- 1820 – Caroline Severance is born. She co-founded the American Woman Suffrage Association and was the first woman to register to vote in California (1911).
- 1876 – Jack London is born.
- 1888 – The “Schoolchildren’s Blizzard” kills 235 people, many of them children on their way home from school across the Northwest Plains. The storm came without warning, with a temperature drop of 100 degrees in 24 hours.
- 1904 – Henry Ford sets a land speed record of 91.37 mph.
- 1916 – Ruth R. Benerito is born. The American chemist revolutionized both the textile and the laundry industry with her creation of a wrinkle, stain, and flame resistant fabric.
- 1920 – James Farmer is born. The American civil rights activist co-founded the Congress of Racial Equality and worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr.
- 1922 – Ira Hamilton Hays is born. During World War II, Hays and five other U.S. Marines raised the American flag on Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima during the six week siege on the island. Photographer Joe Rosenthal captured the event on film and the photo would later be used to create the Marine War Memorial at Arlington, Virginia.
- 1932 – Hattie Wyatt Caraway (D-Arkansas) is the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate. She becomes the first woman to chair a Senate Committee and the first to serve as the Senate’s presiding officer
- 1964 – Jeff Bezos is born.
- 1966 – Batman premiered on TV, starring Adam West
- 1967 – The first person is cryogenically preserved. Upon his death, psychology professor Dr. James H. Bedford of California achieved half his dream of being placed in cryogenic suspension. It remains to be seen whether or not he will see the other half of his dream and survive to be re-animated.
- 1986 – Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz launches into space aboard the space shuttle Columbia 7 and the first Hispanic person in space.
- 2010 – Massive earthquake strikes Haiti
