2009: Iranian election protests: On the Day of Ashura in Tehran, Iran, government security forces fire upon demonstrators.
2008: Operation Cast Lead: Israel launches 3-week operation on Gaza.
2007: Riots erupt in Mombasa, Kenya, after Mwai Kibaki is declared the winner of the presidential election, triggering a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis.
2007: Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in a shooting incident.
2004: Radiation from an explosion on the magnetar SGR 1806-20 reaches Earth. It is the brightest extrasolar event known to have been witnessed on the planet.
2002: Two truck bombs kill 72 and wound 200 at the pro-Moscow headquarters of the Chechen government in Grozny, Chechnya, Russia.
1997: Protestant paramilitary leader Billy Wright is assassinated in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.
1845: Journalist John L. O'Sullivan, writing in his newspaper the New York Morning News, argues that the United States had the right to claim the entire Oregon Country "by the right of our manifest destiny".
1836: The worst ever avalanche in England occurs at Lewes, Sussex, killing eight people.
1831: Charles Darwin embarks on his journey aboard the HMS Beagle, during which he will begin to formulate his theory of evolution.
1814: War of 1812: The American schooner USS Carolina is destroyed. It was the last of Commodore Daniel Patterson's makeshift fleet that fought a series of delaying actions that contributed to Andrew Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans.
1703: Portugal and England sign the Methuen Treaty which gives preference to Portuguese imported wines into England.
1521: The Zwickau prophets arrive in Wittenberg disturbing the peace and preaching the Apocalypse. Philip Melanchthon cannot silence them. Martin Luther is being held in protective custody at the Wartburg castle at this time. He is later released and is able, by his preaching, to regain the peace.
1512: The Spanish Crown issues the Laws of Burgos, governing the conduct of settlers with regard to native Indians in the New World.