- 1831 – Charles Darwin embarks on his journey aboard HMS Beagle, during which he will begin to formulate his theory of evolution.
- 1845 – Journalist John L. O’Sullivan, writing in his newspaper the New York Morning News, argues that the United States had the right to claim the entire Oregon Country “by the right of our manifest destiny.”
- 1932 – Radio City Music Hall opened in New York.
- 1945 – The International Monetary Fund is created with the signing of an agreement by 29 nations.
- 1979 – The Soviet Union invades the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
- 1983 – Pope John Paul II met privately in a jail cell with Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish man who shot and attempted to assassinate the pontiff in 1981. The pope pardoned him.
