EVENTS
- 1519 – Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Seville to travel around the world.
- 1675 – The foundation stone for the Royal Observatory, Greenwich is laid. Commissioned by King Charles II of England, the Royal Observatory started operating in 1676 under the supervision of John Flamsteed, the first British Astronomer Royal. The observatory is famous around the world because it location marks the Prime Meridian passes through it.
- 1793 – The Louvre in Paris opens to the public as a museum.
- 1944 – Battle of Narva ends. The 8-day long battle was fought between the German Army and the Soviet Leningrad Front for the control of the Narva Isthmus in Estonia during the Second World War. The battle ended with decisive German victory.
- 1944 – The American forces defeat the last Japanese troops on Guam in WWII.
- 1990 – The Magellan space probe reaches the planet Venus.
- 2001 – An attack on a train during the Angolan Civil War kills about 250 people. Rebels from the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) in Angola derailed a train using an anti-tank mine and opened fire on the passengers.
- 2003 – The first person to get married while in space. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko was on the International Space Station when he married Ekaterina Dmitrieva, who was located in Texas at the time of the wedding. The wedding took place through a NASA satellite hookup.
- 2005 – After playing 49 straight hours of the video game Starcraft, Lee Seung Seop dies from exhaustion.
BIRTHDAYS
- 1874 – Herbert Hoover (31st US President)
- 1959 – Rosanna Arquette (Actress)
- 1960 – Antonio Banderas (Actor)
- 1967 – Riddick Bowe (Boxer)
- 1971 – Roy Keane (Irish footballer)
- 1972 – Angie Harmon (Actress)
- 1973 – Lisa Raymond (American tennis player)
- 1980 – Wade Barrett (English wrestler)
DEATHS
- 1896 – Otto Lilienthal (German pilot, engineer)
- 1932 – Rin Tin Tin (German-American acting dog)
- 1945 – Robert H. Goddard (American physicist, inventor)
- 1980 – Yahya Khan (Pakistan general, politician, 3rd President of Pakistan)
- 2008 – Isaac Hayes (American singer-songwriter, pianist, producer, actor)