2005: The rebuilt Dresden Frauenkirche (destroyed in the firebombing of Dresden during World War II) is reconsecrated after a thirteen-year rebuilding project.
1995: Quebec citizens narrowly vote (50.58% to 49.42%) in favour of remaining a province of Canada in their second referendum on national sovereignty.
1987: In Japan, NEC releases the first 16-bit (fourth generation) video game console, the PC Engine, which is later sold in other markets under the name TurboGrafx-16.
1970: In Vietnam, the worst monsoon to hit the area in six years causes severe floods, kills 293, leaves 200,000 homeless and virtually halts the Vietnam War.
1965: Vietnam War: United States Marines repel an intense attack by Viet Cong forces, killing 56 guerrillas near Da Nang.
1961: Due to "violations of Vladimir Lenin's precepts", it is decreed that Stalin's body be removed from its place of honour inside Lenin's tomb and buried near the Kremlin Wall with a plain granite marker instead.
1961: The Soviet Union detonates the Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya; equivalent to 57 megatons of TNT, it remains the largest explosive device ever detonated, nuclear or otherwise.
1953: Cold War: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the top secret document National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat.
1944: Anne and Margot Frank are deported from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they die from disease the following year, shortly before the end of WWII.
1942: Lt. Tony Fasson, Able Seaman Colin Grazier and canteen assistant Tommy Brown from HMS Petard board U-559, retrieving material which would lead to the decryption of the German Enigma code.
1831: In Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave rebellion in United States history.
1806: Believing he is facing a much larger force, Prussian Lieutenant General Friedrich von Romberg, commanding 5,300 men, surrendered the city of Stettin to 800 French soldiers commanded by General Lassalle.
1501: Ballet of Chestnuts: A banquet held by Cesare Borgia in the Papal Palace where fifty prostitutes or courtesans are in attendance for the entertainment of the guests.