• 1333 - Flood of the Arno River, causing massive damage in Florence as recorded by the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani.
• 1501 - Catherine of Aragon (later Henry VIII's wife) meets Arthur Tudor, Henry VIII's older brother - they'd later marry.
• 1576 - Eighty Years' War: In Flanders, Spain captures Antwerp (after three days the city was nearly destroyed).
• 1677 - The future Mary II of England marries William, Prince of Orange. They would later be known as William and Mary.
• 1737 - The Teatro di San Carlo is inaugurated.
• 1783 - W.A. Mozart's Symphony No. 36 is premiered in Linz, Austria.
• 1825 - The Erie Canal is completed with Governor DeWitt Clinton performing the Wedding of The Waters ceremony in New York Harbour.
• 1839 - The Newport Rising is the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority in mainland Britain.
• 1852 - Count Camillo Benso di Cavour becomes the prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, which soon expands to become Italy.
• 1861 - The University of Washington opens in Seattle, Washington as the Territorial University
• 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Johnsonville - Confederate troops bombard a Union supply base and destroy millions of dollars in material.
• 1889 - Menelek of Shoa obtains the allegiance of a large majority of the Ethiopian nobility, paving the way for him to be crowned emperor.
• 1890 - City & South London Railway: London's first deep-level tube railway opens between King William Street and Stockwell.
• 1918 - World War I: Austria-Hungary surrenders to Italy.
• 1918 - The German Revolution begins when 40,000 sailors take over the port in Kiel.
• 1921 - The Sturmabteilung or SA is formally formed by Adolf Hitler
• 1921 - Japanese Prime Minister Hara Takashi is assassinated in Tokyo.
• 1921 - Italian unknown soldier is buried in the Altare della Patria (Fatherland Altar) in Rome.
• 1922 - In Egypt, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to King Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
• 1924 - Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming is elected as the first female governor in the United States.
• 1939 - World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the United States Customs Service to implement the Neutrality Act of 1939, allowing cash-and-carry purchases of weapons by belligerents.
• 1942 - World War II: Second Battle of El Alamein - Disobeying a direct order by Adolf Hitler, General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel leads his forces on a five-month retreat.
• 1952 - The United States government establishes the National Security Agency.
• 1955 - The rebuilt Vienna State Opera reopens with Ludwig van Beethoven's Fidelio after it was totally destroyed in World War II.
• 1956 - Soviet troops enter Hungary to end the Hungarian revolution that started on October 23. Thousands are killed, more are wounded, and nearly a quarter million leave the country.
• 1962 - In a test of the Nike-Hercules air defense missile, Shot Dominic-Tightrope is successfully detonated 69,000 feet above Johnston Island. It would also be the final atmospheric nuclear test ever conducted by the United States.
• 1966 - Two-thirds of Florence, Italy is submerged as the Arno rivers flood; considering also the contemporary flood of Po River in northern Italy, 113 people die, 30,000 are rendered homeless, and numerous Renaissance artworks and books are destroyed.
• 1970 - Vietnam War: Vietnamization - The United States turns control of the Binh Thuy Air Base in the Mekong Delta over to South Vietnam.
• 1970 - Genie, a 13 year old feral child was found in Los Angeles, California having been locked in her bedroom for most of her life.
• 1973 - The Netherlands experiences the first Car Free Sunday caused by the 1973 oil crisis. Highways are deserted and are solely used by cyclists and roller skaters.
• 1979 - Iran hostage crisis begins: Iranian people, mostly students, invade the United States embassy in Tehran and take 90 hostages (53 of whom are American).
• 1986 - Chief Justice Rose Bird and two colleagues are removed by the electorate from the Supreme Court of California for their opposition to capital punishment.
• 1989 - The congress of the Solidarity Party is inaugurated in Sweden. The congress decides, contrary to the proposal of the central committee, not to disband the party.
• 1993 - Bolivia becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
• 1993 - A series of fires destroy 1000 homes in southern California, causing between 500 million and 1 billion USD of damage. Half of the fires turn out to be arson.
• 1993 - A China Airlines Boeing 747 overran Runway 13 at Hong Kong's Kai Tak International Airport while landing during a typhoon, injuring 22 people.
• 1994 - San Francisco: First conference that focusses exclusively on the subject of the commercial potential of the World Wide Web.
• 1995 - Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated by an extreme right-wing Israeli.
• 2002 - Chinese authorities arrest cyber-dissident He Depu for signing pro-democracy letter to the 16th Communist Party Congress
• 2003 - The most powerful solar flare as observed by satellite instrumentation is recorded.
• 2003 - Former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy becomes the first person indicted under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. He was eventually acquitted.
• 2004 - 12 French soldiers, 3 UN personnel and hundreds of civilians die during the Côte d'Ivoire civil war.

Births