- 1826 – Matilda Joslyn Gage is born. She was a founding member of the National Woman Suffrage Association, a prolific author, an abolitionist, a freethinker, a women’s rights and Native American rights activist. She was written out of history by more conservative suffragists.
- 1882 – German scientist Robert Koch discovers and describes the tubercle bacillus which causes tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis), and establishes germ theory.
- 1912 – Dorothy Height is born.
- 1989 – Exxon Valdez crashes, causing one of the worst oil spills in history.
- 1996 – Shannon Lucid becomes the first female US astronaut to live aboard a space station.
- 1998 – Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shoot their classmates and teachers in Jonesboro, Arkansas, killing five and wounding 10.
