1632 Three hundred colonists bound for New France departed from Dieppe, France.
1793 Prussia re-conquered Mainz from France.
1829 William Austin Burt patented the Typographer, a precursor to the typewriter.
1833 Cornerstones are laid for the construction of the Kirtland Temple in Kirtland, Ohio.
1840 The Province of Canada was created by the Act of Union.
1851 Twenty-six lives were lost when the barque Maria was wrecked near Cape Terawhiti, on Wellington’s rugged south-western coast.
1862 American Civil War: Henry W. Halleck took command of the Union Army.
1874 Aires de Ornelas e Vasconcelos was appointed the Archbishop of the Portuguese colonial enclave of Goa.
1881 The Federation Internationale de Gymnastique, the world’s oldest international sport federation, was founded.
1881 The Boundary treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina was signed in Buenos Aires.
1888 Raymond Chandler, American-born author, was born (d. 1959).
1892 Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, was born (d. 1975).
1903 The Ford Motor Company sold its first car.
1912 – M. H. Abrams, American author, critic, and academic, was born (d. 2015).
1913 – Michael Foot, English journalist and politician, Secretary of State for Employment, was born(d. 2010).
1929 The Fascist government in Italy bannedthe use of foreign words.
1936 The Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia was founded through the merger of socialist and communist parties.
1940 United States’ Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles‘s declaration on the U.S. non-recognition policy of the Soviet annexation and incorporation of three Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
1942 The Holocaust: The Treblinka extermination camp opened.
1942 World War II: Operation Edelweiss began.
1945 The post-war legal processes against Philippe Pétain began.
1947 David Essex, English singer, was born.
1950 Blair Thornton, Canadian guitarist (Bachman-Turner Overdrive), was born.
1952 New Zealand’s first female Olympic medallist, Yvette Williams (now Corlett) won gold in the long jump with an Olympic-record leap of 6.24 metres (20 feet 5 and 3/4 inches).
1952 Establishment of the European Coal and Steel community.
1952 General Muhammad Naguib led the Free Officers Movement (formed by Gamal Abdel Nasser– the real power behind the coup) in the overthrow of King Farouk of Egypt.
1956 The Loi Cadre was passed by the French Republic in order to order French overseas territory affairs.
1961 Martin Lee Gore, English musician and songwriter (Depeche Mode), was born.
1961 The Sandinista National Liberation Front was founded in Nicaragua.
1962 The International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos was signed.
1965 Slash, American guitarist (Guns N’ Roses), was born.
1967 12th Street Riot in Detroit, Michigan began in the predominantly African American inner city (43 killed, 342 injured and 1,400 buildings burned).
1968 Glenville Shootout: In Cleveland, Ohio, a violent shootout between a Black Militant organization led by Ahmed Evans and the Cleveland Police Department occurs. During the shootout, a riot begins that lasted for five days.
1968 The only successful hijacking of an El Al aircraft when a 707 carrying 10 crew and 38 passengers was taken over by three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
1970 Qaboos ibn Sa’id became Sultan of Oman after overthrowing his father, Sa’id ibn Taimur.
1972 The United States launched Landsat 1, the first Earth-resources satellite.
1973 Himesh Reshammiya, Indian Bollywood composer, singer and actor, was born.
1980 Michelle Williams, American singer (Destiny’s Child), was born.
1982 The International Whaling Commission decided to end commercial whaling by 1985-86.
1988 General Ne Win, effective ruler of Burma since 1962, resigned after pro-democracy protests.
1992 A Vatican commission, led by Joseph Ratzinger, (now Pope Benedict XVI) established that it was necessary to limit rights of homosexual people and non-married couples.
1992 Abkhazia declared independence from Georgia.
1995 Comet Hale-Bopp was discovered and becomes visible to the naked eye nearly a year later.
1997 Digital Equipment Company filed antitrust charges against chipmaker Intel.
1999 Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Al-Hassan was crowned King Mohammed VI of Morocco on the death of his father.
1999 ANA Flight 61 was hijacked in Tokyo.
2005 Three bombs exploded in the Naama Bay area of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, killing 88 people.
2008 Cape Verde joined the World Trade Organization, becoming its 153rd member.
2009 Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox became the 18th pitcher to throw a perfect game in Major League Baseball history, defeating the Tampa Bay Rays 5-0.
2012 – At least 107 people were killed and more than 250 others wounded in a string of bombings and attacks in Iraq.
2014 – The opening ceremony for the 2014 Commonwealth Games was held in Glasgow, Scotland.
2015 – NASA announced discovery of Kepler-452b by Kepler.
Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia