1808: At Harvard University, the first college orchestra was founded.
1820: The Missouri Compromise was enacted by the U.S. Congress and signed by U.S. President James Monroe. The act admitted Missouri into the Union as a slave state, but prohibited slavery in the rest of the northern Louisiana Purchase territory.
1834: The city of York in Upper Canada was incorporated as Toronto.
1836: The thirteen-day siege of the Alamo by Santa Anna and his army ended. The Mexican army of three thousand men defeated the 189 Texas volunteers.
1854: At the Washington Monument, several men stole the Pope's Stone from the lapidarium.
1857: The U.S. Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision ruled that blacks could not sue in federal court to be citizens.
1886: "The Nightingale" was first published. It was the first magazine for nurses.
1899: Aspirin was patented by German researchers Felix Hoffman and Hermann Dreser.
1900: In West Virginia, an explosion trapped 50 coal miners underground.
1901: An assassin tried to kill Wilhelm II of Germany in Bremen.
1907: British creditors of the Dominican Republic claimed that the U.S. had failed to collect debts.
1928: A Communist attack on Peking, China resulted in 3,000 dead and 50,000 fled to Swatow.
1939: In Spain, Jose Miaja took over the Madrid government after a military coup and vowed to seek "peace with honor."
1941: Les Hite and his orchestra recorded "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise".
1944: During World War II, U.S. heavy bombers began the first American raid on Berlin. Allied planes dropped 2000 tons of bombs.
1946: Ho Chi Minh, the President of Vietnam, struck an agreement with France that recognized his country as an autonomous state within the Indochinese Federation and the French Union.
1947: The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the contempt conviction of John L. Lewis.
1947: Winston Churchill announced that he opposed British troop withdrawals from India.
1947: The first air-conditioned naval ship, "The Newport News," was launched from Newport News, VA.
1957: The British African colonies of the Gold Coast and Togoland became the independent state of Ghana.
1960: Switzerland granted women the right to vote in municipal elections.
1960: The United States announced that it would send 3,500 troops to Vietnam.
1964: Tom O’Hara set a new world indoor record when he ran the mile in 3 minutes, 56.4 seconds.
1967: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his plan to establish a draft lottery.
1970: Charles Manson released his album "Lies" to finance his defense against murder charges.
1973: U.S. President Richard Nixon imposed price controls on oil and gas.
1975: Iran and Iraq announced that they had settled their border dispute.
1980: Islamic militants in Tehran said that they would turn over American hostages to the Revolutionary Council.
1981: Walter Cronkite appeared on his last episode of "CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite." He had been on the job 19 years.
1981: U.S. President Reagan announced a plan to cut 37,000 federal jobs.
1982: National Basketball Association history was made when San Antonio beat Milwaukee 171-166 in three overtime periods to set the record for most points by two teams in a game. The record was beaten on December 13, 1983 by the Pistons and the Nuggets when they played to a final score of 186-184
1983: The United States Football League began its first season of pro football competition.
1985: Yul Brynner played his his 4,500th performance in the musical "The King and I."
1987: The British ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsized in the Channel off the coast of Belgium. 189 people died.
1990: In Afghanistan, an attempted coup to remove President Najibullah from office failed.
1990: The Russian Parliament passed a law that sanctioned the ownership of private property.
1991: In Paris, five men were jailed for plotting to smuggle Libyan arms to the Irish Republican Army.
1992: The last episode of "The Cosby Show" aired. The show had been on since September of 1984.
1992: The computer virus "Michelangelo" went into effect.
1997: A gunman stole "Tete de Femme," a million-dollar Picasso portrait, from a London gallery. The painting was recovered a week later.
1997: Britain's Queen Elizabeth II launched the first official royal Web site.
1998: A Connecticut state lottery accountant gunned down three supervisors and the lottery chief before killing himself.
