* 522 BC – Darius I of Persia kills the Magian usurper Gaumâta, securing his hold as king of the Persian Empire.
* 480 BC – Battle of Salamis: The Greek fleet under Themistocles defeats the Persian fleet under Xerxes I.
* 61 BC – Pompey the Great celebrates his third triumph for victories over the pirates and the end of the Mithridatic Wars on his 45th birthday.
* 1227 – Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, is excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX for his failure to participate in the Crusades.
* 1364 – Battle of Auray: English forces defeat the French in Brittany; end of the Breton War of Succession.
* 1567 – At a dinner, the Duke of Alba arrests the Count of Egmont and the Count of Hoorn for treason.
* 1650 – Henry Robinson opens his Office of Addresses and Encounters in Threadneedle Street, London.
* 1717 – An earthquake strikes Antigua Guatemala, destroying much of the city’s architecture and making authorities consider moving the capital to a different city.
* 1789 – The United States Department of War first establishes a regular army with a strength of several hundred men.
* 1789 – The 1st United States Congress adjourns.
* 1829 – The Metropolitan Police of London, later also known as the Met, is founded.
* 1848 – Battle of Pákozd: Hungarian forces defeat Croats at Pákozd; the first battle of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.
* 1850 – The Roman Catholic hierarchy is re-established in England and Wales by Pope Pius IX.
* 1864 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chaffin’s Farm is fought.
* 1885 – The first practical public electric tramway in the world is opened in Blackpool, England.
* 1907 – The cornerstone is laid at Washington National Cathedral in the U.S. capital.
* 1911 – Italy declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
* 1916 – John D. Rockefeller becomes the first billionaire.
* 1918 – World War I: The Hindenburg Line is broken by Allied forces. Bulgaria signs an armistice.
* 1932 – Chaco War: Last day of the Battle of Boquerón between Paraguay and Bolivia.
* 1941 – World War II: Holocaust in Kiev, Ukraine: German Einsatzgruppe C begins the Babi Yar massacre, according to the Einsatzgruppen operational situation report.
* 1943 – World War II: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Italian Marshal Pietro Badoglio sign an armistice aboard the Royal Navy battleship HMS Nelson off Malta.
* 1949 – The Communist Party of China writes the Common Programme for the future People’s Republic of China.
* 1951 – The first live sporting event seen coast-to-coast in the United States, a college football game between Duke and the University of Pittsburgh, is televised on NBC.
* 1954 – The convention establishing CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) is signed.
* 1957 – 20 MCi (740 petabecquerels) of radioactive material is released in an explosion at the Soviet Mayak nuclear plant at Chelyabinsk.
* 1960 – Nikita Khrushchev, leader of Soviet Union, disrupts a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly with a number of angry outbursts.
* 1962 – Alouette 1, the first Canadian satellite, is launched.
* 1963 – The second period of the Second Vatican Council opens.
* 1963 – The University of East Anglia is established in Norwich, England.
* 1964 – The Argentine comic strip Mafalda is published for the first time.
* 1966 – The Chevrolet Camaro, originally named Panther, is introduced.
* 1971 – Oman joins the Arab League.
* 1972 – Sino-Japanese relations: Japan establishes diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China after breaking official ties with the Republic of China.
* 1975 – WGPR in Detroit, Michigan, becomes the world’s first black-owned-and-operated television station.
* 1979 – Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to set foot on Irish soil with his pastoral visit to the Republic of Ireland.
* 1982 – The 1982 Chicago Tylenol murders begin when the first of seven individuals dies in metropolitan Chicago.
* 1988 – Space Shuttle: NASA launches STS-26, the return to flight mission, after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
The mission logo of STS-26, flown by OV-103.
* 1990 – Construction of the Washington National Cathedral is completed.
* 1990 – The YF-22, which would later become the F-22 Raptor, flies for the first time.
* 1991 – Military coup in Haiti (1991 Haitian coup d’état).
* 1992 – Brazilian President Fernando Collor de Mello resigns.
* 1995 – The United States Navy disbands Fighter Squadron 84 (VF-84), nicknamed the “Jolly Rogers”.
* 2001 – The Syracuse Herald-Journal, a U.S. newspaper dating back to 1839, ceases publication.
* 2004 – The asteroid 4179 Toutatis passes within four lunar distances of Earth.
* 2004 – The Burt Rutan Ansari X Prize entry SpaceShipOne performs a successful spaceflight, the first of two required to win the prize.
* 2005 – United States Senate confirms John Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States.
* 2006 – US Representative Mark Foley resigns after allegations of inappropriate emails to house pages are revealed.
* 2006 – Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 collides in mid-air with an Embraer Legacy business jet near Peixoto de Azevedo, Mato Grosso, Brazil, killing 154 total people, and triggering a Brazilian aviation crisis.
* 2007 – Calder Hall, the world’s first commercial nuclear power station, is demolished in a controlled explosion.
* 2008 – Following the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual, The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points, the largest single-day point loss in its history.
* 2009 – An 8.0 magnitude earthquake near the Samoan Islands causes a tsunami.