1532 – Lady Anne Boleyn is made Marquess of Pembroke by her fiancé, King Henry VIII of England.
1715 – King Louis XIV of France dies after a reign of 72 years—the longest of any major European monarch.
1774 – Massachusetts Bay colonists rise up in the bloodless Powder Alarm.
1804 – Juno, one of the four largest asteroids in the Main Belt, is discovered by the German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding.
1831 – The high honor of Order of St. Gregory the Great is established by Pope Gregory XVI of the Vatican State to recognize high support for the Vatican or for the Pope, by a man or a woman, and not necessarily a Roman Catholic.
1836 – Narcissa Whitman, one of the first English-speaking white women to settle west of the Rocky Mountains, arrives at Walla Walla, Washington.
1862 – American Civil War: Battle of Chantilly – Confederate Army troops defeat a group of retreating Union Army troops in Chantilly, Virginia.
1864 – American Civil War: the Confederate Army General John Bell Hood orders the evacuation of Atlanta, ending a four-month siege by General William Tecumseh Sherman.
1873 – Cetshwayo ascends to the throne as king of the Zulu nation following the death of his father Mpande.
1878 – Emma Nutt becomes the world’s first female telephone operator when she is recruited by Alexander Graham Bell to the Boston Telephone Dispatch Company.
1897 – The Tremont Street Subway in Boston opens, becoming the first underground rapid transit system in North America.
1902 – A Trip to the Moon, considered one of the first science fiction films, is released in France.
1905 – Alberta and Saskatchewan join the Canadian confederation.
1906 – The International Federation of Intellectual Property Attorneys is established.
1914 – The last passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, dies in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo.
1931 – Boxcar Willie, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1999) was born.
1933 – Conway Twitty, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1993) was born.
1939 – World War II: Nazi Germany and Slovakia invade Poland, beginning the European phase of World War II.
1939 – The Wound Badge for Wehrmacht, SS, Kriegsmarine, and Luftwaffe soldiers is instituted. The final version of the Iron Cross is also instituted on this date.
1939 – Adolf Hitler signs an order to begin the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and disabled people.
1946 – Barry Gibb, Manx-English singer-songwriter and producer (Bee Gees and The Rattlesnakes) was born.
1951 – The United States, Australia and New Zealand sign a mutual defense pact, called the ANZUS Treaty.
1952 – The Old Man and the Sea, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Ernest Hemingway, is first published.
1961 – Bam Bam Bigelow, American wrestler and actor (d. 2007) was born.
1968 – Mohamed Atta, Egyptian terrorist, hijacker of American Airlines Flight 11 (d. 2001) was born.
1980 – Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope ends near Thunder Bay, Ontario.
1980 – Major General Chun Doo-hwan becomes President of South Korea, following the resignation of Choi Kyu-hah.
1981 – A coup d’état in the Central African Republic overthrows President David Dacko.
1981 – Albert Speer, German architect (b. 1905) died.
1982 – The United States Air Force Space Command is founded.
1983 – Cold War: Korean Air Lines Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter when the commercial aircraft enters Soviet airspace. All 269 on board die, including Congressman Lawrence McDonald.
1984 – Joe Trohman, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Fall Out Boy, The Damned Things, and Arma Angelus) was born.
1985 – A joint American–French expedition locates the wreckage of the RMS Titanic.
1991 – Uzbekistan declares independence from the Soviet Union.
1997 – The death of Diana, Princess of Wales is announced by Buckingham Palace.
2004 – The Beslan school hostage crisis commences when armed terrorists take children and adults hostage in Beslan in North Ossetia, Russia.
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