1995: Workers from the National Institutes of Health announce the success of clinical trials testing the first preventive treatment for sickle-cell disease.
1982: Richard Skrenta writes the first PC virus code, which is 400 lines long and disguised as an Apple boot program called "Elk Cloner".
1979: A VarigBoeing 707-323C freighter, flown by the same commander as Flight 820, disappears over the Pacific Ocean 30 minutes after taking off from Tokyo.
1972: The Troubles: Bloody Sunday: British paratroopers open fire on anti-internment marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland, killing 13 people; another person later dies of injuries sustained.
1969: The Beatles' last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London. The impromptu concert is broken up by the police.
1968: Vietnam War: Tet Offensive launch by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army against South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies.
1959: MS Hans Hedtoft, said to be the safest ship afloat and "unsinkable" like the RMS Titanic, strikes an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sinks, killing all 95 aboard.
1948: Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist.
1945: World War II: Raid at Cabanatuan: One hundred twenty-six American Rangers and Filipino resistance fighters liberate over 500 Allied prisoners from the Japanese-controlled Cabanatuan POW camp.
1945: World War II: The Wilhelm Gustloff, overfilled with German refugees, sinks in the Baltic Sea after being torpedoed by a Soviet submarine, killing approximately 9,500 people.
1943: World War II: Second day of the Battle of Rennell Island. The USS Chicago is sunk and a U.S. destroyer is heavily damaged by Japanese torpedoes.
1942: World War II: Battle of Ambon. Japanese forces invade the island of Ambon in the Dutch East Indies. Some 300 captured Allied troops are massacred at Laha airfield. Three-fourths of remaining POWs did not survive at the end of the war, including 250 men who were shipped to Hainan Island in South China Sea and never returned.
1933: Adolf Hitler is sworn in as Chancellor of Germany.
1930: The Politburo of the Soviet Union orders the extermination of the Kulaks.
1925: The Government of Turkey expels Patriarch Constantine VI from Istanbul.
1911: The destroyer USS Terry makes the first airplane rescue at sea saving the life of Douglas McCurdy ten miles from Havana, Cuba.
1908: Indian pacifist and leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is released from prison by Jan C. Smuts after being tried and sentenced to two months in jail earlier in the month.
1862: The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor is launched.
1858: The first Hallé concert is given in Manchester, England, marking the official founding of The Hallé orchestra as a full-time, professional orchestra.
1835: In the first assassination attempt against a President of the United States, Richard Lawrence attempts to shoot president Andrew Jackson, but fails and is subdued by a crowd, including several congressmen as well as Jackson himself.
1826: The Menai Suspension Bridge, considered the world's first modern suspension bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey to the north West coast of Wales, is opened.
1648: Eighty Years' War: The Treaty of Münster and Osnabrück is signed, ending the conflict between the Netherlands and Spain.
1607: An estimated 200 square miles (51,800 ha) along the coasts of the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary in England are destroyed by massive flooding, resulting in an estimated 2,000 deaths.