Events
1467 - The miraculous image of Our Lady of Good Counsel appears in Genazzano, Italy.
1478 - The Pazzi attack Lorenzo de' Medici and kill his brother Giuliano during High Mass in the Duomo of Florence.
1607 - English colonists of the Jamestown settlement make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia.
1802 - Napoleon Bonaparte signs a general amnesty to allow all but about one thousand of the most notorious émigrés of the French Revolution to return to France, as part of a reconciliary gesture with the factions of the Ancien Regime and to eventually consolidate his own rule.
1805 - United States Marines captured Derne, Tripoli under the command of First Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon.
1865 - American Civil War: Confederate General Joseph Johnston surrenders his army to General William Tecumseh Sherman at the Bennett Place near Durham, North Carolina.
1865 - Union cavalry troopers corner and shoot dead John Wilkes Booth, President Lincoln's assassin, in Virginia.
1925 - Paul von Hindenburg defeats Wilhelm Marx in the second round of the German presidential election to become the first directly elected head of state of the Weimar Republic.
1933 - The Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established.
1937 - Spanish Civil War: Guernica, Spain is bombed by German Luftwaffe.
1945 - World War II: Battle of Bautzen - last successful German tank-offensive of the war and last noteworthy victory of the Wehrmacht.
1946 - Father Divine, a controversial religious leader who claims to be God, marries the much-younger Edna Rose Ritchings, a celebrated anniversary in the International Peace Mission movement.
1954 - The Geneva Conference, an effort to restore peace in Indochina and Korea, begins.
1956 - First container ship left Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas
1962 - NASA's Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon.
1963 - In Libya, amendments to the constitution transform Libya (United Kingdom of Libya) into one national unity (Kingdom of Libya) and allows for female participation in elections.
1964 - Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form Tanzania.
1982 - 57 people are killed by former Korean police officer Woo Bum-kon in a shooting spree in Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea.
1986 - In Ukraine, a nuclear reactor accident occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, creating the world's worst nuclear disaster.
1991 - Seventy tornadoes break out in the central United States. Before its end, Andover, Kansas, would record the year's only F5 tornado (see Andover, Kansas Tornado Outbreak).
1994 - A China Airlines Airbus A300-600R crashes at Nagoya Airport, Japan killing 264.
1994 - Physicists announce first evidence of the top quark subatomic particle.
2002 - Robert Steinhäuser infiltrates and kills 17 at Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt,Germany before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot.
2005 - Under international pressure, Syria withdraws the last of its 14,000 troop military garrison in Lebanon, ending its 29-year military domination of that country.
2007 - Queen's Pier is officially closed by the Hong Kong Government, after a bitter struggle by conservationists, in order to facilitate land reclamation in Hong Kong's Central district
Births
1918 - Fanny Blankers-Koen, Dutch athlete (d. 2004)
1918 - Stafford Repp, American actor (d. 1974)
1922 - Jeanne Sauvé, French Canadian politician (d. 1993)
1925 - Jørgen Ingmann, Danish musician
1926 - David Coleman, British TV sports broadcaster
1926 - Michael Mathias Prechtl, German illustrator (d. 2003)
1927 - Jack Douglas, English actor
1929 - Richard Mitchell, American author and professor (d. 2002)
1932 - Michael Smith, English-born chemist, Nobel laureate (d. 2000)
1932 - Francis Lai, French film music composer
1933 - Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, Puerto Rican activist (d. 2005)
1933 - Carol Burnett, American comedian
1933 - Arno Allan Penzias, German-born physicist, Nobel laureate
1938 - Duane Eddy, American musician
