil Thomson, American composer (d. 1989)
 1898 - Debaki Bose, Indian actor, director and writer (d. 1971)
 1900 - Jimmy Dunn, Scottish footballer (d. 1963)
 1900 - Rudolf Höss, German Nazi war criminal (d. 1945)

1901  1950 
 1902 - Eddie Shore, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 1985)
 1904 – Ba Jin, Chinese writer (d. 2005)
 1904 - Lillian Copeland, American athlete (d. 1964)
 1907 - John Stuart Hindmarsh, English racing driver (d. 1938)
 1914 – Joe DiMaggio, American baseball player (d. 1999)
 1915 - Chung Ju-young, Korean entrepreneur and founder of Hyundai (d. 2001)
 1915 – Augusto Pinochet, Chilean general and dictator (d. 2006)
 1915 - Armando Villanueva, Prime Minister of Peru (d. 2013)
 1916 - Peg Lynch, American writer and actress (d. 2015)
 1917 – Luigi Poggi, Italian cardinal (d. 2009)
 1919 - Norman Tokar, American director (d. 1979)
 1920 - Tuanku Syed Putra ibni Almarhum Syed Hassan Jamalullail, King of Malaysia (d. 2000)
 1920 – Ricardo Montalban, Mexican actor (d. 2009)
 1920 - Noel Neill, American actress (d. 2016)
 1923 – Mauno Koivisto, 9th President of Finland (d. 2017)
 1924 - Ante Markovic, Prime Minister of Yugoslavia (d. 2011)
 1924 - Paul Desmond, American jazz musician (d. 1977)
 1926 - Poul Anderson, American writer (d. 2001)
 1930 - Clarke Scholes, American swimmer (d. 2010)
 1931 - Nat Adderley, American jazz musician (d. 2000)
 1931 - Hollis L. Harris, American airline executive (d. 2016)
 1933 - Kathryn Crosby, American actress and singer
 1935 - Robert Berner, American scientist (d. 2015)
 1936 - William McIlvanney, Scottish writer (d. 2015)
 1938 - Rosanna Schiaffino, Italian actress (d. 2009)
 1939 - Martin Feldman, American economist
 1940 - Reinhard Furrer, Austrian-German physicist and astronaut (d. 1995)
 1940 - Joe Gibbs, American NFL coach and NASCAR team owner
 1940 - Karl Offmann, 3rd President of Mauritius
 1940 - Shyamal Kumar, Indian politician, 21st Governor of West Bengal
 1941 - Percy Sledge, American singer (d. 2015)
 1941 – Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi, Pakistani writer and spiritual leader (d. 2001)
 1941 – Philippe Honoré, French cartoonist (d. 2015)
 1944 - Paul Copley, British actor
 1944 - Maarten 't Hart, Dutch writer
 1944 – Ben Stein, American actor
 1944 - Michael Kijana Wamalwa, 8th Vice President of Kenya (d. 2003)
 1947 - Jonathan Kaplan, American movie maker
 1947 - John Larroquette, American actor
 1948 - Jacques Dupuis, Canadian politician, 14th Deputy Premier of Quebec
 1950 - Jocelyn Brown, American singer
 1950 - Gabriele Oriali, Italian footballer
 1950 - Giorgio Faletti, Italian author, screenwriter and actor (d. 2014)

