| 1496 | Christopher Columbus concluded his second visit to the Western Hemisphere as he left Hispaniola for Spain. |
| 1629 | England's King Charles I dissolved Parliament and did not call it back for 11 years. |
| 1785 | Thomas Jefferson was appointed minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin. |
| 1848 | The Senate ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the war with Mexico. |
| 1864 | Ulysses S. Grant became commander of the Union armies in the Civil War. |
| 1876 | The first successful voice transmission over Alexander Graham Bell's telephone took place in Boston as his assistant heard Bell say, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you." |
| 1880 | The Salvation Army arrived in the United States from England. |
| 1948 | The body of the anti-Communist foreign minister of Czechoslovakia, Jan Masaryk, was found in the garden of Czernin Palace in Prague. |
| 1949 | Nazi wartime broadcaster Mildred E. Gillars, also known as ''Axis Sally,'' was convicted in Washington D.C. of treason. She served 12 years in prison. |
| 1965 | Neil Simon's play "The Odd Couple," starring Walter Matthau as Oscar Madison and Art Carney as Felix Unger, opened on Broadway. |
| 1969 | James Earl Ray pleaded guilty in Memphis, Tenn., to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Ray later repudiated his plea. |
| 1980 | "Scarsdale Diet" author Dr. Herman Tarnower was shot to death in Purchase, N.Y. (Jean Harris, convicted of murder, served nearly 12 years in prison before being released in January 1993.) |
| 1993 | Dr. David Gunn was shot to death outside a Pensacola, Fla., abortion clinic. |
