On this day in History - Jan. 5

• 0842 - Al-Mu'tasim dies (b. 0794). Abbasid caliph
• 1066 - Edward the Confessor dies. King of England.
• 1209 - Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall was born (d. 1272). Holy Roman Emperor.
• 1387 - Pedro IV of Aragon dies (b. 1320) .
• 1400 - John Montacute, 3rd Earl of Salisbury dies executed (b.c. 1350). English politician.
• 1443 - D. Nuno Álvares Pereira dies in "Convento do Carmo". Portuguese noble.
• 1463 - Poet François Villon is banned from Paris.
• 1465 - Charles, Duke of Orléans dies (b. 1394). French poet.
• 1477 - Battle of Nancy: Charles, Duke of Burgundy «the Bold» (b. 1433) is killed and Burgundy becomes part of France (+7.000 killed) .
• 1500 - Duke Ludovico Sforza conquers Milan.
• 1524 - Marko Marulić dies (b. 1450). Croatian poet.
• 1527 - Martyrdom of Felix Manz (b. 1498), a Swiss Anabaptist.
• 1531 - Pope Clemens VII forbids English king Henry VIII to re-marry.
• 1548 - Francisco Suarez was born in Granada. Spanish philosopher/theologian.
• 1554 - A great fire occurs in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
• 1587 - Xu Xiake was born (d. 1641). Chinese writer and geographer.
• 1588 - Qi Jiguang dies (b. 1528). Chinese general.
• 1589 - Catherine de Medici dies (b. 1519). Queen of France.
• 1589 - Manuel de Villegas was born. Spanish poet and writer.
• 1592 - Shah Jahan was born (d. 1666). Indian Mughal Emperor .
• 1596 - Henry Lawes was born (d. 1662). English composer.
• 1614 - Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria was born (d. 1662). Governor of the Spanish Netherlands.
• 1634 - Começo da actividade da primeira tipografia no Brasil.
• 1655 - Pope Innocent X dies (b. 1574) .
• 1668 - É assinado o Tratado de Madrid, que estabelece a paz entre a Espanha e Portugal, pondo fim às Guerras da Restauração.
• 1675 - Battle of Colmar: French army beats Brandenburg.
• 1696 - Giuseppe Galli-Bibiena was born (d. 1757). Italian architect/painter.
• 1713 - Jorge Juan y Santacilia was born. Spanish mathematicien and physicist.
• 1713 - Jean Chardin dies (b. 1643). French explorer.
• 1715 - US: Advertisement in Boston newspaper offered for sale Indian woman "fit for all manner of household work."
• 1717 - William Wildman Shute Barrington was born (d. 1793). British statesman.
• 1728 - Foundation of the Universidad de La Habana (Cuba)
• 1740 - Antonio Lotti dies (b. 1667). Italian composer.
• 1757 - France: Attempted assassin of Louis XV of France torn asunder in public by horses. In a near miss, Robert Damiens attempts to knife Louis XV.
• 1759 - George Washington marries Martha Dandridge Custis.
• 1762 - Constanze Mozart was born (d. 1842). Wife of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
• 1762 - Empress Elizabeth of Russia dies (b. 1709) and Pedro II assumes the throne of the Russian Imperium
• 1769 - Jean-Baptiste Say was born (15 Nov 1832). French economist ( Traite d’Economique Politique) .
• 1771 - John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford dies (b. 1710). British statesman.
• 1778 - A Companhia pombalina do Grão-Pará e Maranhão é extinta pelo governo de D. Maria I.
• 1779 - Zebulon Pike was born (d. 1813). American explorer.
• 1779 - Stephen Decatur was born (d. 1820). American naval officer.
• 1781 - American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold.
• 1786 - Thomas Nuttall was born (d.1859). English naturalist and botanist known for his discoveries of North American plants.
• 1787 - John Burke was born. Irish genealogist (Burke's Peerage) .
