1667 – The Treaty of Breda ends the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam gets tranferred to British control, being renamed New York. The Dutch get the previously British colony in present-day Suriname.
1703 – Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers.
1941 – Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring orders SS general Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."
1954 – First ascent of K2, by an Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio, also involving Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni. The lack of credit given to Walter Bonatti causes a lot of controversy in the years to come.
1956 – Jim Laker sets extraordinary record at Old Trafford in the fourth Test of taking nineteen wickets in a first-class match (the previous best was seventeen.
1964 – Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes).
1969 - The Mariner 6 probe flies by Mars and sends photographs to Earth.
2013 - Zimbabwe holds a Presidentialelection. The main candidates are long-time President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. Mugabe's ZANU-PF Party claims a landslide victory, but Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change declares the election null and void on the grounds of vote-rigging.