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1998–Black Power activist, Stokeley Carmichael, dies of prostate cancer in Conakry, Guinea, at age 57. He rose to prominence in the civil rights and Black Power movements, first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party, and finally as a leader of the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party.


565–Justin II succeeds his uncle, Justinian I, as emperor of the Byzantine Empire.

655–Penda of Mercia is defeated by Oswiu of Northumbria in the Battle of the Winwaed.

1315–The Schweizer Eidgenossenschaft ambushes the army of Leopold I.

1532–Commanded by Francisco Pizarro, Spanish conquistadors, under Hernando de Soto, meet Inca Empire leader, Atahualpa, for the first time outside Cajamarca, arranging a meeting on the city plaza the following day.

1533–Francisco Pizarro arrives in Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire.

1630–Johannes Kepler, the founder of “modern optics,” dies in Regensburg, Electorate of Bavaria, Holy Roman Empire, at age 58. He was a mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, he is best known for his laws of planetary motion, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican Astronomy. These works also provided one of the foundations for Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation. Kepler also formulated eyeglass design for nearsightedness and farsightedness.

1705–The Austrian-Danish are victorious over the Kurucs (Hungarians).

1706–The sixth Dalai Lama dies mysteriously near in Qinghai, Qing Dynasty, at age 23. Rumors persisted that he had escaped his captivity by Lha-bzang Khan and lived in secrecy somewhere between China and Mongolia.

1777–After 16 months of debate the Continental Congress approves the Articles of Confederation.

1791–The first U.S. Catholic college, Georgetown University, opens its doors in Washington, D.C.

1794–Clergyman, John Witherspoon, signer of the Declaration of Independence, dies in Princeton, New Jersey, at age 71.

1806–Lieutenant Zebulon Pike sees a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It is later named Pikes Peak.

1853–Maria II of Portugal dies while giving birth to her 11th child at Necessidades Palace, Lisbon, Portugal, at age 34. The child also dies.

1864–In the American Civil War, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman begins Sherman's March to the Sea.

1887–Painter, Georgia O'Keeffe, is born on a farm in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Between periods of study in New York and Chicago, Illinois, she worked as a commercial artist (her image of the Dutch Girl still appears on Dutch Cleanser) and taught art in Virginia, Texas, and South Carolina. She became established as an artist in her own right when her friend, Ann Pollitzer, showed some of her work to Alfred Stieglitz, who ran the influential 291 Gallery in New York. She is known for her lush magnified paintings of flowers and for her stark depictions of bleached bones in the deserts of New Mexico, where she spent the last 40 years of her life at her home named “Ghost Ranch” in Abiquiu.

1889–Brazil is declared a republic by Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca, as Emperor Pedro II is deposed in a military coup.

1889–Manuel II of Portugal is born Manuel Maria Filipe Carlos Amélio Luís Miguel Rafael Gabriel Gonzaga Francisco de Assis Eugénio at Belém Palace in Lisbon, Portugal. His reign ended with the dissolution of the monarchy in the October 1910 revolution, and Manuel lived the rest of his life in exile.

1905–Orchestra conductor, Mantovani, is born Annunzio Paolo Mantovani in Venice, Veneto, Italy. The book British Hit Singles & Albums states that he was "Britain's most successful album act before The Beatles... the first act to sell over one million stereo albums and have six albums simultaneously in the U.S. Top 30 in 1959.”

1914–Harry Turner becomes the first player to die from game-related injuries in the "Ohio League," the direct predecessor to the National Football League.

1915–Winston Churchill resigns from his Government, and soon commands the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front.

1920–First assembly of the League of Nations is held in Geneva, Switzerland.

1920–The Free City of Danzig is established.

1922–Over 1,000 people are massacred during a general strike in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

1925–Politician and diplomat, Howard Baker, is born Howard Henry Baker, Jr. in Huntsville, Tennessee. He served as a Republican U.S. Senator from Tennessee (1967-1985). He was the 12th White House Chief of Staff under President Ronald Reagan. Known in Washington, D.C., as the "Great Conciliator," Baker was often regarded as one of the most successful Senators in terms of brokering compromises, enacting legislation, and maintaining civility. He was a moderate conservative who was also respected enormously by most of his Democratic colleagues.

1926–The National Broadcasting Co. (NBC) debuts with a radio network of 24 stations.

1928–The RNLI lifeboat, Mary Stanford, capsizes in Rye Harbour with the loss of the entire 17-man crew.