• 1794 - Edmund Ruffin was born [d.1865]; The father of soil chemistry in the U.S., who showed how to restore fertility to depleted soil.
• 1801 - Passos Manuel was born (d. 16 Jan 1862). Portuguese politician.
• 1809 - Treaty of Dardanelles concluded between Britain and the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) also called the Treaty of Canak. Its main provision was to decree that no warship of any power should enter the Dardanelles or Bosphorus .
• 1813 - El Tribunal de la Inquisición es suprimido por las Cortes de Cádiz, tanto en España como en América.
• 1814 - La Regencia del Reino de España es trasladada desde Cádiz a Madrid.
• 1822 - Los ayuntamientos de Guatemala votan la anexión del país al Imperio de México, recientemente proclamado por Agustín Itúrbide.
• 1838 - Camille Jordan was born (d. 1922). French mathematician whose work on substitution groups (groups of permutations) and the theory of equations first brought full understanding of the importance of the theories of the eminent mathematician Évariste Galois, who had died in 1832.
• 1844 - Manuel Gonzalez Prada was born in Lima (d. 1918). Peruvian poet and anarchist thinker
• 1846 - The United States House of Representatives votes to stop sharing the Oregon Territory with the United Kingdom.
• 1846 - Rudolf Eucken was born (d. 1926). German philosopher, Nobel Prize for Literature laureate in 1908.
• 1846 - Alfred Thomas Agate dies (b. 1812). American artist.
• 1848 - Khristo Botev was born (d. 2 Jun 1876). Hero of Bulgarian revolt against Turkey, poet .
• 1854 - The San Francisco steamer sinks, 300 dead.
• 1855 - King_Camp Gillette was born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin (d. 9 Jul 1932). American inventor and manufacturer of the safety razor.
• 1855 - Se inauguró el primer ferrocarril en Panamá, de 75 kilómetros de recorrido.
• 1858 - Josef Radetzky dies (b. 2 Nov 1766). Bohemian nobleman (Count) and field marshall, immortalised by Johann Strauss I's Radetzky March.
• 1860 - Saint John Nepomucene Neumann dies (b. 1811). First American bishop to be canonized.
• 1862 - Joseph Frohlich dies at 81. Composer.
• 1863 - Constantin Stanislavsky was born. Actor, producer, teacher.
• 1864 - Bob Caruthers was born (d. 1911). American baseball player.
• 1864 - Byron B. Johnson was born (d. 1931). American baseball executive.
• 1865 - Julio Garavito Armero was born (d. 1920). Colombian astronomer and economist.
• 1866 - Ramón Casas was born (d. 1932). Spanish painter.
• 1869 - Representantes de potencias occidentales son recibidos por el emperador de Japón, iniciándose una nueva era para ese país.
• 1874 - Joseph Erlanger was born (d. 1965). American physiologist, who discovered that fibres within the same nerve cord possess different functions. With Herbert Gasser, he shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1944.
• 1876 - Konrad Adenauer was born (d. 1967). Chancellor of Germany.
• 1878 - Nelly Roussel lives was born (d. 18 Dec 1922). French free thinker, anarchist, feminist. Partner of the sculptor Henri Godet.
• 1879 - Hans Eppinger was born (d. 1946). Austrian physician.
• 1880 - Nikolay Medtner was born (d. 1951). Russian composer.
• 1881 - Paris Commune leader Louis-Auguste Blanqui dies in Paris (b. 1805). A huge crowd attends his funeral.
• 1891 - Emma Abbott dies (b. 1849). American soprano.
• 1892 - Se crea, en Nueva York, el Partido Revolucionario Cubano, entre cuyos principales dirigentes están José Martí y Tomás Estrada Palma.
• 1893 - Paramahansa Yogananda was born (d. 1952). Indian guru.
• 1893 - Zoltán Böszörmény was born. Hungarian Nazi politician.
• 1895 - Dreyfus Affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.
