23 – Rebels kill and decapitate the Xin dynasty emperor Wang Mang two days after the capital Chang’an is sacked during a peasant rebellion.
1539 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto and his army enter the Apalachee capital of Anhaica (present-day Tallahassee, Florida) by force.
1582 – Because of the implementation of the Gregorian calendar, this day is skipped in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
1600 – Jacopo Peri’s Euridice, the earliest surviving opera, receives its première performance in Florence, signifying the beginning of the Baroque period
1683 – German immigrant families found Germantown in the colony of Pennsylvania, marking the first major immigration of German people to America.
1723 – Benjamin Franklin arrives in Philadelphia at the age of 17.
1876 – The American Library Association was founded.
1889 – American inventor Thomas Edison shows his first motion picture.
1927 – Opening of The Jazz Singer, the first prominent “talkie” movie.
1973 – Egypt launches a coordinated attack with Syria against Israel leading to the Yom Kippur War.
1981 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat is murdered by Islamic extremists.
2007 – Jason Lewis completes the first human-powered circumnavigation of the globe. He is an author, explorer and sustainability campaigner credited with being the first person to circumnavigate the globe by human power. He crossed North America on inline skates ten years ago, and pedal powered a vessel across the Pacific Ocean in 2000.
Births
1744 – James McGill, Scottish-Canadian businessman and philanthropist, founded McGill University (d. 1813)
1820 – Jenny Lind, Swedish soprano and actress (d. 1887)
1887 – Le Corbusier, Swiss-French architect and painter (d. 1965)
1910 – Orazio Satta Puliga, Italian automobile designer (d. 1974)
1914 – Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian ethnographer and explorer (d. 2002)
1949 – Leslie Moonves, American businessman
Deaths
836 – Nicetas the Patrician, Byzantine general, monk, and saint (b. 761)
877 – Charles the Bald, Roman emperor (b. 823)
1892 – Lord AlfredTennyson, English poet (b. 1809)
1969 – Otto Steinböck, Austrian zoologist (b. 1893)
1989 – Bette Davis, American actress and singer (b. 1908)