| 1637 | Anne Hutchinson, the first female religious leader in the American colonies, was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for heresy. |
| 1665 | "The London Gazette" was first published. |
| 1811 | The Shawnee Indians of chief Tecumseh were defeated by William Henry Harrison at the Battle of Wabash (or (Tippecanoe). |
| 1837 | In Alton, IL, abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy was shot to death by a mob (supporters of slavery) while trying to protect his printing shop from a third destruction. |
| 1874 | The Republican party of the U.S. was first symbolized as an elephant in a cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly. |
| 1876 | The cigarette manufacturing machine was patented by Albert H. Hook. |
| 1877 | "The Sorcerer" was performed for the first time of 178 total performances. |
| 1893 | The state of Colorado granted its women the right to vote. |
| 1895 | The last spike was driven into Canada's first transcontinental railway in the mountains of British Columbia. |
| 1914 | The "New Republic" magazine was printed for the first time. |
| 1916 | Jeanette Rankin of Montana became the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress. |
| 1917 | Russia's Bolshevik Revolution took place. The provisional government of Alexander Kerensky was overthrown by forces led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. |
| 1918 | During World War I, a false report through the United Press announced that an armistice had been signed. |
| 1929 | The Museum of Modern Art in New York City opened to the public. |
| 1932 | "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" was broadcast for the first on CBS Radio. |
| 1933 | Voters in Pennsylvania eliminated sports from Pennsylvanian "Blue Laws." |
| 1940 | The middle section of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington state collapsed during a windstorm. The suspension bridge had opened to traffic on July 1, 1940. |
| 1944 | U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first person to win a fourth term as president. |
| 1963 | The comedy "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" premiered in Hollywood. |
| 1963 | Elston Howard, of the New York Yankees, became the first black player to be named the American League's Most Valuable Player. |
| 1965 | The "Pillsbury Dough Boy" debuted in television commercials. |
| 1967 | Carl Stokes was elected the first black mayor Cleveland, OH, becoming the first black mayor of a major city. |
| 1967 | U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a bill establishing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. |
| 1967 | The U.S. Selective Service Commission announced that college students arrested in anti-war demonstrations would lose their draft deferments. |
| 1973 | New Jersey became the first U.S. state to permit girls to play on Little League baseball teams. |
| 1973 | The U.S. Congress over-rode President Nixon's veto of the War Powers Act, which limits a chief executive's power to wage war without congressional approval. |
| 1983 | A bomb exploded in the U.S. Capitol. No one was injured. |
| 1985 | The Colombian army stormed the country's Palace of Justice. The siege claimed the lives of 100 people, including 11 Supreme Court Justices. The Palace had been seized by leftist guerrillas belonging to the April 19 Movement. |
| 1987 | Tunisia's president Habib Bourguiba was overthrown. He had been president since the country's independence in 1956. |
| 1988 | Sugar Ray Leonard knocked out Donnie LaLonde. |
| 1989 | L. Douglas Wilder won the governor's race in Virginia, becoming the first elected African-American state governor in U.S. history. |
| 1989 | David Dinkins was elected and become New York City's first African-American mayor. |
| 1989 | Richard Ramirez, convicted of California's "Night Stalker" killings, was sentenced to death. |
| 1991 | Magic Johnson (NBA) announced that he had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS, and that he was retiring from basketball. |
| 1991 | Pro- and anti-Communists rallies took place in Moscow on the 74th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. |
| 1991 | Actor Paul Reubens, a.k.a. Pee Wee Herman, pled no contest to charges of indecent exposure. Reubens had been arrested in Sarasota, FL, for exposing himself in a theater. |
| 1995 | In a Japanese courtroom, three U.S. military men admitted to the rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl. |
| 1999 | Tiger Woods became the first golfer since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win four straight tournaments. |
| 2000 | Hillary Rodham Clinton made history as the first president's wife to win public office. The state of New York elected her to the U.S. Senate. |
| 2001 | The new .BIZ domain extension was officially launched. |
| 2001 | After a 16-month stoppage the Concorde resumed flying commercially. |
