| 1660 | | The first Shakespearian actress to appear on an English stage (she is believed to be a Ms. Norris) makes her debut as Desdemona. |
| 1861 | | CSS Sumter captures the whaler Eben Dodge in the Atlantic. The American Civil War is now affecting the Northern whaling industry. |
| 1863 | | Union General William Averell's cavalry destroys railroads in the southwestern part of West Virginia. |
| 1914 | | The German cruisers Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Nurnberg, and Liepzig are sunk by a British force in the Battle of the Falkland Islands. |
| 1920 | | President Woodrow Wilson declines to send a representative to the League of Nations in Geneva. |
| 1932 | | Japan tells the League of Nations that it has no control over her designs in China. |
| 1941 | | Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita begins his attack against the British army at Singapore. |
| 1943 | | U.S. carrier-based planes sink two cruisers and down 72 planes in the Marshall Islands. |
| 1944 | | The United States conducts the longest, most effective air raid on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima. |
| 1948 | | The United Nations approves the recognition of South Korea. |
| 1967 | | In the biggest battle yet in the Mekong Delta, 365 Viet Cong are killed. |
| 1968 | | South Vietnam's Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky arrives in Paris for peace talks. |
| 1980 | | John Lennon is shot to death outside his Manhattan apartment building. |
| 1982 | | The Washington, D.C., police shoot and kill a man threatening to blow up the Washington Monument. |