1776 – American Revolution: British forces evacuate Boston, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city.
1805 – The Italian Republic, with Napoleon as president, becomes the Kingdom of Italy, with Napoleon as King.
1919 – Nat King Cole, American singer, pianist, and television host (d. 1965) was born.
1941 – In Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Art is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1942 – Holocaust: The first Jews from the Lvov Ghetto are gassed at the Belzec death camp in what is today eastern Poland.
1945 – Michael Hayden, American general, 20th Director of the Central Intelligence Agency was born.
1948 – The Benelux, France, and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Brussels, a precursor to the North Atlantic Treaty establishing NATO.
1955 – Cynthia McKinney, American educator and politician is born.
1957 – Michael Kelly, American journalist and author (d. 2003) was born.
1960 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the National Security Council directive on the anti-Cuban covert action program that will ultimately lead to the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
1966 – Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the DSV Alvin submarine finds a missing American hydrogen bomb.
1967 – Billy Corgan, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Smashing Pumpkins, Zwan, Spirits in the Sky, and Starchildren) was born.
1968 – 10,000 Anti Vietnam war demonstrators rally at Trafalgar square peacefully but when the demonstration moves outside the United States embassy in London, the demonstration turns violent with 130 injured, fifty taken to hospital including up to 25 police officers.
1968 – As a result of nerve gas testing in Skull Valley, Utah, US, over 6,000 sheep are found dead.
1970 – My Lai Massacre: The United States Army charges 14 officers with suppressing information related to the incident.
2000 – 530 members of the Ugandan cult Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God die in a fire, considered to be a mass murder or suicide orchestrated by leaders of the cult. Elsewhere another 248 members are later found dead.
2003 – Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Robin Cook, resigns from the British Cabinet in disagreement with government plans for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
2013 – The largest meteorite (since NASA started observing the moon in 2005) hit the moon.
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