1951  1975 
 1951 – Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Spanish writer
 1951 - Alan Rough, Scottish footballer
 1952 – Imran Khan, Pakistani cricketer and politician, Prime minister of Pakistan
 1952 – John Lynch, 80th Governor of New Hampshire
 1953 - Graham Eadie, Australian rugby player
 1953 - Jeffrey Skilling, American businessman and fraudster
 1955 - Bruno Tonioli, Italian choreographer
 1957 – Bob Ehrlich, 60th Governor of Maryland
 1957 – Monte Melkonian, Armenian military leader (d. 1993)
 1959 - Jim Bett, Scottish footballer
 1959 - Steve Rothery, English guitarist
 1959 – Charles Kennedy, Scottish politician, former leader of the British Liberal Democrats (d. 2015)
 1960 – John F. Kennedy Jr., son of John F. Kennedy (d. 1999)
 1960 – Amy Grant, American singer
 1962 - Hironobu Sakaguchi, Japanese video game designer
 1962 - Blythe Duff, Scottish actress
 1963 - Chip Kelly, American football coach
 1964 - Bert van Vlaanderen, Dutch long-distance runner
 1965 - Dougray Scott, Scottish actor
 1966 - Tim Armstrong, American singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer
 1966 - Billy Burke, American actor
 1967 - Kazuya Nakai, Japanese voice actor
 1967 – Anthony Nesty, Surinamese swimmer
 1968 - Jacqueline Hennessy, Canadian actress and journalist
 1968 - Galin Nikov, Bulgarian pole vaulter
 1970 – Eluana Englaro, Italian patient in right-to-die case (d. 2009)
 1971 - Magnus Arvedson, Swedish ice hockey player
 1971 – Christina Applegate, American actress
 1971 - Dominic Cummings, English political strategist and advisor
 1972 - Deepa Marathe, Indian cricketer
 1972 - Mark Morton, American guitarist and songwriter
 1973 - Steven de Jongh, Dutch cyclist
 1973 - Eddie Steeples, American actor

From 1976 
 1976 - Clint Mathis, American soccer player
 1976 - Olena Vitrychenko, Ukrainian rhythmic gymnast
 1978 – Ringo Shiina, Japanese singer
 1979 - Sandrine Bailly, French biathlete
 1979 - Brooke Haven, American pornographic actress
 1980 – Aaron Mokoena, South African footballer
 1980 - John-Michael Liles, American ice hockey player
 1981 - Lee Bum-Ho, South Korean baseball player
 1981 – Xabi Alonso, Spanish footballer
 1981 – Barbara Bush and Jenna Bush Hager, daughters of George W. Bush and Laura Bush
 1981 - Jared Jeffries, American basketball player
 1983 - Kirsty Crawford, Scottish singer-songwriter and actress
 1983 - Jhulen Goswami, Indian cricketer
 1984 - Peter Siddle, Australian cricketer
 1984 - Gaspard Ulliel, French actor
 1985 – Marcus Hellner, Swedish skier
 1986 – Katie Cassidy, American actress and singer
 1986 - Amber Hagerman, American murder victim (d. 1996)
 1986 - Craig Gardner, English footballer
 1987 – Dolla, American rapper (d. 2009)
 1988 – Nodar Kumaritashvili, Georgian luger (d. 2010)
 1988 – Jay Spearing, English footballer
 1989 – Tom Dice, Belgian singer and songwriter
 1990 - Eilish McColgan, Scottish athlete
 1991 - Luca Tremolada, Italian footballer
 1991 - Kevin Woo, American-South Korean singer
 1991 - Jamie Grace, American singer-songwriter, guitarist and actress

Deaths

Up to 1900 
 311 - Pope Peter III of Alexandria
 1034 – King Malcolm II of Scotland (b. 980)
 1120 - William Adelin, son and heir of Henry I of England
 1185 – Pope Lucius III (b. 1097)
 1326 - Prince Koreyasu, Japanese shogun (b. 1294)
 1374 - Philip II, Prince of Taranto (b. 1329)
 1560 – Andrea Doria, Italian naval leader (b. 1466)
 1700 - Stephanus Van Cortlandt, American politician (b. 1643)
 1766 - Johann Maria Farina, Italian perfumer and entrepreneur (b. 1685)
 1865 – Heinrich Barth, German explorer (b. 1821)
 1884 - Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe, German chemist (b. 1818)
 1885 – King Alfonso XII of Spain (b. 1857)
 1885 – Thomas A. Hendricks, Vice President of the United States (b. 1819)

