• 1170 - Thomas Becket: Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, is assassinated inside Canterbury Cathedral by followers of King Henry II; he subsequently becomes a saint and martyr in the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church.
• 1778 - American Revolutionary War: 3,500 British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell captures Savannah, Georgia without firing a shot.
• 1786 - French Revolution: The Assembly of Notables is convoked
• 1812 - The USS Constitution under the command of Captain William Bainbridge, captures the HMS Java off the coast of Brazil after a three hour battle.
• 1813 - British soldiers burn Buffalo, New York during the War of 1812.
• 1835 - The Treaty of New Echota is signed, ceding all the lands of the Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States.
• 1845 - Texas is admitted as the 28th U.S. state.
• 1851 - The first American YMCA opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
• 1860 - The first British seagoing iron-clad warship, HMS Warrior is launched.
• 1876 - The Ashtabula River Railroad bridge disaster occurs, leaving 64 injured and 92 dead at Ashtabula, Ohio.
• 1890 - United States soldiers clash with members of the Great Sioux Nation in the Wounded Knee Massacre.
• 1911 - Sun Yat-sen becomes the first President of the Republic of China.
• 1911 - Mongolia gains independence from the Qing dynasty.
• 1930 - Sir Muhammad Iqbal's presidential address in Allahabad introduces the Two-Nation Theory and outlines a vision for the creation of Pakistan.
• 1934 - Japan renounces the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930.
• 1937 - The Irish Free State is replaced by a new state called Ireland with the adoption of a new constitution.
• 1939 - First flight of the Consolidated B-24.
• 1940 - World War II: In The Second Great Fire of London, the Luftwaffe firebombs London, killing almost 200 civilians.
• 1949 - KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut becomes the first Ultra high frequency (UHF) television station to operate a daily schedule.
• 1972 - An Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 (a Lockheed "Tristar") crashes on approach to Miami International Airport, Florida, killing 101.
• 1975 - A bomb exploded at La Guardia Airport in New York City, killing 11 people and injuring 74.
• 1989 - Riots break-out after Hong Kong decides to forcibly repatriate Vietnamese refugees.
• 1989 - On the final day of trading for the year and decade, the Japanese Nikkei 225 Average closes at an all-time high of 38,915.87.
• 1989 - Václav Havel is elected president of Czechoslovakia. He became the first non-Communist to attain the post in more than four decades.
• 1992 - Fernando Collor de Mello, president of Brazil, tries to resign amidst corruption charges, but is then impeached.
• 1996 - Guatemala and leaders of Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union sign a peace accord ending a 36-year civil war.
• 1997 - Hong Kong begins to kill all the nation's chickens (1.25 million) to stop the spread of a potentially deadly influenza strain.
• 1998 - Leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologize for the 1970s genocide in Cambodia that claimed over 1 million.
• 2001 - Mesa Redonda shopping center fire, Lima, Peru, at least 291 killed.

Births