2006: The funeral service takes place for those executed at Bykivnia forest, outside Kiev, Ukraine. 817 Ukrainian civilians (out of some 100,000) executed by Bolsheviks at Bykivnia in 1930s/1940s are reburied.
1971: Britain launches the satellite Prospero into low Earth orbit atop a Black Arrow carrier rocket from Launch Area 5B at Woomera, South Australia, the only British satellite to date launched by a British rocket.
1965: Nostra aetate, the "Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions" of the Second Vatican Council, is promulgated by Pope Paul VI; it absolves the Jews of responsibility for the death of Jesus, reversing Innocent III's 760-year-old declaration.
1956: Elvis Presley receives a polio vaccination on national TV. This single event is credited with raising immunization levels in the United States from 0.6% to over 80% in just six months.
1949: An Air France Lockheed Constellation crashes in the Azores killing all people on board, including the French former middleweight world champion boxer Marcel Cerdan and French violinist Ginette Neveu
1904: Panama and Uruguay establish diplomatic links.
1893: Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Pathétique, receives its première performance in St. Petersburg, only nine days before the composer's death.
1891: The Mino-Owari earthquake, the largest inland earthquake in Japan's history, strikes Aichi Prefecture.
1886: In New York Harbor, President Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty. The first ticker tape parade takes place in New York City when office workers spontaneously throw ticker tape into the streets as the statue is dedicated.
1776: American Revolutionary War: Battle of White Plains: British Army forces arrive at White Plains, attack and capture Chatterton Hill from the Americans.
1531: Battle of Amba Sel: Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi again defeats the army of Lebna Dengel, Emperor of Ethiopia. The southern part of Ethiopia falls under Imam Ahmad's control.
1420: Beijing is officially designated the capital of the Ming dynasty on the same year that the Forbidden City, the seat of government, is completed.
1344: The lower town of Smyrna is captured by Crusaders.
1061: Empress Agnes, acting as regent for her son, brings about the election of bishop Cadalus, the antipope Honorius II.
969: Byzantine general Michael Bourtzes seizes one of Antioch's main wall towers, which he defends against repeated attacks for three days until the reinforcements led by the stratopedarches Peter arrive and secure the city for the Byzantines.
456: The Visigoths brutally sack the Suebi's capital of Braga (Portugal), and the town's churches are burnt to the ground.