1938 - Maurice Williams, American singer (The Zodiacs)
1940 - Giorgio Moroder, Italian composer
1940 - Cliff Watson, English rugby league footballer
1941 - Claudine Clark, American R&B singer-composer
1941 - John Mitchell, American composer
1942 - Claudine Auger, French actress
1942 - Michael Kergin, Canadian diplomat
1942 - Bobby Rydell, American singer
1943 - Gary Wright, American singer
1943 - Peter Zumthor, Swiss architect
1944 - Amien Rais, Indonesian politician
1945 - Sylvain Simard, Quebec politician
1947 - Warren Clarke, English actor
1949 - Carlos Bianchi, Argentinian footballer
1949 - Jerry Blackwell, wrestler (d. 1995)
1949 - Dominic Sena, American film director
1955 - Mike Scott, American baseball player
1956 - Koo Stark, American actress
1958 - Jeffrey Guterman, American mental health counselor
1959 - Thanassis Papakonstantinou, Greek singer and songwriter
1960 - Roger Taylor, English musician (Duran Duran)
1960 - Steve Lombardozzi, American baseball player
1961 - Joan Chen, Chinese-born actress
1961 - Anthony Cumia, American radio personality (The Opie and Anthony Show)
1961 - Chris Mars, American rock drummer (The Replacements)
1962 - Colin Anderson, English footballer
1962 - Debra Wilson, American actress and comedian
1963 - Jet Li, Chinese martial artist
1963 - Colin Scotts, Australian-born American football player
1965 - Kevin James, American comedian
1966 - Yoshihiro Togashi, Mangaka who created YuYu Hakusho
1967 - Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Academy Award nominated British actress
1967 - Glen Jacobs, American professional wrestler
1970 - Melania Trump, Slovenian model
1970 - Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, American singer (TLC)
1971 - Jay DeMarcus, American bassist (Rascal Flatts)
1972 - Kiko Narváez, Spanish footballer
1972 - Jason Bargwanna, Australian racing driver
1973 - Chris Perry, English footballer
1974 - Adil Ray, English radio presenter (BBC Asian Network)
1975 - Nathan "Joey" Jordison, American musician (Slipknot)
1975 - Nerina Pallot, British singer
1976 - Vaclav Varada, Czech ice hockey player
1977 - Kosuke Fukudome, Japanese baseball player
1977 - Tom Welling, American actor
1977 - Chris Johnston, Irish rugby player
1977 - Jason Earles, American actor
1978 - Avant, American singer
1978 - Joe Crede, American baseball player
1978 - Peter Madsen, Danish footballer
1979 - Janne Wirman, Finnish musician (Children of Bodom)
1979 - Ariane Moffatt, Quebec singer and songwriter
1980 - Jordana Brewster, American actress
1980 - Anna Mucha, Polish actress
1980 - Channing Tatum, American actor
1981 - Matthieu Delpierre, French footballer
1981 - Ms. Dynamite, English musician
1982 - Joanne Gobure, Nauruan poet
1982 - Brock Gillespie, American basketball player
1982 - Cooper Wallace, National Football League tight end
1983 - José María López, Argentine racing driver
1983 - Jessica Lynch, American P.O.W.
1984 - Lee Humphrey, American basketball player
1984 - Mija Martina, Bosnian singer
1985 - John Isner, American Tennis player
1985 - Nam Gyu-Ri, Korean singer, member of See Ya
1987 - Jessica Lee Rose, American-born New Zealand actress, famous YouTube star lonelygirl15
Deaths
1910 - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Norwegian author, Nobel laureate (b. 1832)
1920 - Srinivasa Ramanujan, Indian mathematician (b. 1887)
1932 - William Lockwood, English cricketer (b. 1868)
1936 - Tammany Young, American actor (b.1886)
1938 - Edmund Husserl, Austrian philosopher (b. 1859)
1940 - Carl Bosch, German chemist, Nobel laureate (b. 1874)
1944 - Violette Morris, French athlete (b. 1893)
1945 - Pavlo Skoropadsky, Ukrainian politician and general (b. 1871)
1945 - Sigmund Rascher, Nazi doctor (b. 1909)
1950 - G. Murray Hulbert, American politician (b. 1881)
1951 - Arnold Sommerfeld, German physicist (b. 1868)
1956 - Edward Arnold, American actor (b. 1890)
1957 - Gichin Funakoshi, Father of Japanese Shotokan Karatedo (b. 1868)
1964 - E. J. Pratt, Canadian poet born Newfoundland (b. 1882)
1969 - Morihei Ueshiba, Japanese martial artist and founder of aikido (b. 1883)
1970 - Erik Bergman, Lutheran pastor (b. 1886)