• 1895 - Henry James's play Guy Domville opens at the St. James's Theatre in London.
• 1895 - Elizabet Cotten was born near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Singer and songwriter.
• 1896 - An Austrian newspaper reports that Wilhelm Roentgen has discovered a type of radiation later known as X-rays.
• 1900 - Irish leader John Edward Redmond calls for a revolt against British rule.
• 1900 - Yves Tanguy was born (d. 1995). French surrealist painter.
• 1902 - Stella Gibbons was born (d. 1989). English novelist.
• 1903 - Práxedes Mateo Sagasta dies. Spanish politician, president of Govern
• 1904 - Jeane Dixon was born (d. 1997). American astrologer.
• 1904 - Karl Alfred von Zittel dies (b. 1839). German palaeontologist.
• 1905 - László Papp was born. Hungarian middleweight boxer (Olympics-gold-1948, 52, 56)
• 1905 - Fundación del Central Español Fútbol Club, de Montevideo, Uruguay.
• 1906 - Kathleen Kenyon was born (d. 1978). English archaeologist who excavated Jericho to its Stone Age foundation and showed it to be the oldest known continuously occupied human settlement.
• 1906 - Un violento terremoto destruye la ciudad nicaragüense de Masaya.
• 1908 - George Dolenz was born (d. 1963). American actor.
• 1908 - Joseph von Mering dies (b. 1849). German physician, physiologist, pharmacologist, and experimental pathologist.
• 1909 - Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama.
• 1909 - Stephen Kleene was born (d. 1994). American mathematician and logician whose work on recursion theory helped lay the foundations of theoretical computer science.
• 1910 - Hugh Brannum was born (d. 1987). American actor.
• 1910 - Jack Lovelock was born (d. 1949). New Zealand athlete.
• 1910 - Léon Walras dies (b. 1834). French economist.
• 1911 - Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. is founded.
• 1911 - Jean-Pierre Aumont was born (d. 2001). French actor.
• 1912 - Prague Party Conference
• 1913 - First Balkan War: During the Naval Battle of Lemnos Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it did not venture for the rest of the war.
• 1913 - Jean-Pierre Aumont was born (d. 2001). French actor.
• 1914 - Following the great success of the Model T, American automobile maker Henry Ford raised his workers' pay from $2.40 to $5.00 a day and reduced to an eight-hour workday.
• 1914 - George Reeves was born (d. 1959). American actor (Superman) .
• 1914 - Nicolas de Staël was born (d. 1955). French-Russian painter.
• 1915 - Arthur H. Robinson was born (d. 2004). Canadian-born American cartographer
• 1915 - Humberto Teixeira was born. Brazilian musician and composer.
• 1917 - Jane Wyman was born (d. 2007). American actress.
• 1917 - Wieland Wagner was born (d. 1966). German stage director.
• 1919 - Anton Drexler founded the Free Committee for a German Workers Party, the forerunner of the Nazi Party, in Munich, Germany.
• 1919 - Germany: Spartacists, led by Karl Liebknecht & Rosa Luxemburg, head a revolt to renew the November revolution — which lasts 6 days (in Berlin); both are murdered by the so-called "democratic" left on the 15th.
• 1920 - Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli was born (d. 1995). Italian pianist.
• 1920 - Carmem Costa was born. Brazilian singer.
• 1921 - Friedrich Dürrenmatt was born in Konolfingen, Bern (d. 1990). Swiss novelist and dramatist (The Visit).
• 1921 - Jean, Grand Duke of Luxembourg was born.
• 1922 - Ernest Shackleton dies (b. 1874). British explorer of Antarctide.
• 1923 - Sam Phillips was born (d. 2003). American country music producer.
• 1925 - Nellie Tayloe Ross becomes the first female governor in the United States (Wyoming).
• 1926 - [William DeWitt] William De Witt Snodgrass was born. American poet (Heart’s Needle, The Fuhrer Bunker, The Complete Cycle, April Inventory) .
