- 588 BC – Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon lays siege to Jerusalem under Zedekiah’s reign.
- 1535 – Henry VIII declares himself head of the Church of England.
- 1559 – Elizabeth I crowned Queen of England at age 25. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.
- 1777 – Vermont declares independence from New York.
- 1831 – Victor Hugo finishes “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
- 1870 – The Democratic Party donkey first appears in Harper’s Weekly.
- 1892 – Jane Hoey is born. She later became the director of the Bureau of Public Assistance, Social Security Board and helped states develop programs of assistance, especially mothers’ aid programs.
- 1895 – Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” ballet premieres in St. Petersburg.
- 1898 – Irene Kuhn is born. She became a journalist and scooped the world when a tidal wave hit Honolulu in 1923, worked on Thomas Dewey’s campaign and wrote a conservative, nationally syndicated column for more than two decades.
- 1902 – Abdulaziz Ibn Saud leads 40 men over the walls of Riyadh and takes the city, marking the beginning of the Third Saudi State.
- 1919 – The Great Boston Molasses Flood killed 21 people and injured scores of others when fiery hot molasses burst from a huge tank in the heart of the city.
- 1929 – Martin Luther King Jr born.
- 1943 – The Pentagon is completed.
- 1967 – The first Super Bowl was held. The Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10. The cost of a 30-second commercial was $42,000.
- 1970 – Qaddafi, the son of a Bedouin farmer, becomes premier of Libya.
- 2000 – Utah’s Jerry Sloan becomes 12th coach in NBA history to reach the 700-victory plateau when the Jazz defeat the LA Clippers, 112-75 at the Delta Center, Salt Lake City
- 2001 – Wikipedia is launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger
