1812 – Troop transporter Salvador runs aground on the Rio de la Plata, between Argentina and Uruguay, killing 470 people, of the 600 on board.
1813 – At the final stage of the Peninsular War, British and Portuguese forces capture Donostia, now known as San Sebastian, in the Basque Country, resulting in a rampage and eventual destruction of the town.
1888 – Mary Ann Nicholls is murdered. She is perhaps the first of Jack the Ripper's victims
1895 – John Brallier is paid US$10 plus expenses to play football for the Latrobe, Pennsylvania YMCA, making him the first professional football player.
1897 – Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector.
1992 – Pascal Lissouba is inaugurated as the President of the Republic of the Congo after a multiparty presidential election, ending a long history of one-party oppressive rule under the Congolese Workers Party.
2005 – A stampede at the Al-Aimmah Bridge in Baghdad kills 1,199 people.
2005 – Football: An early-round FA Cup match in England sets the record for the most penalty kicks taken. It took 40 such kicks to separate Tunbridge Wells and Littlehampton Town.
2006 – Edvard Munch's painting The Scream is recovered in a police raid, more than two years after it was stolen.