• 1926 - Hosea Williams was born (d. 2000). American religious leader and civil rights activist.
• 1928 - Walter Mondale was born. U.S. Senator, Democratic presidential nominee in 1984 .
• 1928 - Ali Bhutto was born (d. 1979). President and Prime Minister of Pakistan.
• 1929 - Wilbert Harrison was born (d. 1994). American singer.
• 1929 - Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov dies. Grand Duke of Russia .
• 1931 - Alvin Ailey was born (d. 1989). American dancer and choreographer
• 1931 - Alfred Brendel was born. Austrian pianist.
• 1931 - Robert Duvall was born. Academy Award-winning actor.
• 1931 - Nuno Castel-Branco was born (d. 2003). Portuguese physician
• 1932 - Umberto Eco was born. Italian philologist and writer. A renowned critic and semiotician (student of signs and symbols), he is perhaps better known as the author of the best-selling murder mystery and fantasy novel The Name of the Rose (1981).
• 1932 - Raïssa Gorbachev was born (d. 1999). Wife of Mikhail Gorbachev.
• 1932 - Chuck Noll was born. American football coach
• 1933 - Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay. Bridge opens May 27, 1937.
• 1933 - John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. dies (b. 1872). 30th President of the United States.
• 1934 - William Bendeck was born (d. 1971). Bolivian rally driver.
• 1936 - Florence King was born. American humorist.
• 1937 - Marie Booth dies (b. 1864). Child of William and Catherine Booth.
• 1938 - King Juan Carlos of Spain (João Carlos de Bourbon) was born in Rome.
• 1938 - Jim Otto was born. American football player.
• 1938 - Ngugi wa Thiongo was born. Kenyan writer.
• 1938 - Amelia Earhart is presumed dead and the search for her and Fred Noonan has ended.
• 1939 - Lisandro de la Torre dies (suicide). Argentine journalist and politician. Founder, in Argentine, of the "Partido Demócrata Progresista".
• 1940 - FM radio is demonstrated to the FCC for the first time.
• 1940 - Michael O'Donoghue was born (d. 1994). American writer.
• 1940 - Yuri Ershov was born. Russian mathematician
• 1941 - Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi was born. Indian cricketer
• 1941 - Miyazaki Hayao was born. Japanese animated film maker.
• 1941 - World War II: North Africa Bardia, Libya, falls to a British assault - 25,000 Italian troops, including 6 generals, are captured.
• 1941 - Amy Johnson dies (b. 1903). English aviator.
• 1942 - Maurizio Pollini was born. Italian pianist.
• 1942 - Charlie Rose was born. American talk show host.
• 1942 - Jan Leeming was born. British television presenter and newsreader.
• 1942 - Terenci Moix was born (d. 2003). Spanish writer.
• 1942 - Tina Modotti dies in Mexico (b. 1896). Italian photographer, actress and model.
• 1943 - George Washington Carver dies (b. 1860). American educator.
• 1944 - The Daily Mail becomes the first transoceanic newspaper.
• 1945 - The Soviet Union recognizes the new pro-Soviet government of Poland.
• 1945 - Alfredo Luis Conde Cid was born. Spanish writer.
• 1945 - Jimmy Page was born. American musician ( Led Zeppelin).
• 1945 - Roger Spottiswoode was born. Canadian-born film director
• 1946 - Diane Keaton was born in Los Angeles, California. Academy Award-winning actress, producer, director and screenwriter .
• 1946 - Kitty Cheatham dies (b. 1864). American singer.
• 1948 - Warner Brothers shows the first color newsreel (Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl).
• 1948 - Ted Lange was born. American actor.
• 1948 - Terroristas judíos destruyen con explosivos un ala del Hotel King David de Jerusalén, atentado en el que mueren 20 personas.
