- 1554 – São Paulo, Brazil is founded.
- 1759 – Scottish poet Robert Burns is born.
- 1776 – First national memorial ordered by Congress in honor of Brigadier General Richard Montgomery.
- 1783 – William Colgate is born.
- 1858 – Felix Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” first played, at the wedding of Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Victoria, to crown prince of Prussia.
- 1882 – Author Virginia Woolf is born.
- 1890 – Nellie Bly, journalist, completed her around the world trip in 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes, and 14 seconds after setting sail east to prove she could circle the globe in less than 80 days
- 1905 – World’s largest diamond is found in South Africa. It weighs 3,106 carats.
- 1915 – Alexander Graham Bell in NY calls Thomas Watson in San Francisco
- 1924 – The first Winter Olympics is held in Chamonix, France with 13 total events.
- 1947 – Al Capone dies of neurosyphilis at age 48.
- 1961 – JFK becomes the first president to hold a televised news conference.
- 1971 – Charles Manson and his followers convicted of murder.
- 1981 – Chairman Mao’s widow is sentenced to death for her counter-revolutionary crimes.
- 1983 – Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie arrested in Bolivia.
- 2017 – Mary Tyler Moore dies at age 80.