1932–Singer, Petula Clark, is born Petula Sally Olwen Clark in Epsom, Surrey, England. She was one of the most popular singers during the British Invasion in the mid-1960s. Her hits include Majorca, Downtown, I Know a Place, Round Every Corner, My Love, A Sign of the Times, I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love, Who Am I, Color My World, and Don’t Sleep in the Subway. She appeared in the films The Runaway Bus, The Gay Dog, Finian’s Rainbow, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

1932–Singer, Clyde (Lensley) McPhatter, the first lead singer of The Drifters, is born in Durham, North Carolina. He is best known for his solo hit A Lover's Question.

1933–Thailand holds its first election.

1935–Manuel L. Quezon is inaugurated as the second President of the Philippines.

1937–Singer, Little Willie John, is born in Cullendale, Arkansas.

1937–Singer, Barry McGuire, is born. He had a big hit with Eve of Destruction.

1938–A camera crew records the first unscheduled TV newscast. The crew had gone to Rikers Island in New York's East River to film a football game, when a nearby unoccupied barracks caught fire.

1939–President Franklin D. Roosevelt lays the cornerstone of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

1941–The Cow Palace opens in San Francisco, California.

1942–In World War II, the Battle of Guadalcanal ends in an Allied victory.

1943–German SS leader, Heinrich Himmler, orders that Gypsies are to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps."

1949–Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte are executed for assassinating Mahatma Gandhi.

1951–Greek resistance leader, Nikos Beloyannis, along with 11 resistance members, is sentenced to death by court-martial.

1954–Actor, Lionel Barrymore, the eldest of the Barrymore acting trio, dies of a heart attack in Van Nuys, California, at age 76. He appeared in the films Sadie Thompson, Grand Hotel, Dinner at Eight, Treasure Island, David Copperfield, Camille, Captains Courageous, Young Dr. Kildare, A Guy Named Joe, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Key Largo.

1955–The first part of Saint Petersburg Metro is opened in Russia.

1958–Actor, Tyrone Power, dies of a heart attack in Madrid, Spain, at age 44. He appeared in the films Lloyd’s of London, In Old Chicago, Alexander's Ragtime Band, Marie Antoinette, Suez, Jesse James, Rose of Washington Square, The Rains Came, Johnny Apollo, Brigham Young, The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan, The Razor’s Edge, Nightmare Alley, Captain from Castile, The Luck of the Irish, Rawhide, The Mississippi Gambler, The Long Gray Line, The Eddy Duchin Story, The Sun Also Rises, and Witness for the Prosecution.

1959–The murders of the Clutter Family take place in Holcomb, Kansas. The heinous crime inspired Truman Capote's non-fiction book In Cold Blood.

1965–The Rolling Stones perform on NBC-TV’s teen show, Hullabaloo, for the first time, singing Get Off of My Cloud.

1966–Gemini 12 completes the program's final mission, when it splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean.

1966–A Boeing 727 carrying Pan Am Flight 708 crashes near Berlin, Germany, killing all three people on board.

1967–The only fatality of the North American X-15 program occurs during the 191st flight, when Air Force test pilot, Michael J. Adams, loses control of his aircraft, which is destroyed mid-air over the Mojave Desert.

1969–In Washington, D.C., 250,000 to 500,000 protesters stage a peaceful demonstration against the war, including a symbolic "March Against Death."

1969–The Soviet submarine, K-19, collides with the American submarine, USS Gato, in the Barents Sea.

1969–The Star-Club, in Hamburg, West Germany, announces that it will close permanently before the end of the month, because it can no longer afford to book rock bands.

1969–Singer, Janis Joplin, is arrested in Tampa, Florida, on charges of using "vulgar and indecent language" at her concert. According to witnesses, the incident started when a policeman with a bullhorn ordered people in the audience to sit down and Joplin responded, "Don't f**k with those people! Hey, Mister, what're you so uptight about?" When police backstage instructed Joplin to tell the audience to take their seats she replied, "I'm not telling them sh*t." After being arrested in her dressing room, Joplin was released on $504 bond. All charges were eventually dropped.

1970–A chart topper: I Think I Love You by The Partridge Family.

1971–Intel releases the world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.

1976–René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois take power to become the first Quebec government of the 20th century clearly in favor of independence.

1978–A chartered Douglas DC-8 crashes near Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing 183 people.

1979–A package from Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, begins smoking in the cargo hold of a flight from Chicago, Illinois, to Washington, D.C., forcing the plane to make an emergency landing.

1983–The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is founded: it is recognized only by Turkey.