• 1949 - George Brown was born. American drummer (Kool & The Gang)
• 1950 - Gran Bretaña rompe sus relaciones diplomáticas con la China nacionalista y, al día siguiente, reconoce el régimen de Mao Tse-Tung.
• 1950 - Chris Stein was born. American guitarist (Blondie)
• 1950 - John Manley was born. Canadian politician.
• 1950 - Ioan Petru Culianu was born (d. 1991). Romanian-born professor.
• 1950 - Charlie Richmond was born. Canadian entrepreneur.
• 1951 - Steve Arnold was born. English football player.
• 1951 - Andrei Platonov dies (b. 1899). Russian writer.
• 1953 - Pamela Sue Martin was born. American actress.
• 1954 - Alex English was born. American basketball player.
• 1954 - Rabbit Maranville dies (b. 1891). American baseball player.
• 1955 - É inaugurado o último trecho, de 650 quilômetros, da ferrovia amazônica que une Brasil e Bolívia.
• 1956 - Actress Grace Kelly announces she is going to marry Prince Ranier III of Monaco.
• 1956 - Elvis Presley records "Heartbreak Hotel."
• 1956 - Chen Kenichi was born. Japanese-born chef.
• 1956 - Mistinguett dies (b. 1875). French singer.
• 1957 - Major league baseball player Jackie Robinson retires.
• 1957 - Eisenhower Doctrine : U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower requested Congress to approve his plans for military cooperation with the Middle East on this day in 1957. The Eisenhower Doctrine assured Middle Eastern countries military and economic aid in the event of Soviet attack.
• 1957 - Kevin Hastings, Australian rugby league footballer
• 1959 - Clancy Brown was born. American actor
• 1960 - Spain: Anarchist guerilla Francisco Sabate dies after a shoot-out with fasciste garde civile. Wounded yesterday, he escaped & was killed today in San Celoni by a sometén Catalan militia
• 1960 - Glenn Strömberg was born. Swedish footballer.
• 1960 - Steve Jones was born. British aviator (Red Bull Air Race World Series).
• 1960 - Phil Thornalley was born. English bass guitarist (The Cure).
• 1960 - Steve Jones was born. Aviator (Red Bull Air Race World Series).
• 1962 - A replica of the miraculous statue, the Holy Infant of Good Health, is presented to Blessed Pope John XXIII.
• 1962 - Suzy Amis was born. American actress.
• 1962 - Joe Monzo was born. American composer.
• 1962 - Perry Fenwick was born. English actor.
• 1962 - Danny Jackson was born. Baseball player.
• 1963 - Jeff Fassero was born. Baseball player.
• 1963 - Rogers Hornsby dies (b. 1896). American baseball player.
• 1964 - Pope Paul VI meets the Greek patriarch Athenagoras I in Jerusalem, the first meeting of Catholic and Orthodox Christianity leaders since 1439.
• 1964 - Grant Young was born. American drummer (Soul Asylum)
• 1965 - Vinnie Jones was born. British actor.
• 1966 - Kate Schellenbach was born. American drummer (Luscious Jackson)
• 1967 - Joe Flanigan was born. American actor.
• 1967 - Anastasio Somoza Debayle is elected President of Nicaragua.
• 1968 - Alexander Dubček comes to power, succeeds President Novotny ; "Prague Spring" begins in Czechoslovakia.
• 1968 - Ricky Paull Goldin was born. American actor.
• 1968 - Andrew Golota was born. Polish boxer.
• 1968 - Carrie Ann Inaba was born. American dancer and choreographer.
• 1968 - Joé Juneau was born. National Hockey League player.
• 1968 - Ricky Paull Goldin was born. American actor.
• 1968 - DJ Bobo was born. Swiss singer.
• 1969 - Marilyn Manson was born. American singer, rocker.
• 1969 - Paul McGillion was born. Scottish actor
• 1970 - Soap opera: All My Children premieres.
• 1970 - Rick Campanelli was born. Canadian TV presenter.
