- 1639 – The first colonial constitution is adopted in Connecticut.
- 1741 – Benedict Arnold is born. Once a loyal Continental soldier became perhaps the best known traitor of the war.
- 1806 – Matthew Maury is born. He became an American naval officer and one of the founders of oceanography.
- 1875 – Albert Schweitzer is born. He went on to become a well-known theologian, musician, philosopher and Nobel Prize-winning physician.
- 1900 – Marion Martin is born. She was elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 1930, the Maine Senate in 1934, and was the first woman to head the Department of Labor and Industry.
- 1940 – Julian Bond is born. The civil rights leader was elected to the Georgia state House in 1964 but his colleagues refused to seat him. It wasn’t until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the exclusion was unconstitutional in December of 1966 that Bond was sworn in a month later.
- 1942 – FDR orders “enemy aliens” from Italy, Germany and Japan to register with the United States Department of Justice, which led to full-scale internment of Japanese-Americans the very next month.
- 1943 – Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to travel by airplane while in office when he flies from Miami to Morocco to meet with Winston Churchill.
- 1943 – Shannon Lucid is born. The American astronaut is a biochemist who spent 188 days in space aboard the space station Mir in 1996. At the time, it was a record spaceflight for a U.S. astronaut. She was recognized in 2002 as one of the 50 most important women in science.
- 1952 – NBC broadcasts the first episode of “Today,” hosted by Dave Garroway.
- 1963 – “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” Governor George Wallace was inaugurated as the Alabama governor.
- 1973 – Elvis Presley performs “Aloha from Hawaii,” the first live concert transmitted by satellite around the world.
- 2016 – Alan Rickman dies. He played Snape in the Harry Potter films.
