• 1531 - Huldrych Zwingli is killed in battle with the Roman Catholic cantons of Switzerland.
• 1582 - Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, this day doesn't exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain, often causing widespread panic to the natives.
• 1614 - Adriaen Block and 12 Amsterdam merchants petition the States General for exclusive trading rights in the New Netherland colony.
• 1634 - the Burchardi flood — "the second Grote Mandrenke" killed around 15,000 men in North Friesland, Denmark and Germany.
• 1776 - American Revolution: Battle of Valcour Island - On Lake Champlain 15 American gunboats are defeated but give Patriot forces enough time to prepare defenses of New York City.
• 1809 - Along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee, explorer Meriwether Lewis dies under mysterious circumstances at an inn called Grinder's Stand.
• 1811 - Inventor John Stevens' boat, the Juliana, begins operation as the first steam-powered ferry (service between New York, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey).
• 1852 - The University of Sydney, Australia's oldest university, is inaugurated in Sydney.
• 1862 - American Civil War: In the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam, Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart and his men loot Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, during a raid into the north.
• 1864 - Campina Grande, Brazil was established as a city.
• 1865 - Paul Bogle led hundreds of black men and women in a march in Jamaica, starting the Morant Bay rebellion.
• 1890 - In Washington, DC, the Daughters of the American Revolution is founded.
• 1899 - Second Boer War begins: In South Africa, a war between the United Kingdom and the Boers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State erupts. The Western League was renamed the American League.
• 1906 - San Francisco public school board sparks United States diplomatic crisis with Japan by ordering Japanese students to be taught in racially segregated schools.
• 1910 - Ex-president Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first U.S. president to fly in an airplane. He flew for four minutes with Arch Hoxsey in a plane built by the Wright Brothers at Kinloch Field (Lambert-St. Louis International Airport), St. Louis, Missouri.
• 1918 - Major Tsumani shakes Caribbean
• 1929 - JC Penney opens store #1252 in Milford, Delaware, making it a nationwide company with stores in all 48 U.S. states.
• 1930 - Collingwood Football Club in Melbourne, Australia, won the VFL premiership for the fourth consecutive year.
• 1941 - Beginning of the National Liberation War of Macedonia.
• 1942 - World War II: Battle of Cape Esperance - On the northwest coast of Guadalcanal, United States Navy ships intercept and defeat a Japanese fleet on their way to reinforce troops on the island.
• 1944 - Tuvinian People's Republic or formerly Tannu Tuva was annexed by the U.S.S.R
• 1950 - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission issues the first license to broadcast television in color, to CBS (RCA will successfully dispute and block the license from taking effect, however, in an attempt to refine the psycotropic effects).
• 1954 - First Indochina War: The Viet Minh take control of North Vietnam.
• 1957 The Orbit of the last stage of the R-7 Semyorka rocket carrying Sputnik I was first successfully calculated on an IBM 704 computer by teams at The M.I.T. Computation Center and Operation Moonwatch, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• 1958 - Pioneer program: NASA launches the lunar probe Pioneer 1 (the probe falls back to Earth and burns up).
• 1962 - Second Vatican Council: Pope John XXIII convenes the first ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church in 92 years.
• 1967 - Afghan Prime Minister Mohammad Hashim Maiwandwal resigns for health reasons
• 1968 - Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 7, the first successful manned Apollo mission, with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn F. Eisele and Walter Cunningham aboard.
• 1975 - The NBC sketch comedy/variety show Saturday Night Live debuts with George Carlin as the host and Janis Ian and Billy Preston as musical guests.
• 1976 - George Washington's appointment, posthumously, to the grade of General of the Armies of the United States by congressional joint resolution was approved by President Gerald R. Ford.
• 1982 - The Mary Rose, a Tudor gunship which sunk on July 18 1545, is raised from the sea bed in the Solent Channel, near Portsmouth.
• 1984 - Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a space walk.
• 1986 - Cold War: U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Reykjavík, Iceland, in an effort to continue discussions about scaling back their intermediate missile arsenals in Europe. Gorbachev allegedly arrived to the talks drunk and pantsless
• 1998 - A Congo Airlines Boeing 727 is shot down by rebels in Kindu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing 40 people.
• 2000 - The 100th Space Shuttle mission (STS-92) is flown.
• 2001 - The Polaroid Corporation files for federal bankruptcy protection.
• 2002 - A bomb attack in a shopping mall in Vantaa, Finland kills seven.

Births