• 1970 - Max Born dies (b. 1882). German physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1954, with Walther Bothe of Germany, for his statistical formulation of the behaviour of subatomic particles.
• 1970 - Roberto Gerhard dies (b. 1896). Catalan composer.
• 1970 - 20,000 miners in West Virginia go on wildcat strike to protest the murder of Jack Yablonski, reform miners leader
• 1971 - US: 19 arrested in "Homes Not War" protest, Tucson, Arizona
• 1971 - Chile's socialist government led by Salvador Allende agreed to establish diplomatic relations with China.
• 1971 - Sonny Liston World Champ heavyweight boxer (1962-64), found dead at 36.
• 1971 - Mayuko Takata was born. Japanese actress
• 1971 - Douglas Shearer dies (b. 1899). Canadian film engineer.
• 1972 - President of the United States Richard Nixon orders the development of a space shuttle program.
• 1972 - Sakis Rouvas was born. Greek singer.
• 1973 - Mali & Niger break diplomatic relations with Israel .
• 1973 - Netherlands recognizes East Germany.
• 1973 - Phil Joel was born. Australian bassist (Newsboys).
• 1974 - An earthquake in Lima, Peru kills six, and damages 100s of houses.
• 1975 - The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier Lake Illawarra, killing twelve people.
• 1975 - Bradley Cooper was born. American actor.
• 1975 - Kylie Bax was born. New Zealander model. See Kylie Bax wallpaper (erotic)
• 1975 - Mike Grier was born. American ice hockey player.
• 1975 - Warrick Dunn was born. American football player.
• 1975 - Mike Grier was born. American ice hockey player.
• 1976 - Cambodia is renamed Democratic Campuchea after The Khmer Rouge to have promulgated a new constitution. During this comunist regimen that survived until 1979 , about 1.000.000 people died.
• 1976 - Diego Tristán was born. Spanish footballer.
• 1976 - Matt Wachter was born. American bassist (30 Seconds to Mars)
• 1976 - Mal Evans dies (b. 1935). Beatles' "roadie".
• 1977 - Kenya President Jomo Kenyatta disbands parliament.
• 1978 - Franck Montagny was born. French Formula One driver.
• 1979 - Kyle Calder was born. American hockey player
• 1979 - Ronnie O'Brien was born. Irish footballer - plays for Toronto FC
• 1979 - Charles Mingus dies in Cuernavaca, Mexico. American jazz bassist, composer and orchestra leader (Beneath the Underdog).
• 1980 - Hewlett-Packard announces release of its first personal computer.
• 1981 - Harold C. Urey dies (b. 1893). American scientist awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1934 for his discovery of deuterium, the heavy form of hydrogen (1932).
• 1981 - Corey Flynn dies. New Zealand rugby player.
• 1981 - Brooklyn Sudano dies. American actress.
• 1981 - Lanza del Vasto dies (b. 1901). Italian philosopher.
• 1981 - Portugal : VII Government lead by Prime-Minister Pinto Balsemão sworns in.
• 1982 - Janica Kostelic was born. Croatian alpine skier .
• 1982 - Hans Conried dies (b. 1917). American actor.
• 1984 - Richard Stallman starts developing GNU.
• 1984 - Comienza a funcionar en Quito (Ecuador) el Tribunal de Justicia del Acuerdo de Cartagena (Pacto Andino).
• 1984 - Amanda Hearst was born. American heiress.
• 1985 - Richard Butler was born. English football player.
• 1985 - Michael Cuccione was born (d. 2001). Canadian actor.
• 1985 - Yoon So-Yi was born. South Korean actress.
• 1986 - Deepika Padukone was born. Indian model and actress.
• 1987 - Guy Kastner was born. Australian footballer and model.
• 1987 - Herman Smith-Johannsen dies (b. 1875). Norwegian-born Canadian cross-country skier.
• 1988 - Pete Maravich dies (b. 1947). American basketball player.
