- 1789 – North Carolina is admitted as the 12th state.
- 1877 – Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound.
- 1905 – Albert Einstein’s paper that leads to the mass-energy equivalence formula, E = mc², is published.
- 1922 – Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia becomes the first female U.S. Senator. Her appointment was temporary as she served just 24 hours.
- 1938 – Nazi forces occupied western Czechoslovakia and declared its people German citizens.
- 1974 – Congress passed the Freedom of Information Act over President Gerald Ford’s veto.
- 1985 – U.S. Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard is arrested for spying after being caught giving Israel classified information about Arab nations.
- 1986 – National Security Council member Oliver North and his secretary, Fawn Hall, start to shred documents allegedly implicating them in the Iran-Contra affair.
