334 BC – The Macedonian army of Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of the Granicus.
192 – Dong Zhuo is assassinated by his adopted son Lü Bu.
760 – 14th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.
853 – A Byzantine fleet sacks and destroys the undefended Damietta in Egypt.
1176 – The Hashshashin (Assassins) attempt to murder Saladin near Aleppo.
1200 – King John of England and King Philip II of France sign the Treaty of Le Goulet.
1246 – Henry Raspe is elected anti-king of the Kingdom of Germany, in opposition to Conrad IV.
1254 – Serbian King Stefan Uroš I and the Republic of Venice sign a peace treaty.
1370 – The Brussels massacre: Several Jews are murdered and the rest of the Jewish community is banished from Brussels.
1377 – Pope Gregory XI issues five papal bulls to denounce the doctrines of English theologian John Wycliffe.
1455 – Start of the Wars of the Roses: At the First Battle of St Albans, Richard, Duke of York, defeats and captures King Henry VI of England.
1570 – The first atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, is published with 70 maps.
1629 – Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II and Danish King Christian IV sign the Treaty of Lübeck to end the Danish intervention in the Thirty Years' War.
1762 – Sweden and Prussia sign the Treaty of Hamburg.
1762 – Trevi Fountain in Rome is officially completed and inaugurated by Pope Clemens XIII.
1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially began as the Corps of Discovery departed from St. Charles, Missouri.
1807 – A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason.
1809 – On the second and last day of the Battle of Aspern-Essling (near Vienna, Austria), Napoleon I is repelled by an enemy army for the first time.
1816 – A mob in Littleport, Cambridgeshire, England, riots over high unemployment and rising grain costs, which spreads to Ely the next day.
1819 – The SS Savannah leaves port at Savannah, Georgia, United States, on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
1826 – HMS Beagle departs on its first voyage.
1840 – The transportation of British convicts to the New South Wales colony is abolished.
1848 – Slavery is abolished in Martinique.
1849 – Future U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is issued a patent for an invention to lift boats, making him the only U.S. President to ever hold a patent.
1856 – Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina severely beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate for a speech Sumner had made regarding Southerners and slavery.
1863 – American Civil War: Union forces begin the Siege of Port Hudson which lasts 48 days, the longest siege in U.S. military history.
1864 – American Civil War: After ten weeks, the Union Army's Red River Campaign ends in failure.
1872 – Reconstruction Era: President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Amnesty Act into law, restoring full civil and political rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.
1900 – The Associated Press is formed in New York City as a non-profit news cooperative.
1906 – The Wright brothers are granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their "Flying-Machine".
1915 – Lassen Peak erupts with a powerful force, the only mountain other than Mount St. Helens to erupt in the contiguous U.S. during the 20th century.
1915 – Three trains collide in the Quintinshill rail disaster near Gretna Green, Scotland, killing 227 people and injuring 246.
1926 – Chiang Kai-shek replaces communists in Kuomintang China.
1927 – Near Xining, China, a 8.3 quake causes 200,000 deaths in one of the world's most destructive earthquakes.
1939 – World War II: Germany and Italy sign the Pact of Steel.
1941 – During the Anglo-Iraqi War, British troops take Fallujah.
1942 – Mexico enters World War II on the side of the Allies.
1943 – Joseph Stalin disbands the Comintern.
1947 – The Truman Doctrine goes into effect, aiding Turkey & Greece.
1948 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 49 is adopted.
1957 – South Africa's government approves racial separation in universities.
1958 – The 1958 riots in Ceylon become a watershed in the race relationship of various ethnic communities of Sri Lanka. The total deaths is estimated at 300, mostly Tamils.
1960 – The Great Chilean earthquake, measuring 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale, hits southern Chile. It is the most powerful earthquake ever recorded.
1962 – Continental Airlines Flight 11 crashes after bombs explode on board.
1963 – Greek left-wing politician Grigoris Lambrakis is shot in an assassination attempt, dying five days later.
1964 – Lyndon B. Johnson launches the Great Society.
1967 – Egypt closes the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping.
1967 – The L'Innovation department store in Brussels, Belgium, burns down, resulting in 323 dead or missing and 150 injured, the most devastating fire in Belgian history.
1968 – The nuclear-powered submarine the USS Scorpion sinks with 99 men aboard, 400 miles southwest of the Azores.
1969 – Apollo 10's lunar module flies within 8.4 nautical miles (16 km) of the moon's surface.
1972 – Ceylon adopts a new constitution, becoming a Republic, changes its name to Sri Lanka, and joins the Commonwealth of Nations.
1972 – Over 400 women in Derry attack the offices of Sinn Féin in North Ireland following the shooting by the Irish Republican Army of a young British soldier on leave.
1973 – U.S. President Richard Nixon confesses his role in Watergate cover-up.
1987 – Hashimpura massacre in Meerut, India.
1987 – First ever Rugby World Cup kicks off with New Zealand playing Italy at Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand.
1990 – North and South Yemen are unified to create the Republic of Yemen.
1992 – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia join the United Nations.
1994 – A worldwide trade embargo goes into effect against Haiti to punish its military rulers for not reinstating the country's ousted elected leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
1996 – The Burmese military regime jails 71 supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi in a bid to block a pro-democracy meeting.
1998 – A U.S. federal judge rules that U.S. Secret Service agents can be compelled to testify before a grand jury concerning the Lewinsky scandal involving President Bill Clinton.
2000 – In Sri Lanka, over 150 Tamil rebels are killed over two days of fighting for control in Jaffna.
2002 – Civil Rights Movement: A jury in Birmingham, Alabama, convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murders of four girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.
2010 – An Air India Express Boeing 737 goes over a cliff and crashes upon landing at Mangalore, India, killing 158 of the 166 people on board. It is the worst crash involving a Boeing 737.
2011 – An EF5 tornado strikes Joplin, Missouri, killing 162 people and wreaking $2.8 billion in damage—the costliest and seventh-deadliest single tornado in U.S. history.
2012 – Tokyo Skytree opens to the public. It is the tallest tower in the world (634 m), and the second tallest man-made structure on Earth, after Burj Khalifa (829.8 m).
2014 – General Prayut Chan-o-cha becomes interim leader of Thailand in a military coup d'état, following six months of political turmoil.
2014 – An explosion occurs in Ürümqi, the capital of China's far-western Xinjiang region, resulting in at least 43 deaths and 91 injuries.
2015 – The Republic of Ireland becomes the first nation in the world to legalize gay marriage in a public referendum.