• 1989 - Tommy Hutchinson was born. Australian actress.
• 1990 - Joe Vallely was born. Member of the British Royal Family.
• 1990 - Lola Iturbe dies (b. 1902). Anarchist. Pseudonym, Kyra Kyralina (Kiralina).Edited the collection, La mujer en la Lucha Social y en la Guerra Civil de España, 220p. (Editores Mexicanos Unidos, S.A. México D.F., 1974).
• 1990 - Arthur Kennedy dies (b. 1914). American actor.
• 1991 - Vasko Popa dies (b. 1922). Yugoslav poet.
• 1993 - The oil tanker MV Braer runs aground on the coast of the Shetland Islands spilling 84,700 tonnes of oil.
• 1993 - Washington state executes Westley Allan Dodd by hanging (the first legal hanging in America since 1965).
• 1994 - Aleksandr Popov swims world record 100m free style (47.82) .
• 1994 - Thomas P. 'Tip' O'Neill dies (b. 1912). American politician.
• 1994 - Brian Johnston dies (b. 1912). British cricket commentator.
• 1995 - Mass celebration in the streets of Lilongwe, Malawi, following the arrest of former president Hastings Kamuzu Banda.
• 1996 - Hamas operative Yahya Ayyash is killed by an Israeli-planted booby-trapped cell phone.
• 1996 - Japan's Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama announced his resignation in a surprise move.
• 1996 - Max Baldry was born. British actor.
• 1996 - Yahya Ayyash dies (b. 1966). Palestinian terrorist.
• 1997 - Russian forces withdraw from Chechnya.
• 1997 - André Franquin dies (b. 1924). Belgian cartoonist (Gaston Lagaffe).
• 1997 - Burton Lane dies (b. 1912). American composer and lyricist.
• 1998 - João Acácio Pereira da Costa, o Bandido da Luz Vermelha, famoso criminoso dos anos 60, é assassinado (Brasil).
• 1998 - Daniel arap Moi was sworn in as president of Kenya for his fifth consecutive term.
• 1998 - Sonny Bono dies (b. 1935). American entertainer.
• 1998 - Ken Forssi dies (b. 1943). American musician (Love).
• 2000 - The first day of the 2000 Al Qaeda Summit.
• 2000 - INS Commissioner Doris Meissner ruled that 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez must be returned to Cuba.
• 2001 - Aldo César dies (b. 1928). Brazilian actor.
• 2001 - Nancy Parsons dies (b. 1942). American actress.
• 2002 - Charles Bishop, a 15-year-old student pilot, crashes a light aircraft into a Tampa, Florida building, evoking fear of a copycat 9/11 terrorist attack.
• 2003 - Roy Jenkins dies (b. 1920). British politician.
• 2003 - Jean Kerr dies (b. 1923). American author.
• 2003 - Massimo Girotti dies (b. 1918). Italian film actor.
• 2004 - John Toland, dies in Connecticut, historian. He was awarded the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction for his book The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 which tells the story of the Pacific War mainly from the Japanese viewpoint.
• 2004 - Norman Heatley dies (b. 1911). Norman George Heatley solved problems in the extraction of penicillin from its mould and paved the way for mass production.
• 2004 - Tug McGraw dies (b. 1944). American baseball player.
• 2005 - Eris, the largest known dwarf planet in the solar system, was discovered by the team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L. Rabinowitz using images originally taken on October 21, 2003, at the Palomar Observatory.
• 2005 - Danny Sugerman dies (b. 1954). American music manager (The Doors).
• 2006 - Independence Air ceases operations.
• 2007 - Taiwan High Speed Rail open between Taipei and Kaohsiung.
• 2007 - Momofuku Ando dies (b. 1910). Inventor of instant noodles and cup noodles.
• 2007 - Chih Ree Sun dies (b. 1923). Chinese-American physicist and poet.
• Catholicism - Feast day of St. John Neumann.
• Mungday (Discordianism)