| *1930 | American playwright Lorraine Hansberry was born in Chicago. | |
| *1925 | Black militant Malcolm X, born this day in 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, articulated concepts of race pride and black nationalism in the early 1960s. After his assassination in 1965, the widespread distribution of his life story—The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965)—made him an ideological hero, especially among black youth. | |
| *1890 | Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese founder of the Indochina Communist Party (1930) and its successor, the Viet Minh (1941), and president (1945–69) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), was born in Hoang Tru, Vietnam, French Indochina. | |
| 2005 | "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" brought in 50.0 million in its opening day. | |
| 2003 | Hundreds of Albert Einstein's scientific papers, personal letters and humanist essays were made available on the Internet. Einstein had given the papers to the Hebrew Universtiy of Jerusalem in his will. | |
| 2003 | It was announced that Worldcom Inc. would pay investors $500 million to settle civil fraud charges over its $11 billion accounting scandal. | |
| 2000 | Disney released the movie "Dinosaur." | |
| 2000 | The bones of the most complete and best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton went on display in Chicago. | |
| 1999 | "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace" was released in the U.S. It set a new record for opening day sales at 28.5 million. | |
| 1999 | Rosie O'Donnell and Tom Selleck got into an uncomfortable verbal issue concerning gun control on O'Donnell's talk show. | |
| 1998 | Bandits stole three of Rome's most important paintings from the National Gallery of Modern Art. | |
| 1998 | In Russia, strikes broke out over unpaid wages. | |
| 1993 | The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed about 3,500 (3,500.03) for the first time. | |
| 1992 | In Massapequa, NY, Mary Jo Buttafuoco was shot and seriously wounded by Amy Fisher. Fisher was her husband Joey's teen-age lover. | |
| 1992 | The 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect. The amendment prohibits Congress from giving itself midterm pay raises. | |
| 1992 | U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle criticized the CBS sitcom "Murphy Brown" for having its title character decide to bear a child out of wedlock. | |
| 1989 | The Dow Jones Industrial Average passed 2,500 for the first time. The close for the day was 2,501.1. | |
| 1967 | The Soviet Union ratified a treaty with the United States and Britain that banned nuclear weapons from outer space. | |
| 1967 | U.S. planes bombed Hanoi for the first time. | |
| 1964 | The U.S. State Department reported that diplomats had found about 40 microphones planted in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. | |
| 1962 | Marilyn Monroe performed a sultry rendition of "Happy Birthday" for U.S. President John F. Kennedy. The event was a fund-raiser at New York's Madison Square Garden. | |
| 1958 | Canada and the U.S. formally established the North American Air Defense Command. | |
| 1943 | Winston Churchill told the U.S. Congress that his country was pledging their full support in the war against Japan. | |
| 1943 | During the Thirty Years' War, the French army defeated the Spanish army in the Battle of Rocroi, ending Spain's military ascendancy in Europe. | |
| 1935 | T.E. Lawrence "Lawrence of Arabia" died from injuries in a motorcycle crash in England. | |
| 1935 | The National Football League (NFL) adopted an annual college draft to begin in 1936. | |
| 1928 | The first frog-jumping jubilee held in Calaveras County, CA. | |
| 1926 | Benito Mussolini announced that democracy was deceased. Rome became a fascist state. | |
| 1926 | In Damascus, Syria, French shells killed 600 people. | |
| 1926 | Thomas Edison spoke on the radio for the first time. | |
| 1921 | The U.S. Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants. | |
| 1912 | The Associated Advertising Clubs of America held its first convention in Dallas, TX. | |
| 1911 | The first American criminal conviction that was based on fingerprint evidence occurred in New York City. | |
| 1906 | The Federated Boys' Clubs, forerunner of the Boys' Clubs of America, were organized. | |
| 1884 | On this day Charles, Albert, Otto, Alfred, and John Ringling, the sons of August Rüngeling, a German-born harness maker, organized a small circus and opened it in their hometown, Baraboo, Wisconsin, from which they toured the American Midwest. After the opening of the circus in 1884, their progress was slow until the Ringlings acquired their first elephant in 1888, after which the circus expanded rapidly. They acquired the Forepaugh-Sells Circus in 1906 and the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1907, thus becoming the leading circus in the country. | |
| 1864 | The Union and Confederate armies launched their last attacks against each other at Spotsylvania in Virginia. | |
| 1858 | A pro-slavery band led by Charles Hameton executed unarmed Free State men near Marais des Cygnes on the Kansas-Missouri border. | |
| 1857 | The electric fire alarm system was patented by William F. Channing and Moses G. Farmer. | |
| 1856 | U.S. Senator Charles Sumner spoke out against slavery. | |
| 1847 | The first English-style railroad coach was placed in service on the Fall River Line in Massachusetts. | |
| 1802 | Napoleon Bonaparte, then first consul of France, created the Legion of Honour, the premier order of the French republic. | |
| 1796 | The first U.S. game law was approved. The measure called for penalties for hunting or destroying game within Indian territory. | |
| 1643 | Delegates from four New England colonies met in Boston to form a confederation. | |
| 1643 | The French army defeated a Spanish army at Rocroi, France. | |
| 1608 | The Protestant states formed the Evangelical Union of Lutherans and Calvinists. | |
| 1588 | The Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon, bound for England. | |
| 1571 | Spanish explorer Miguel López de Legazpi established the city of Manila in the Philippines. | |
| 1568 | After being defeated by the Protestants, Mary the Queen of Scots, fled to England where she was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth. | |
| 1536 | Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England's King Henry VIII, was beheaded after she was convicted of adultery. | |
| 1536 | Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII of England and mother of Queen Elizabeth I, found guilty on charges of adultery, was beheaded. | |
| 1535 | French explorer Jacques Cartier set sail for North America. | |
