1998: Netscape releases Mozilla source code under an open source license.
1995: Selena is murdered by her fan club's president Yolanda Saldivar at a Days Inn in Corpus Christi, Texas after accusations of Saldivar embezzling money from Selena's fan club.
1990: Approximately 200,000 protesters take to the streets of London to protest against the newly introduced Poll Tax.
1985: The first WrestleMania, the biggest wrestling event from the WWE (then the WWF), takes place in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
1980: The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad operates its final train after being ordered to liquidate its assets because of bankruptcy and debts owed to creditors.
1970: Explorer 1 re-enters the Earth's atmosphere after 12 years in orbit.
1966: The Soviet Union launches Luna 10 which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.
1964: A coup d'état in Brazil establishes a military government, under the aegis of general Castelo Branco.
1959: The 14th Dalai Lama, crosses the border into India and is granted political asylum.
1958: In the Canadian federal election, the Progressive Conservatives, led by John Diefenbaker, win the largest percentage of seats in Canadian history, with 208 seats of 265.
1957: Elections to the Territorial Assembly of the French colony Upper Volta are held. After the elections PDU and MDV form a government.
1945: World War II: A defecting German pilot delivers a Messerschmitt Me 262A-1, the world's first operational jet-powered fighter aircraft, to the Americans, the first to fall into Allied hands.
1942: World War II: Japanese forces invade Christmas Island, then a British possession.
1931: An earthquake in Nicaragua destroys Managua; killing 2,000.
1930: The Motion Picture Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines on the treatment of sex, crime, religion and violence in film, in the U.S., for the next thirty-eight years.
1906: The Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (later the National Collegiate Athletic Association) is established to set rules for college sports in the United States.
1854: Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Convention of Kanagawa with the Tokugawa Shogunate, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.
1822: The massacre of the population of the Greek island of Chios by soldiers of the Ottoman Empire following an attempted rebellion, depicted by the French artist Eugène Delacroix.
1492: Queen Isabella of Castile issues the Alhambra Decree, ordering her 150,000 Jewish and Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion.