1309 – The First Siege of Gibraltar takes place in the context of the Spanish Reconquista pitting the forces of the Kingdom of Castile against the Emirate of Granada resulting in a Castilian victory.
1609 – Henry Hudson begins his exploration of the Hudson River while aboard the Halve Maen.
1919 – Adolf Hitler joins the German Workers' Party (later the Nazi Party).
1943 – Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy, is rescued from house arrest on the Gran Sasso in Abruzzi, by German commando forces led by Otto Skorzeny.
1953 – U.S. Senator and future President John Fitzgerald Kennedy marries Jacqueline Lee Bouvier at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island.
1992 – NASA launches Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-47, which marked the 50th shuttle mission. On board are Mae Carol Jemison, the first African-American woman in space, Mamoru Mohri, the first Japanese citizen to fly in a US spaceship, and Mark Lee and Jan Davis, the first married couple in space.
2003 – The United Nations lifts sanctions against Libya after that country agreed to accept responsibility and recompense the families of victims in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
2011 – The 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City opens to the public.
2014 – Oscar Pistorius is found guilty of the culpable homicide of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.
