| 1990 | Jean-Bertrand Aristide becomes Haiti's first president to be elected by the people.
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| 1989 | Movie bad guy Lee Van Cleef (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) dies at age 64.
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| 1980 | Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Harland Sanders dies in Shelbyville, Kentucky, at age 90.
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| 1963 | Kenya is admitted to the United Nations.
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| 1960 | 134 people are killed when a TWA plane and a United DC-8 collide in mid-air over New York City.
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| 1953 | The Delaware Water Gap Bridge, linking New Jersey with Pennsylvania, opens to traffic.
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| 1946 | Thailand is admitted to the United Nations.
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| 1944 | The Battle of the Bulge begins as Germany launches a surprise counter-attack against Allied forces in Belgium, during WWII.
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| 1922 | Florence E. Allen becomes the first woman justice of a state supreme court (Ohio).
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| 1916 | Gregory Rasputin, a monk with considerable influence over the Russian court, is murdered by noblemen.
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| 1870 | The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is lit for the first time.
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| 1852 | The Evening Star newspaper begins publication in Washington, DC.
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| 1838 | The Boers defeat the Zulus in South Africa.
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| 1835 | The Wall Street area of New York City is destroyed by fire.
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| 1809 | Napoleon Bonaparte and the Empress Josephine are divorced by an act of the French Senate.
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| 1773 | The Boston Tea Party occurs when American colonists board a British ship and dump overboard more than 300 chests of tea to protest high taxes.
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| 1653 | Oliver Cromwell is named lord protector of England, Scotland and Ireland.
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