2137 BC- China is the site of the first recorded total eclipse of the sun.
1520 - Magellan entered the strait which bears his name.
1553 - Volumes of the Talmud are burned.
1797 - The U.S. Navy frigate Constitution ("Old Ironsides") is launched in Boston.
1805 - At the Battle of Trafalgar, Admiral Nelson defeats the French and Spanish fleet, and dies.
1861 - Battle of Balls Bluff, VA.
1869 - The first shipment of fresh oysters travels overland from Baltimore.
1879 - Thomas Edison perfects the carbonized cotton filament light bulb.
1897 - At the University of Chigago, the Yerkes Observatory is dedicated.
1915 - The first transatlantic radiotelephone message is sent from Arlington, VA, to Paris.
1917 - For the first time, Americans see action on the front lines of WW I.
1944 - U.S. troops capture Aachen - the first large German city to fall in WW II.
1945 - For the first time, women in France are allowed to vote.
1948 - The facsimile high-speed radio transmission demonstrated in Washington, DC.
1950 - Chinese forces occupy Tibet.
1959 - In NYC, the Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opens.
1967 - Thousands opposing the Vietnam War try to storm the Pentagon.
1969 - A bloodless coup occurs in Somalia.
1971 - Nixon nominates Lewis F. Powell and William H. Rehnquist to the U.S. Supreme Court following the resignations of Justices Hugo Black and John Harlan.
1975 - Venera-9, the first craft to orbit the planet Venus, is launched.
1976 - The NY Knicks retire their first number, # 19 (Willis Reed).
1977 - The U.S. recalls William Bowdler, ambassador to South Africa.
1987 - The U.S. Senate begins rejecting Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination.
1988 - Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos are indicted on racketeering charges.
1989 - After being buried for four days in the San Francisco earthquake, Buck Helm is found alive.
1991 - 24 die in a fire in Oakland, CA.

Birthdays
1772 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet (Rime of the Ancient Mariner)
1833 - Alfred Bernhard Nobel, created dynamite and the Peace Prizes
1917 - Dizzy Gillespie, trumpeter, a creator of modern jazz
1950 - Ronald E. McNair, astronaut (STS 41B, 51L-Challenger disaster)

Passings
1805 - Admiral Horatio Nelson, in the Battle of Trafalgar
1831 - Nat Turner and 19 associates, hanged for their roles in the Southampton Slave Revolt
1967 - Ejnar Hertzsprung, Danish astrophysicist
1987 - Ying-Chin Ho, Taiwanese government official

Reported Missing in Action
1966
Earll, David J., USAF (TX); F105D exploded after releasing ordinance on bombing run

1967
Hemmel, Clarence J., USAF (MO); F100D shot down, KIA, body not recovered

1968
Finley, Dickie W., US Army (MO)

Knabb, Kenneth K., USN (IL); A4E shot down

1969
Cook, Glenn R., USAF (NC); O2A shot down (pilot, w/Epenshield)

Espenshield, John L., USAF (OH); O2A shot down (observer, w/Cook), remains returned May, 1989

1973
Bradley, Ed, Civilian; O/A returned from visit November, 1973