• 202 BCE - The Battle of Zama results in the defeat of Carthage and Hannibal.
• 439 - The Vandals, led by King Gaiseric, take Carthage in North Africa.
• 1216 - King John of England dies at Newark-on-Trent and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son Henry.
• 1453 - The French recapture of Bordeaux brings the Hundred Years' War to a close, with the English retaining only Calais on French soil.
• 1466 - The Thirteen Years' War ends with the Second Treaty of Thorn.
• 1469 - Ferdinand II of Aragon marries Isabella I of Castile, a marriage that paves the way to the unification of Aragon and Castile into a single country, Spain.
• 1512 - Martin Luther becomes a doctor of theology (Doctor in Biblia).
• 1649 - New Ross town, Co. Wexford, Ireland, surrenders to Oliver Cromwell.
• 1781 - At Yorktown, Virginia, British commander Lord Cornwallis surrendered to a Franco-American force led by George Washington and the comte de Rochambeau, paving the way for the end of the American Revolutionary War.
• 1789 - Chief Justice John Jay is sworn in as the first Chief Justice of the United States.
• 1812 - Napoleon I of France retreats from Moscow.
• 1813 - The Battle of Leipzig concludes, giving Napoleon Bonaparte one of his worst defeats.
• 1822 - In Parnaíba; Simplício Dias da Silva, João Cândido de Deus e Silva and Domingos Dias declare the independent state of Piauí.
• 1864 - Battle of Cedar Creek - Union Army under Philip Sheridan destroys Confederate Army under Jubal Early.
• 1864 - Confederate raiders launch an attack on Saint Albans, Vermont from Canada.
• 1873 - Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Rutgers universities draft the first code of American football rules.
• 1904 - Polytechnic University of the Philippines founded as Manila Business School through the superintendence of the American C.A. O'Reilley.
• 1912 - Italy takes possession of Tripoli, Libya from the Ottoman Empire.
• 1914 - The First Battle of Ypres begins.
• 1917 - Love Field in Dallas, Texas is opened.
• 1921 - Portuguese Prime Minister António Granjo and other politicians are murdered in a Lisbon coup.
• 1933 - Germany withdraws from the League of Nations.
• 1935 - The League of Nations places economic sanctions on fascist Italy for its invasion of Ethiopia.
• 1943 - Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.
• 1944 - United States forces land in the Philippines.
• 1950 - The military of the People's Republic of China takes control of the town of Chamdo in eastern Tibet.
• 1954 - First ascent of Cho Oyu
• 1960 - The United States government places an embargo on Communist Cuba.
• 1969 - The first Prime Minister of Tunisia in twelve years, Bahi Ladgham, is appointed by President Habib Bourguiba.
• 1973 - President Richard Nixon rejects an Appeals Court demand to turn over the Watergate tapes.
• 1974 - Niue becomes self-govering colony of New Zealand
• 1976 - Battle of Aishiya in Lebanon. The same day, the Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) is placed on the List of Endangered Species.
• 1983 - Maurice Bishop, Prime Minister of Grenada, is overthrown and executed in a military coup d'état led by Bernard Coard.
• 1986 - Samora Machel, President of Mozambique and a prominent leader of FRELIMO, and 33 others died when their Tupolev 134 plane crashed into the Lebombo Mountains.
• 1987 - In retaliation for Iranian attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy disables three of Iran's offshore oil platforms.
• 1987 - (Black Monday) Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 22%, 508 points. This is considered a Stock Market Crash.
• 1989 - Guildford Four convictions are quashed by the Court of Appeal - they'd spent 15 years in prison through a miscarriage of justice.
• 1991 - 7.0 Richter Scale earthquake in Northern Italy - 2000 dead
• 1994 - The Goodnight Kiwi airs in New Zealand for the last time as TV2 moves to 24-hour television 7 days a week.
• 1998 - The Earth Liberation Front sets fire to the Vail Mountain ski resort in Vail, Colorado, causing $12 million in damage.
• 2001 - SIEV-X, an Indonesian fishing boat en-route to Christmas Island, carrying over 400 asylum seekers, sank in international waters with the loss of 353 people.
• 2003 - Mother Teresa is beatified by Pope John Paul II.
• 2004 - Myanmar prime minister Khin Nyunt is ousted and placed under house arrest by the Thai government on charges of corruption.
• 2004 - Care International aid worker Margaret Hassan is kidnapped in Iraq.
• 2005 - Saddam Hussein goes on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.
• 2005 - Hurricane Wilma becomes the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record with a minimum pressure of 882 mb.
• 2006 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 12,000 mark for the first time.
• 2007 - Philippines. Amidst corruption controversies hounding the Arroyo administration, a bomb explosion rocked Glorietta 2, a shopping mall in Makati, which killed 11 and injured more than 100 people.

Births