1525: The Catholic princes of Germany formed the Dessau League to fight against the Reformation.
1553: Fifteen-year-old Lady Jane Grey was deposed as Queen of England after claiming the crown for nine days. Mary, the daughter of King Henry VIII, was proclaimed Queen.
1788: Prices plunged on the Paris stock market.
1799: The Rosetta Stone, a tablet with hieroglyphic translations into Greek, was found in Egypt.
1848: The Women's Rights Convention took place in Seneca Fall, NY. Bloomers were introduced at the convention.
1870: France declared war on Prussia.
1909: The first unassisted triple play in major-league baseball was made by Cleveland Indians shortstop Neal Ball in a game against Boston.
1939: Dr. Roy P. Scholz became the first surgeon to use fiberglass sutures.
1942: German U-boats were withdrawn from positions off the U.S. Atlantic coast due to effective American anti-submarine countermeasures.
1943: During World War II, more than 150 B-17 and 112 B-24 bombers attacked Rome for the first time.
1946: Marilyn Monroe acted in her first screen test.
1960: Juan Marichal of the San Francisco Giants became the first pitcher to get a one-hitter in his major league debut.
1974: The House Judiciary Committee recommended that U.S. President Richard Nixon should stand trial in the Senate for any of the five impeachment charges against him.
1975: The Apollo and Soyuz spacecrafts separated after being linked in orbit for two days.
1979: In Nicaragua, the dictatorship of the Somozas was overthrown by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional or FSLN).
1984: Geraldine Ferraro was nominated by the Democratic Party to become the first woman from a major political party to run for the office of U.S. Vice-President.
1985: George Bell won first place in a biggest feet contest with a shoe size of 28-1/2. Bell, at age 26, stood 7 feet 10 inches tall.
1985: Christa McAuliffe of New Hampshire was chosen to be the first schoolteacher to ride aboard the space shuttle. She died with six others when the Challenger exploded the following year.
1989: 112 people were killed when a United Airline DC-10 airplane crashed in Sioux City, Iowa. 184 people did survive the accident.