1970 - Gypsy Rose Lee, American actress (b. 1911)
1973 - Irene Ryan, American actress (b. 1902)
1976 - Sid James, South African-born British comedian (b. 1913)
1980 - Cicely Courtneidge, English actress and comedian (b. 1893)
1981 - Jim Davis, American actor (b. 1909)
1984 - Count Basie, American musician and composer (b. 1904)
1986 - Broderick Crawford, American actor (stroke) (b. 1911)
1986 - Dechko Uzunov, Bulgarian painter (b. 1899)
1986 - Bessie Love, American actress (b. 1898)
1987 - John Ernest Silkin, British politician (b. 1923)
1987 - Shankar, Of Noted Bollywood Music Director Duo Shankar-Jaikishan (b. 1922)
1989 - Lucille Ball, American actress and comedian (b. 1911)
1991 - Leo Arnaud, French-American composer (b. 1904)
1991 - Carmine Coppola, American composer and conductor (b. 1910)
1991 - Emily McLaughlin, American actress (b. 1928)
1991 - Richard Hatfield, Canadian politician (b. 1931)
1994 - Masutatsu Oyama, Founder of Japanese Kyokushin Karate (b. 1927)
1996 - Stirling Silliphant, American writer and producer (b. 1918)
1999 - Adrian Borland, English musician (The Sound) (b. 1957)
1999 - Jill Dando, British television presenter (b.1961)
2002 - Robert Steinhäuser German spree killer (b.1983)
2003 - Rosemary Brown, Canadian politician (b. 1930)
2003 - Max Nicholson, Irish environmentalist (b. 1904)
2003 - Peter Stone, American writer (b. 1930)
2004 - Hubert Selby Jr., American author (b. 1928)
2005 - Mason Adams, American actor (b. 1919)
2005 - Maria Schell, Swiss-Austrian actress (b. 1926)
2005 - Augusto Roa Bastos, Paraguayan author (b. 1917)
2007 - Jack Valenti, American political advisor and film executive (b. 1921)
1467 - The miraculous image of Our Lady of Good Counsel appears in Genazzano, Italy.
1478 - The Pazzi attack Lorenzo de' Medici and kill his brother Giuliano during High Mass in the Duomo of Florence.
1607 - English colonists of the Jamestown settlement make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia.
1802 - Napoleon Bonaparte signs a general amnesty to allow all but about one thousand of the most notorious émigrés of the French Revolution to return to France, as part of a reconciliary gesture with the factions of the Ancien Regime and to eventually consolidate his own rule.
1805 - United States Marines captured Derne, Tripoli under the command of First Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon.
1865 - American Civil War: Confederate General Joseph Johnston surrenders his army to General William Tecumseh Sherman at the Bennett Place near Durham, North Carolina.
1865 - Union cavalry troopers corner and shoot dead John Wilkes Booth, President Lincoln's assassin, in Virginia.
1925 - Paul von Hindenburg defeats Wilhelm Marx in the second round of the German presidential election to become the first directly elected head of state of the Weimar Republic.
1933 - The Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established.
1937 - Spanish Civil War: Guernica, Spain is bombed by German Luftwaffe.
1945 - World War II: Battle of Bautzen - last successful German tank-offensive of the war and last noteworthy victory of the Wehrmacht.
1946 - Father Divine, a controversial religious leader who claims to be God, marries the much-younger Edna Rose Ritchings, a celebrated anniversary in the International Peace Mission movement.
1954 - The Geneva Conference, an effort to restore peace in Indochina and Korea, begins.
1956 - First container ship left Port Newark, New Jersey for Houston, Texas
1962 - NASA's Ranger 4 spacecraft crashes into the Moon.
1963 - In Libya, amendments to the constitution transform Libya (United Kingdom of Libya) into one national unity (Kingdom of Libya) and allows for female participation in elections.
1964 - Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form Tanzania.
1982 - 57 people are killed by former Korean police officer Woo Bum-kon in a shooting spree in Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea.
1986 - In Ukraine, a nuclear reactor accident occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, creating the world's worst nuclear disaster.
