1797: "Old Ironsides," the U.S. Navy frigate Constitution, was launched in Boston's harbor.
1805: The Battle of Trafalgar occurred off the coast of Spain. The British defeated the French and Spanish fleet.
1849: The first tattooed man, James F. O’Connell, was put on exhibition at the Franklin Theatre in New York City, NY.
1858: The Can-Can was performed for the first time in Paris.
1879: Thomas Edison invented the electric incandescent lamp. It would last 13 1/2 hours before it would burn out.
1917: The first U.S. soldiers entered combat during World War I near Nancy, France.
1918: Margaret Owen set a typing speed record of 170 words per minute on a manual typewriter.
1925: The photoelectric cell was first demonstrated at the Electric Show in New York City, NY.
1925: The U.S. Treasury Department announced that it had fined 29,620 people for prohibition (of alcohol) violations.
1927: Construction began on the George Washington Bridge.
1944: During World War II, the German city of Aachen was captured by U.S. troops.
1945: Women in France were allowed to vote for the first time.
1950: Chinese forces invaded Tibet.
1959: The Guggenheim Museum was opened to the public in New York. The building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
1966: In south Wales, 140 people were killed by a coal waste landslide engulfed a school and several houses.
1967: Thousands of demonstrators marched in Washington, DC, in opposition to the Vietnam War.
1980: The Philadelphia Phillies won their first World Series.
1983: The Pentagon reported that 2,000 Marines were headed to Grenada to protect and evacuate Americans living there.
1986: Pro-Iranian kidnappers in Lebanon claimed that they had abducted American writer Edward Tracy. He was not released until August of 1991.
1986: The U.S. ordered 55 Soviet diplomats to leave. The action was in reaction to the Soviet Union expelling five American diplomats.
1988: Former Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos and his wife, Imelda, were indicted in New York on fraud and racketeering charges. Marcos died before his trial and Imelda was acquitted in 1990.
1991: Jesse Turner, an American hostage in Lebanon, was released after nearly five years of being imprisoned.
1993: The play "The Twilight of the Golds" opened.
1994: North Korea and the U.S. signed an agreement requiring North Korea to halt its nuclear program and agree to inspections.
1994: Rosario Ames, the wife of CIA agent Aldrich Ames, was sentenced to five years in prison for her role in her husband's espionage.
1998: 68 people were arrested in Indonesia for the killing spree that left nine suspected murderers dead.
1998: The New York Yankees set a major league baseball record of 125 victories for the regular and postseason combined.
1998: Cancer specialist Dr. Jane Henney became the FDA's first female commissioner.
2003: The U.S. Senate voted to ban what was known as partial birth abortions.
2003: North Korea rejected U.S. President George W. Bush's offer of a written pledge not to attack in exchange for the communist nation agreeing to end its nuclear weapons program.