1901  2000 
 1909 - Edward P. Allen, American politician (b. 1839)
 1911 - Paul Lafargue, French journalist, literary critic and activist (b. 1842)
 1920 – Gaston Chevrolet, French-American racing driver (b. 1892)
 1925 – Vajiravudh, King of Thailand (b. 1881)
 1935 - Iyasu V, Emperor of Ethiopia (b. 1897)
 1941 - Pedro Aguirre Cerda, President of Chile (b. 1879)
 1944 – Kunio Nakagawa, Japanese military commander (b. 1898)
 1944 - Kenesaw Mountain Landis, American baseball commissioner (b. 1866)
 1948 - Kanbun Uechi, Japanese karate master (b. 1877)
 1950 – Johannes Vilhelm Jensen, Danish writer (b. 1873)
 1956 - Alexander Dovzhenko, Soviet movie director (b. 1894)
 1957 – Prince George of Greece and Denmark (b. 1869)
 1960 - Mirabal sisters:
 Patria Mirabal, Dominican activist (b. 1924)
 Minerva Mirabal, Dominican activist (b. 1926)
 Maria Teresa Mirabal, Dominican activist (b. 1935)
 1963 - Alexander Marinesko, Russian navy officer (b. 1913)
 1965 – Myra Hess, British pianist (b. 1890)
 1968 – Upton Sinclair, American journalist, politician, and writer (b. 1878)
 1970 – Yukio Mishima, Japanese writer (b. 1925)
 1972 - Hans Scharoun, German architect (b. 1893)
 1974 - Nick Drake, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1948)
 1974 – U Thant, Burmese UN Secretary-General (b. 1909)
 1977 - Manouchehr Eghbal, 65th Prime Minister of Iran (b. 1909)
 1981 - Jack Albertson, American actor, singer, comedian, musician, and dancer (b. 1907)
 1984 - Yashwantrao Chavan, Indian statesman (b. 1913)
 1987 - Harold Washington, Mayor of Chicago (b. 1922)
 1990 - Merab Mamardashvili, Georgian philosopher (b. 1930)
 1996 – Hastings Banda, President of Malawi (b. c. 1907)
 1998 – Nelson Goodman, American philosopher (b. 1906)

From 2001 
 2001 – Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi, Pakistani writer and spiritual leader (b. 1941)
 2002 - Karel Reisz, Czech-British director (b. 1926)
 2005 – George Best, Northern Irish footballer (b. 1946)
 2005 – Richard Burns, English rally driver (b. 1971)
 2007 – Kevin DuBrow, American rock music singer (b. 1955)
 2011 - Vasily Alekseyev, Russian weightlifter (b. 1942)
 2012 - Lars Hörmander, Swedish mathematician (b. 1931)
 2012 - Dave Sexton, English footballer and coach (b. 1930)
 2013 - Bill Foulkes, English footballer (b. 1932)
 2013 - Chico Hamilton, American drummer and bandleader (b. 1921)
 2014 - Denham Harman, American scientist (b. 1916)
 2014 - Petr Hapka, Czech composer (b. 1944)
 2015 - Lennart Hellsing, Swedish author and translator (b. 1919)
 2015 - Elmo Williams, American editor, producer, director and executive (b. 1913)
 2016 - David Hamilton, English photographer (b. 1933)
 2016 - Fidel Castro, President of Cuba (b. 1926)
 2017 - Bertha Calloway, American civil rights activist and historian (b. 1925)
 2017 - Sotir Ferrara, Italian-Albanian church leader (b. 1937)
 2017 - Rosario Green, Mexican economist and politician (b. 1941)
 2017 - Rance Howard, American actor (b. 1928)
 2017 - Anna Kuzmina, Russian actress (b. 1933)
 2017 - Julio Oscar Mechoso, American actor (b. 1955)
 2017 - Harry Pregerson, American federal judge (b. 1923)
 2018 - Randolph L. Braham, Romanian-born American historian, political scientist and Holocaust survivor (b. 1922)
 2018 - Giuliana Calandra, Italian actress (b. 1936)
 2018 - Viktor Kanevskyi, Ukrainian footballer and coach (b. 1936)
 2018 - Wright King, American actor (b. 1923)
 2018 - C. K. Jaffer Sharief, Indian politician (b. 1933)
 2019 - Frank Biondi, American film and television executive (b. 1945)
 2019 - George Clements, American Roman Catholic priest and civil rights activist (b. 1932)
 2019 - János Horváth, Hungarian economist and politician (b. 1925)
 2019 - Nobuaki Kobayashi, Japanese billiards player (b. 1942)
 2019 - Jimmy Schulz, German businessman and politician (b. 1968)
2020 - Diego Maradona, Argentine football player (b. 1960)

Holidays and observances 
 Bosnia and Herzegovina - National Day (1943)
 Suriname – Independence Day (from the Netherlands, 1975)
 Indonesia - Teachers' Day
 Thailand - Vajiravudh Memorial Day
 New York - Evacuation Day
 Christian feast day: Saint Catherine of Alexandria
 International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

Days of the year