1502 - Columbus sets sail from Spain on his 4th & final trip to New World.
1689 - King William III of England declares war on France.
1753 - King Louis XV disbands the French parliament.
1788 - English parliament accepts abolishment of the slave trade.
1862 - The U.S. Naval Academy is relocated from Annapolis, MD to Newport, RI.
1864 - Battle of Dalton, GA
1901 - Australia opens its first parliament in Melbourne.
1936 - Italy takes Addis Ababa, annexing Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
1941 - The British Army breaks German spy codes.
1943 - The 5th German Panser army surrenders in Tunisia.
1944 - Dutch resistance fighter Gerard Musch is arrested; The Russians recapture Crimea, taking Sevastopol.
1945 - Czechoslovakia is liberated from Nazi occupation; Jersey is liberated from the Nazis; Nazi propagandist Max Blokzijl is arrested; A victory celebration takes place at Red Square.
1949 - Prince Rainier III becomes the leader of Monaco.
1950 - French Foreign minister Robert Schuman announces the Schuman Plan for European integration.
1955 - The German Federal Republic joins NATO.
1960 - Nigeria becomes a member of the British Commonwealth; The U.S. send a U-2 over the USSR.
1962 - A laser beam is successfully bounced off the Moon for the first time.
1964 - Khrushchev visits Egypt.
1967 - The first flight of a Fokker F-28 Fellowship occurs.
1977 - Patty Hearst is released from prison.
1978 - The corpse of kidnapped ex-premier Aldo Moro is found.
1979 - The U.S. & USSR sign the Salt 2 treaty, limiting nuclear weapons.
1989 - Vice President Dan Quayle says in a United Negro College Fund speech: "What a waste it is to lose one's mind" instead of "a mind is terrible thing to waste."
1993 - Paraguay holds its first presidential & parliamentary elections in 50 years.
1995 - Kinshasa, Zaire is placed under quarantine after an outbreak of the Ebola virus.
1997 - The first US ambassador since Saigon fell arrives in Vietnam.

Birthdays
1800 - John Brown, abolitionist; leader of Harpers Ferry attack
1824 - William Edmonson "Grumble" Jones, Confederate Brigadier General
1873 - Howard Carter British archaeologist/Egyptologist, discoverer of King Tut's tomb
1907 - Baldur von Schirach German writer/Nazi politician
1913 - John Hayes, Admiral
1915 - Richard Janvrin, British Vice Admiral
1918 - Mike Wallace, newscaster (Biography, 60 Minutes); Orville Freeman, (Senator-MN)/Secretary of Agriculture
1927 - Manfred Eigen, German physicist/chemist, 1967 Nobel Prize winner
1931 - Vance DeVoe Brand Longmont, astronaut (Apollo 18, STS-5, 41B, 35)
1932 - J. Alex McMillan (Representative-NC)
1942 - John D. Ashcroft (Governor, MO /Attorney General)
1949 - Oleg Yuriyevich Atkov, Russian cosmonaut (Soyuz T-10)

Passings
1280 - Magnus VI Lagaboeter, King of Norway (1263-80), dies at 42
1657 - William Bradford Governor (Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts), dies
1667 - Marie Louise de Gonzague-Nevers, French Queen of Poland (1645-48)
1688 - Frederick William, Great Elector of Brandenburg, dies at 68
1864 - "Uncle" John Sedgwick, Union Major-General, dies in battle at 50; Thomas Donnely Doubleday, Union Colonel, dies in an accident
1931 - A[lbert] A[braham] Michelson, US physicist (1907 Nobel), dies at 78
1937 - Walter Mittelholzer, Swiss aviation pioneer, dies in crash at 43
1949 - Louis II Prince of Monaco
1965 - Leopold Figl, premier of Austria, dies at 62
1968 - Harold Gray, US comic strip artist (Little Orphan Annie), dies at 74
1987 - Obafemi Awolowo, President of Nigeria (1979-83), dies at 78
1990 - Pauline Frederick 1st woman to moderate Presidential debate, dies at 84
1991 - James L. Reinsch media-advisor (Roosevelt/Churchill/Kennedy)
1992 - Mike Tyrell [Red Baron], British air acrobat, dies in an accident

Reported Missing in Action
1965
Kardell, David A., USN (CA); F8D crashed, remains returned July, 1989 - ID'd November, 1989

Wistrand, Robert C., USAF (NY); F105D crashed

1966
Dexter, Bennie L., USAF (OR); capture witnessed, Jeep found

1967
Todd, Robert Jacy, USMC (MA); KIA/BNR

1968
Leopold, Stephen R., US Army (OK); released by PRG (injured) March, 1973 - alive as of 1998

Van Artsdalen, Clifford V., US Army (PA); KIA/BNR

1970
Haight, Stephen H., US Army (NY); UH1C crashed - Killed, BNR

1972
Reeder, William S., US Army (CA); AH1G shot down, released by PRG March, 1973 - retired as a Colonel