1985–A research assistant is injured when a package addressed to a University of Michigan professor from the Unabomber, explodes.

1985–The Anglo-Irish Agreement is signed at Hillsborough Castle by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.

1987–In Brasov, Romania, workers rebel against the communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu.

1987–Continental Airlines Flight 1713, a Douglas DC-9-14 jetliner, crashes in a snowstorm at Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Colorado, killing 28 occupants: fifty-four people survive the crash.

1988–In the Soviet Union, the unmanned Shuttle Buran makes its only space flight.

1988–An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council.

1988–The first Fairtrade label, Max Havelaar, is launched in the Netherlands.

1990–Space Shuttle Atlantis launches with flight STS-38.

1990–The Communist People's Republic of Bulgaria comes to an end, and a new republican government is instituted.

1998–Black Power activist, Stokley Carmichael, dies of prostate cancer in Conakry, Guinea, at age 57. He rose to prominence in the civil rights and Black Power movements, first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party, and finally as a leader of the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party.

2000–A chartered Antonov An-24 crashes after takeoff from Luanda, Angola, killing more than 40 people.

2000–The Jharkhand state is established in India.

2000–The man who almost a year earlier broke into the home of former Beatle George Harrison, is found “not guilty by reason of insanity” in Oxford Crown Court in England. Michael Abram is ordered to be confined indefinitely to a mental hospital for his life-threatening attack on Harrison and his wife, Olivia, which left George with stab wounds and a punctured lung.

2002–Hu Jintao becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and a new nine-member Politburo Standing Committee is inaugurated.

2003–Car bombs targeting two synagogues, explode in Instanbul, Turkey, killing 25 people and wounding about 300 others.

2003–Actress, Dorothy Loudon, dies of cancer in New York, New York, at age 78. She appeared in the stage productions of Anything Goes, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, The Women, Annie, Noises Off, Show Boat, and Dinner at Eight.

2003–Laurence Tisch, co-founder of the Loews Corporation, dies of gastroesophageal cancer at age 80. He was an American businessman, Wall Street investor, and billionaire, who was the CEO of CBS television network from 1986 to 1995.

2006–Al Jazeera English launches worldwide.

2007–Cyclone Sidr hits Bangladesh, killing an estimated 5,000 people and destroying parts of the world's largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans.

2009–Actor, Dennis Cole, dies of renal failure in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at age 69. He appeared on the TV shows Judd for the Defense, The Streets of San Francisco, Medical Center, Police Story, Police Woman, Charlie's Angels, Vega$, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Three's Company, and Murder, She Wrote.

2012–Four people are killed and 16 others are injured when a Union Pacific train strikes a parade float in Midland, Texas.

2015–Singer-songwriter, P.F. Sloan, dies of pancreatic cancer in Los Angeles, California, at age 70. His songs include Eve of Destruction, A Must to Avoid, You Baby, Secret Agent Man, and Where Were You When I Needed You.

2016–Scotland is considering launching its own passports to maintain the decades-old freedom of movement between Scotland and the rest of the European Union, even if it is lost by England and Wales.

2016–Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives nominate Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House for a second term.

2016–Dr. Ben Carson, former GOP presidential candidate and current advisor to President-elect Donald Trump, decides not to accept a Cabinet position in the Trump administration, citing that his support could be more helpful outside of the political arena.

2016–Hong Kong High Court bans elected politicians, Yau Wai-ching and Baggio Leung, from the city's Parliament.

2016–Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, suspends all arrival and departure flights after at least one person is shot in the airport's parking lot.

2016–Six students are stabbed (including the suspect) at Mountain View High School in Utah. The suspect is taken into custody and there are no reports of life threatening injuries.

2016–Jazz musician, Mose Allison, dies of natural causes in Hilton Head, South Carolina, at age 89. Allison performed with artists such as Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, and Phil Woods. His songs include Young Man Blues, Parchman Farm, and Your Mind Is on Vacation.

2016–Actress, Lisa Masters, dies from suicide by hanging in a hotel room in Lima, Peru, at age 52. She is best known for her roles on the TV shows Ugly Betty and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She appeared in the films The Stepford Wives, It’s Complicated, The Girl in the Book, and Fishbowl.


PHOTOS TOP TO BOTTOM: Johannes Kepler; Georgia O'Keeffe; Petula Clark; The Cow Palace outside of San Francisco, California; The Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; a sketch of the Unabomber; Stokley Carmichael; Dennis Cole; and Mose Allison.
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