1781 – Patent of Toleration, providing limited freedom of worship, is approved in Habsburg Monarchy.
1803 – The United States Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase.
1805 – General Mack's army surrender to Napoleon I at Ulm after a few skirmishes.
1910 – The hull of the RMS Olympic, sister-ship to the ill-fated RMS Titanic, is launched from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
1935 – The Long March, a mammoth retreat undertaken by the armed forces of the Chinese Communist Party a year prior, ends.
1944 – Liquified natural gas leaks from storage tanks in Cleveland, then explodes; the explosion and resulting fire level 30 blocks and kill 130.
1944 – American general Douglas MacArthur fulfills his promise to return to the Philippines when he commands an Allied assault on the islands, reclaiming them from the Japanese during the Second World War.
1961 – The Soviet Union performs the first armed test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, launching an R-13 from a Golf-class submarine.
1962 – People's Republic of China launches simultaneous offensives in Ladakh and across the McMahon Line, igniting the Sino-Indian War.
1973 – United States President Richard Nixon fires U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refuse to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who is finally fired by Robert Bork.
1973 – The Sydney Opera House opens.
1976 – The ferry George Prince is struck by a ship while crossing the Mississippi River between Destrehan and Luling, Louisiana. Seventy-eight passengers and crew die and only 18 people aboard the ferry survive.
1977 – Rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd's plane crashes.
1981 – Two police officers and an armored car guard are killed during an armed robbery in Rockland County, New York, carried out by members of the Black Liberation Army and Weather Underground.
1982 – During the UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow and HFC Haarlem, 66 people are crushed to death in the Luzhniki disaster.
1991 – The Oakland Hills firestorm kills 25 and destroys 3,469 homes and apartments, causing more than $2 billion in damage.
1991 – A 6.8 Mw earthquake strikes the Uttarkashi region of India, killing more than 1,000 people.
2011 – Libyan Civil War: National Transitional Council rebel forces capture ousted Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in his hometown of Sirte and kill him shortly thereafter.
