538 – Vitiges, king of the Ostrogoths ends his siege of Rome and retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city in the hands of the victorious Byzantine general, Belisarius
1550 – Several hundred Spanish and indigenous troops under the command of Pedro de Valdivia defeat an army of 60,000 Mapuche at the Battle of Penco during the Arauco War in present-day Chile.
1622 – Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier, founders of the Society of Jesus, are canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.
1689 – The Williamite War in Ireland begins.
1811 – Peninsular War: A day after a successful rearguard action, French Marshal Michel Ney once again successfully delayed the pursuing Anglo-Portuguese force at the Battle of Redinha.
1864 – American Civil War: The Red River Campaign begins as a US Navy fleet of 13 Ironclads and 7 Gunboats and other support ships enter the Red River.
1881 – Andrew Watson makes his Scotland debut as the world's first black international football player and captain.
1885 – Tonkin Campaign: France captures the citadel of Bắc Ninh.
1894 – Coca-Cola is bottled and sold for the first time in Vicksburg, Mississippi, by local soda fountain operator Joseph A. Biedenharn.
1912 – The Girl Guides (later renamed the Girl Scouts of the USA) are founded in the United States.
1913 – Canberra Day: The future capital of Australia is officially named Canberra. (Melbourne remains temporary capital until 1927 while the new capital is still under construction.)
1918 – Moscow becomes the capital of Russia again after Saint Petersburg held this status for 215 years.
1920 – The Kapp Putsch begins when the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt is ordered to march on Berlin.
1921 – İstiklâl Marşı is adopted in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.
1922 – Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan form the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.
1928 – In California, the St. Francis Dam fails; the resulting floods kill 431 people.
1930 – Mahatma Gandhi begins the Salt March, a 200-mile march to the sea to protest the British monopoly on salt in India.
1933 – Great Depression: Franklin D. Roosevelt addresses the nation for the first time as President of the United States. This is also the first of his "fireside chats".
1934 – Konstantin Päts and General Johan Laidoner stage a coup in Estonia, and ban all political parties.
1938 – Anschluss: German troops occupy and absorb Austria.
1940 – Winter War: Finland signs the Moscow Peace Treaty with the Soviet Union, ceding almost all of Finnish Karelia. Finnish troops and the remaining population are immediately evacuated.
1942 – World War II: Pacific War: The Battle of Java ends with an ABDACOM surrender to the Japanese Empire in Bandung, West Java, Dutch East Indies.
1943 – Italian occupation of Greece: The Italian occupying forces abandon the town of Karditsa to the partisans. On the same day, an Italian motorized column razes the village of Tsaritsani, burning 360 of its 600 houses and shooting 40 civilians.
1947 – Cold War: The Truman Doctrine is proclaimed to help stem the spread of Communism.
1950 – The Llandow air disaster occurs near Sigingstone, Wales, in which 80 people die when their aircraft crashed, making it the world's deadliest air disaster at the time.
1961 – First winter ascent of the North Face of the Eiger.
1967 – Suharto takes power from Sukarno when the MPRS inaugurate him as Acting President of Indonesia.
1968 – Mauritius achieves independence from the United Kingdom.
1971 – The March 12 Memorandum is sent to the Suleyman Demirel government of Turkey and the government resigns.
1992 – Mauritius becomes a republic while remaining a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.
1993 – Several bombs explode in Mumbai, India, killing about 300 and injuring hundreds more.
1993 – North Korea nuclear weapons program: North Korea says that it plans to withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and refuses to allow inspectors access to its nuclear sites.
1994 – The Church of England ordains its first female priests.
1999 – Former Warsaw Pact members the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland join NATO.
2003 – Zoran Đinđić, Prime Minister of Serbia, is assassinated in Belgrade.
2003 – WHO officially release global warning on pandemic SARS disease.
2004 – The President of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, is impeached by its National Assembly: The first such impeachment in the nation's history.
2009 – Financier Bernard Madoff pleads guilty in New York to scamming $18 billion, the largest in Wall Street's history.
2011 – A reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant melts and explodes and releases radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after Japan's earthquake.
2014 – A gas explosion in the New York City neighborhood of East Harlem kills eight and injures 70 others.