1991 - Seventy tornadoes break out in the central United States. Before its end, Andover, Kansas, would record the year's only F5 tornado (see Andover, Kansas Tornado Outbreak).
1994 - A China Airlines Airbus A300-600R crashes at Nagoya Airport, Japan killing 264.
1994 - Physicists announce first evidence of the top quark subatomic particle.
2002 - Robert Steinhäuser infiltrates and kills 17 at Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt,Germany before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot.
2005 - Under international pressure, Syria withdraws the last of its 14,000 troop military garrison in Lebanon, ending its 29-year military domination of that country.
2007 - Queen's Pier is officially closed by the Hong Kong Government, after a bitter struggle by conservationists, in order to facilitate land reclamation in Hong Kong's Central district
Births
1918 - Fanny Blankers-Koen, Dutch athlete (d. 2004)
1918 - Stafford Repp, American actor (d. 1974)
1922 - Jeanne Sauvé, French Canadian politician (d. 1993)
1925 - Jørgen Ingmann, Danish musician
1926 - David Coleman, British TV sports broadcaster
1926 - Michael Mathias Prechtl, German illustrator (d. 2003)
1927 - Jack Douglas, English actor
1929 - Richard Mitchell, American author and professor (d. 2002)
1932 - Michael Smith, English-born chemist, Nobel laureate (d. 2000)
1932 - Francis Lai, French film music composer
1933 - Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, Puerto Rican activist (d. 2005)
1933 - Carol Burnett, American comedian
1933 - Arno Allan Penzias, German-born physicist, Nobel laureate
1938 - Duane Eddy, American musician
1938 - Maurice Williams, American singer (The Zodiacs)
1940 - Giorgio Moroder, Italian composer
1940 - Cliff Watson, English rugby league footballer
1941 - Claudine Clark, American R&B singer-composer
1941 - John Mitchell, American composer
1942 - Claudine Auger, French actress
1942 - Michael Kergin, Canadian diplomat
1942 - Bobby Rydell, American singer
1943 - Gary Wright, American singer
1943 - Peter Zumthor, Swiss architect
1944 - Amien Rais, Indonesian politician
1945 - Sylvain Simard, Quebec politician
1947 - Warren Clarke, English actor
1949 - Carlos Bianchi, Argentinian footballer
1949 - Jerry Blackwell, wrestler (d. 1995)
1949 - Dominic Sena, American film director
1955 - Mike Scott, American baseball player
1956 - Koo Stark, American actress
1958 - Jeffrey Guterman, American mental health counselor
1959 - Thanassis Papakonstantinou, Greek singer and songwriter
1960 - Roger Taylor, English musician (Duran Duran)
1960 - Steve Lombardozzi, American baseball player
1961 - Joan Chen, Chinese-born actress
1961 - Anthony Cumia, American radio personality (The Opie and Anthony Show)
1961 - Chris Mars, American rock drummer (The Replacements)
1962 - Colin Anderson, English footballer
1962 - Debra Wilson, American actress and comedian
1963 - Jet Li, Chinese martial artist
1963 - Colin Scotts, Australian-born American football player
1965 - Kevin James, American comedian
1966 - Yoshihiro Togashi, Mangaka who created YuYu Hakusho
1967 - Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Academy Award nominated British actress
1967 - Glen Jacobs, American professional wrestler
1970 - Melania Trump, Slovenian model
1970 - Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, American singer (TLC)
1971 - Jay DeMarcus, American bassist (Rascal Flatts)
1972 - Kiko Narváez, Spanish footballer
1972 - Jason Bargwanna, Australian racing driver
1973 - Chris Perry, English footballer
1974 - Adil Ray, English radio presenter (BBC Asian Network)
1975 - Nathan "Joey" Jordison, American musician (Slipknot)
1975 - Nerina Pallot, British singer
1976 - Vaclav Varada, Czech ice hockey player
1977 - Kosuke Fukudome, Japanese baseball player
1977 - Tom Welling, American actor
1977 - Chris Johnston, Irish rugby player
1977 - Jason Earles, American actor
1978 - Avant, American singer
1978 - Joe Crede, American baseball player
1978 - Peter Madsen, Danish footballer
1979 - Janne Wirman, Finnish musician (Children of Bodom)
1979 - Ariane Moffatt, Quebec singer and songwriter
1980 - Jordana Brewster, American actress
1980 - Anna Mucha, Polish actress
1980 - Channing Tatum, American actor
1981 - Matthieu Delpierre, French footballer
1981 - Ms. Dynamite, English musician
1982 - Joanne Gobure, Nauruan poet
1982 - Brock Gillespie, American basketball player
1982 - Cooper Wallace, National Football League tight end
1983 - José María López, Argentine racing driver
1983 - Jessica Lynch, American P.O.W.
