1937 – A sit-down strike ends when General Motors recognizes the United Automobile Workers Union.
1938 – BBC Television produces the world's first ever science fiction television programme, an adaptation of a section of the Karel Capek play R.U.R. (This play coined the term 'robot.')
1941 – First Gold record presented to Glenn Miller for "Chattanooga Choo Choo".
1981 – 100,000 gallons (380 m3) of radioactive coolant leak into the containment building of TVA Sequoyah 1 nuclear plant in Tennessee, contaminating 8 workers.
1986 – Rights activist Anatoly Scharansky, released by the USSR, leaves the country.
1999 – Pluto, a planet with an irregular orbit, changes from the eighth to ninth planet farthest from the sun. It had been the eighth farthest since 1979. It is downgraded to a dwarf planet in 2006.