1818 – Illinois becomes the 21st U.S. state.
1904 – The Jovian moon Himalia is discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at California's Lick Observatory.
1919 – After nearly 20 years of planning and construction, including two collapses causing 89 deaths, the Quebec Bridge opens to traffic.
1959 – The current flag of Singapore is adopted, six months after Singapore became self-governing within the British Empire.
1967 – At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, a transplant team headed by Christiaan Barnard carries out the first heart transplant on a human (53-year-old Louis Washkansky).
1979 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini becomes the first Supreme Leader of Iran.
1990 – The 1990 Wayne County Airport runway collision kills seven passengers and one crew member.
1999 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.
2009 – A suicide bombing at a hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, kills 25 people, including three ministers of the Transitional Federal Government.
2012 – At least 475 people are killed after Typhoon Bopha makes landfall in the Philippines.
2012 – In Northern Ireland, 15 police officers are injured during rioting at Belfast City Hall following a vote to change Belfast City Council's policy on flying the union flag.
2014 – The Japanese space agency, JAXA, launches the space explorer Hayabusa 2 from the Tanegashima Space Center on a six-year round trip mission to a asteroid to collect rock samples.