1984 - Lee Humphrey, American basketball player
1984 - Mija Martina, Bosnian singer
1985 - John Isner, American Tennis player
1985 - Nam Gyu-Ri, Korean singer, member of See Ya
1987 - Jessica Lee Rose, American-born New Zealand actress, famous YouTube star lonelygirl15
Deaths
1910 - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Norwegian author, Nobel laureate (b. 1832)
1920 - Srinivasa Ramanujan, Indian mathematician (b. 1887)
1932 - William Lockwood, English cricketer (b. 1868)
1936 - Tammany Young, American actor (b.1886)
1938 - Edmund Husserl, Austrian philosopher (b. 1859)
1940 - Carl Bosch, German chemist, Nobel laureate (b. 1874)
1944 - Violette Morris, French athlete (b. 1893)
1945 - Pavlo Skoropadsky, Ukrainian politician and general (b. 1871)
1945 - Sigmund Rascher, Nazi doctor (b. 1909)
1950 - G. Murray Hulbert, American politician (b. 1881)
1951 - Arnold Sommerfeld, German physicist (b. 1868)
1956 - Edward Arnold, American actor (b. 1890)
1957 - Gichin Funakoshi, Father of Japanese Shotokan Karatedo (b. 1868)
1964 - E. J. Pratt, Canadian poet born Newfoundland (b. 1882)
1969 - Morihei Ueshiba, Japanese martial artist and founder of aikido (b. 1883)
1970 - Erik Bergman, Lutheran pastor (b. 1886)
1970 - Gypsy Rose Lee, American actress (b. 1911)
1973 - Irene Ryan, American actress (b. 1902)
1976 - Sid James, South African-born British comedian (b. 1913)
1980 - Cicely Courtneidge, English actress and comedian (b. 1893)
1981 - Jim Davis, American actor (b. 1909)
1984 - Count Basie, American musician and composer (b. 1904)
1986 - Broderick Crawford, American actor (stroke) (b. 1911)
1986 - Dechko Uzunov, Bulgarian painter (b. 1899)
1986 - Bessie Love, American actress (b. 1898)
1987 - John Ernest Silkin, British politician (b. 1923)
1987 - Shankar, Of Noted Bollywood Music Director Duo Shankar-Jaikishan (b. 1922)
1989 - Lucille Ball, American actress and comedian (b. 1911)
1991 - Leo Arnaud, French-American composer (b. 1904)
1991 - Carmine Coppola, American composer and conductor (b. 1910)
1991 - Emily McLaughlin, American actress (b. 1928)
1991 - Richard Hatfield, Canadian politician (b. 1931)
1994 - Masutatsu Oyama, Founder of Japanese Kyokushin Karate (b. 1927)
1996 - Stirling Silliphant, American writer and producer (b. 1918)
1999 - Adrian Borland, English musician (The Sound) (b. 1957)
1999 - Jill Dando, British television presenter (b.1961)
2002 - Robert Steinhäuser German spree killer (b.1983)
2003 - Rosemary Brown, Canadian politician (b. 1930)
2003 - Max Nicholson, Irish environmentalist (b. 1904)
2003 - Peter Stone, American writer (b. 1930)
2004 - Hubert Selby Jr., American author (b. 1928)
2005 - Mason Adams, American actor (b. 1919)
2005 - Maria Schell, Swiss-Austrian actress (b. 1926)
2005 - Augusto Roa Bastos, Paraguayan author (b. 1917)
2007 - Jack Valenti, American political advisor and film executive (b. 1921)