522 BC – Darius I of Persia kills the Magian usurper Gaumata, securing his hold as king of the Persian Empire.
61 BC – Pompey the Great celebrates his third triumph for victories over the pirates and the end of the Mithridatic Wars on his 45th birthday.
1227 – Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, is excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX for his failure to participate in the Crusades.
1364 – Battle of Auray: English forces defeat the French in Brittany; end of the War of the Breton Succession.
1567 – At a dinner, Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba arrests Lamoral, Count of Egmont and Philip de Montmorency, Count of Horn for treason.
1578 – Tegucigalpa, capital city of Honduras, is claimed by the Spaniards.
1650 – Henry Robinson opens his Office of Addresses and Encounters in Threadneedle Street, London.
1717 – An earthquake strikes Antigua Guatemala, destroying much of the city's architecture and making authorities consider moving the capital to a different city.
1789 – The United States Department of War first establishes a regular army with a strength of several hundred men.
1789 – The 1st United States Congress adjourns.
1829 – The Metropolitan Police of London, later also known as the Met, is founded.
1848 – Battle of Pákozd: Stalemate between Hungarian and Croatian forces at Pákozd; the first battle of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.
1850 – The papal bull Universalis Ecclesiae restores the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales.
1864 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chaffin's Farm is fought.
1885 – The first practical public electric tramway in the world is opened in Blackpool, England.
1907 – The cornerstone is laid at Washington National Cathedral in the U.S. capital.
1911 – Italy declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
1918 – World War I: Battle of St. Quentin Canal: The Hindenburg Line is broken by Allied forces. Bulgaria signs an armistice.
1923 – The British Mandate for Palestine takes effect, creating Mandatory Palestine.
1923 – The French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon takes effect.
1932 – Chaco War: Last day of the Battle of Boquerón between Paraguay and Bolivia.
1938 – The Munich Agreement between Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy settles the Sudetenland dispute in Germany's favor. The Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia are not invited.
1940 – Two Avro Ansons of No. 2 Service Flying Training School RAAF collide in mid-air over Brocklesby, New South Wales, Australia, remain locked together after colliding, and then land safely.
1941 – World War II: Holocaust in Kiev, Soviet Union: German Einsatzgruppe C begins the Babi Yar massacre, according to the Einsatzgruppen operational situation report.
1949 – The Communist Party of China writes the Common Programme for the future People's Republic of China.
1950 – The United Nations Security Council Resolution 87 relating to Taiwan is adopted.
1954 – The convention establishing CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) is signed.
1957 – Twenty MCi (740 petabecquerels) of radioactive material is released in an explosion at the Soviet Mayak nuclear plant at Chelyabinsk.
1960 – Nikita Khrushchev, leader of Soviet Union, disrupts a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly with a number of angry outbursts.
1963 – The second period of the Second Vatican Council opens.
1964 – The Argentine comic strip Mafalda is published for the first time.
1966 – The Chevrolet Camaro, originally named Panther, is introduced.
1969 – The Fourteenth Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich received its official premiere.
1971 – Oman joins the Arab League.
1972 – China–Japan relations: Japan establishes diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China after breaking official ties with the Republic of China.
1975 – WGPR in Detroit, Michigan, becomes the world's first black-owned-and-operated television station.
1979 – Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to visit Ireland.
1982 – The Chicago Tylenol murders begin when the first of seven individuals dies in metropolitan Chicago.
1988 – Space Shuttle: NASA launches STS-26, the return to flight mission, after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
1990 – Construction of the Washington National Cathedral is completed.
1990 – The YF-22, which would later become the F-22 Raptor, flies for the first time.
1991 – Military coup in Haiti (1991 Haitian coup d'état).
1992 – Brazilian President Fernando Collor de Mello is impeached.
1995 – The United States Navy disbands Fighter Squadron 84 (VF-84), nicknamed the "Jolly Rogers".
2004 – The asteroid 4179 Toutatis passes within four lunar distances of Earth.
2004 – The Burt Rutan Ansari X Prize entry SpaceShipOne performs a successful spaceflight, the first of two required to win the prize.
2006 – Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 collides in mid-air with an Embraer Legacy 600 business jet near Peixoto de Azevedo, Mato Grosso, Brazil, killing 154 people, and triggering a Brazilian aviation crisis.
2007 – Calder Hall, the world's first commercial nuclear power station, is demolished in a controlled explosion.
2008 – Following the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual, The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points, the largest single-day point loss in its history.
2009 – The 8.1 Mw Samoa earthquake strikes with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VI (Strong). A destructive tsunami follows, leaving 189 dead and hundreds injured.
2013 – Over 42 people are killed by members of Boko Haram at the College of Agriculture in Gujba, Nigeria.