| 69 | | Vespians's supporters enter Rome and discover Vitellius in hiding. He is dragged through the streets before being brutally murdered. |
| 1355 | | Stephen Urosh IV of Serbia dies while marching to attack Constantinople. |
| 1802 | | The United States buys the Louisiana territory from France. |
| 1860 | | South Carolina secedes from the Union. |
| 1861 | | English transports loaded with 8,000 troops set sail for Canada so that troops are available if the "Trent Affair" is not settled without war. |
| 1924 | | Adolf Hitler is released from prison after serving less than one year of a five year sentence for treason. |
| 1930 | | Thousands of Spaniards sign a revolutionary manifesto. |
| 1933 | | The German government announces 400,000 citizens are to be sterilized because of hereditary defects. |
| 1938 | | First electronic television system is patented. |
| 1941 | | The Flying Tigers, American pilots in China, enter combat against the Japanese over Kunming. |
| 1943 | | Soviet forces halt a German army trying to relieve the besieged city of Stalingrad. |
| 1946 | | Viet Minh and French forces fight fiercely in Annamite section of Hanoi. |
| 1948 | | U.S. Supreme Court announces that it has no jurisdiction to hear the appeals of Japanese war criminals sentenced by the International Military Tribunal. |
| 1960 | | National Liberation Front is formed by guerrillas fighting the Diem regime in South Vietnam. |
| 1962 | | In its first free election in 38 years, the Dominican Republic chooses leftist Juan Bosch Gavino as president. |
| 1963 | | Four thousand cross the Berlin Wall to visit relatives under a 17-day Christmas accord. |
| 1989 | | U.S. troops invade Panama to oust General Manuel Noriega and replace him with Guillermo Endara. |