- 1777 – San Jose, Calfornia is founded as Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe by Jose Joaquin Moraga.
- 1877 – Thomas Edison demonstrates his phonograph for the first time.
- 1929 – Admiral Richard E. Byrd leads the first expedition to fly over the South Pole.
- 1963 – President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
- 1967 – Vietnam War: Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announces his resignation.
- 1972 – Atari releases Pong, the first commercially successful video game.
- 1990 – The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution authorizing “all necessary means,” including military force, against Iraq if it didn’t withdraw from Kuwait by Jan. 15, 1991.
- 2017 – NBC fired Matt Lauer as host of the Today show after the network received a complaint accusing him of “inappropriate sexual behavior.”
