0844 - Gregory IV begins & ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1139 - Godfried II the Young becomes duke of Brabant
1327 - King Edward III accends to British throne
1348 - Earthquake destroys Villach, killing 5,000
1494 - Alfonso II replaces his father as king of Naples
1533 - England's King Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn (approximate date)
1554 - Sir Thomas Wyatt gathers an army in Kent, rebels against Queen Mary
1565 - Battle at Talikota India Moslems destroy Vijayanagar's army
1579 - Treaty of Utrecht signed, marks beginning of Dutch Republic
1721 - Czar Peter the Great ends Russian-orthodox patriarchy
1775 - Americans drag cannon up hill to fight British (Gun Hill Road, Bronx)
1787 - Shays' Rebellion suffers a setback when debt-ridden farmers, led by Captain Daniel Shays, fail to capture an arsenal at Springfield MA
1799 - 1st US patent for a seeding machine, Eliakim Spooner, Vermont
1802 - Napoleon elected President of the Italian (Cisalpine) Republic
1825 - 1st US engineering college opens, Rensselaer Polytechnic, Troy NY
1844 - Recontre between Representatives Weller & Shriver, US House of Representatives
1851 - Sojourner Truth addresses 1st Black Women's Rights Convention (Akron)
1856 - Battle of Seattle; skirmish between settlers & Indians
1858 - Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" 1st played, at wedding of Queen Victoria's daughter Princess Victoria, to crown prince of Prussia
1863 - Battle of Kinston, NC; General Joseph Hooker replaces Burnside as head of Army of Potomac
1865 - The CSS Shenandoah arrives in Melbourne, Australia
1870 - Soda fountain patented by Gustavus Dows
1875 - Anti-slavery society formed in NY
1877 - Congress determines presidential election between Hayes-Tilden
1890 - Nellie Bly beats Phileas Fogg's time around world by 8 days (72 days)
1904 - 179 die in coal mine explosion at Cheswick PA
1915 - Transcontinental telephone service inaugurated (New York to San Francisco)
1916 - Montenegro surrenders to Austria-Hungary
1918 - Russia declared a republic of Soviets
1919 - Founding of League of Nations, 1st meeting 1 year later
1924 - 1st Winter Olympic games open in Chamonix, France
1937 - Miami-to-Tampa bus overturned in a canal, kills 13
1940 - Nazi decrees the establishment of Jewish ghetto in Lodz Poland
1945 - Grand Rapids, MI becomes 1st US city to fluoridate its water; Japanese occupiers of Batavia arrest Indo-European youths; West Africa 82nd division occupies Myohaung, Burma
1949 - 1st Israeli election - Ben-Gurion's Mapai party wins
1951 - UN begins counter offensive in Korea
1955 - Russia ends state of war with Germany; US & Panamá sign canal treaty
1957 - FBI arrests Jack & Myra Sobel, charged with spying for the USSR
1959 - 1st transcontinental commercial jet flight (American) (Los Angeles to New York for $301)
1961 - 1st live, nationally televised Presidential news conference (JFK); Walt Disney's "101 Dalmations" released; Military coup in El Salvador
1964 - Echo 2, US communications satellite launched
1969 - US-North Vietnamese peace talks begin in Paris
1970 - Robert Altman's "M*AS*H" premieres
1971 - Charles Manson & 3 women followers convicted of Tate-LaBianca murders; Himachal Pradesh becomes 18th Indian state; Philadelphia mint's 1st trial strike of the Eisenhower dollar; Military coup in Uganda under General Idi Amin Dada
1974 - Bülent Ecevit forms government in Turkey
1974 - South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard transplanted the first human heart without removal of the old one
1975 - Parliament disposes of premier sheik Mujib ur-Rahman
1978 - Muriel Humphrey (D-MN) appointed to fill late husband's Senate seat
1979 - Pope John Paul II's 1st overseas trip as supreme pontiff
1980 - Highest speed attained by a warship, 167 kph, USN hovercraft; Bani Sadr elected President of Iran; Dutch Government demands boycott of Olympics; 52 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days arrived back in US
1981 - Mao's widow Jiang Qing sentenced to death
1983 - China's supreme court commutes Chiang Ch'ing's death sentence to life; Infrared telescope satellite launched into polar orbit; Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie arrested in Bolivia
1986 - General Tito Okello's government flees Kampala Uganda
1988 - Vice President Bush & Dan Rather clash on "CBS Evening News" as Rather attempts to question Bush about his role in the Iran-Contra affair; Ramsewak Shankar sworn in as President of Suriname
1990 - Former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega is transferred to a Miami jail
1991 - Manuel Noriega is given access to assets frozen by US government
1992 - Hubble space telescope optics finds NGC3862/3C264
1993 - Puerto Rico adds English as its 2nd official language; Sears announces it is closing its catalog sales department after 97 years
1994 - Accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy, Michael Jackson settles a civil lawsuit out of court; US space probe Clementine launched
1995 - Jacques Santer succeeds Jacques Delors as chairman of European Committee

Birthdays
0749 - Leo IV (the Khazar), Byzantine emperor (775-80)
1540 - Edmund Campion London, saint/Jesuit martyr (December Rationes)
1634 - Gaspar Fagel, lawyer/pension advisor of Holland (1672-88)
1693 - Anna Ivanova Romanova, daughter of Ivan V/empress of Russia (1730-40)
1741 - Benedict Arnold, General /traitor (US revolution)
1766 - Hans Freiherr von Gagern, German advisor to Dutch king Willem I
1770 - Francis Burdett, British politician
1777 - Elias Canneman, Dutch liberal minister of Finance (1813-14)
1814 - Francis Harrison Pierpont, Governor (Union)
1826 - Rembt van Boneval Faure, Dutch MP
1839 - Seldon Connor, Union Brigadier General
1841 - John Arbuthnot Fisher Ceylon, 1st Baron Fisher/admiral of the fleet
1860 - Charles Curtis, (R) 31st US VP (1929-33)
1866 - Emile Vandervelde, leader of Belgian BWP party
1891 - William C. Bullitt, 1st US ambassador to USSR
1912 - Lucius E. Burch Jr., US lawyer/civil rights leader
1928 - Eduard Shevardnadze, Soviet Georgia, foreign minister of USSR (1985-91)
1936 - Dan Schaefer (Representative-CO)
1946 - Josephine M. Verspaget, sociologist/Dutch MP (PvdA)

Passings
1138 - Anacletus II [Pietro Pierleone], Jewish anti-pope (1130-38)
1139 - Godfried I with the Beard, duke of Brabant/Earl of Leuven
1494 - Ferdinand I cruel king of Naples
1733 - Reinier V. van Hompech, Dutch General-Major cavalry
1821 - Johan Valckenier, Dutch politician/patriot, dies at 62
1906 - Joseph Wheeler, Confederate General, dies at 70
1947 - Al Capone Chicago gangster, dies of syphilis at 48
1952 - Sveinn Bjørnsson, Danish 1st President of Iceland (1944-52), dies at 70
1969 - John Zajíc, Czech student, self incinerates
1970 - Eunice Hunton Carter, 1st Black female District Attorney in NY, dies at 70
1978 - Tango Duke dies in Australia at 42; oldest known thoroughbred horse
1982 - Mihail A. Suslov, Soviet party ideologist, dies at 79
1992 - Mahmoud Riad, Secretary-General of Arab League (1972-79)
1998 - Mohammad Yusuf Khan, prime minister of Afghanistan in (1963-65)

Reported Missing in Action
1967
Wallace, Arnold B., US Army (CA); Killed, body not recovered