1240 Batu Khan's Mongol army lays siege to Kyiv and begins assaulting its city walls with catapults, city falls 8 days later

1291 Eleanor of Castile, wife of KingEdward I of England, dies in Northamptonshire. Crosses are erected where her body rests on the way to London.

1520 Portuguese navigatorFerdinand Magellan begins crossing the Pacific Ocean

1660 Lecture by SirChristopher Wren, Professor of Astronomy, at England's Gresham College inspires formation of scientific group that later becomes the Royal Society of London

1670Pierre Corneille's comedic play "Tite et Berenice" premieres in Paris

1717Blackbeard attacks and captures a French merchant slave ship, which he renames as his flagship the "Queen Anne's Revenge"

1720Anne Bonny andMary Read are tried, found guilty of pirating, and sentenced to death in Spanish Town, Jamaica, although their discovered pregnancies win them stays of execution

1754Jean-Baptiste Le Rond d'Alembert is elected to the French Academy of Sciences

1878 Whistler v. Ruskin, the most famous trial in art history, ends with artist James McNeill Whistler awarded a token farthing in compensation after suing the writer and critic John Ruskin for libel, seeking £1,000 damages[1]

1893 Women vote in a national election for the first time, in the New Zealand general election

1895 America's first auto race is organized by the "Chicago Times-Herald" from Chicago to Evanston and back; six cars participate in the 55-mile race, and Frank Duryea wins, averaging 7 mph

1899 Second Boer War: Battle of Modder River (Cape Colony), British Lord Methuen defeats Boer forces of Piet Cronjé andKoos de la Rey

1901Gustav Mahler conducts premiere of his 4th Symphony in G, at Kaim-Saal concert hall in Maxvorstadt, Munich, Germany to mixed reviews

1905Arthur Griffith forms Sinn Féin in Dublin

1906 CanadianTommy Burns retains his world heavyweight boxing title after being pushed to a 20-round draw byPhiladelphia Jack O'Brien in Los Angeles, California

1907 In Haverhill, Massachusetts, scrap-metal dealerLouis B. Mayer opens his first movie theater

1909Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3, one of the genres most difficult, premieres at the New Theatre in New York City, with the composer as soloist and the New York Symphony Society conducted by Walter Damrosch

1911Emiliano Zapata proclaims the Plan of Ayala Mexico

1912Ismail Qemali declares Albania independent in Vlorë of the Ottoman Empire after 400 hundred years of rule

1918 KaiserWilhelm II of Prussia & Germany abdicates

1919 American-born LadyNancy Astor elected as the first female member of the British House of Commons (to take her seat)

1925 7th French government ofAristide Briand sworn-in

1925 NHL goalieGeorges Vezina collapses and dies 4 months later of TB

1929Richard E. Byrd makes his 1st South Pole flight

1930Howard Hanson's 2nd Symphony "Romantic" premieres

1932Groucho Marx performs on radio for the first time

1933 A Dallas grand jury delivers a murder indictment againstBonnie Parker andClyde Barrow for the January 1933 killing of Tarrant County Deputy Malcolm Davis

1934Winston Churchill tells British Prime MinisterStanley Baldwin not to under estimate German air power

1938Dmitri Shostakovich's Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2 premieres in Moscow, USSR

1939Hans Frank, Nazi Governor-General of Poland, organizes Judenrat

1943Franklin D. Roosevelt,Winston Churchill andJoseph Stalin meet at the Tehran Conference in Iran to map out strategy

1951John Van Druten's "I am a Camera" premieres in NYC

1957 "Look Homeward, Angel" play based on the book byThomas Wolfe adapted by Ketti Frings and starringAnthony Perkins premieres in NYC

1957 Milwaukee Braves' future HOF pitcherWarren Spahn wins Cy Young Award

1959 PopeJohn XXIII publishes encyclical Princeps Pastorum

1961 German writerMartin Walser's play "Der Abstecher" (The Detour) premieres in Munich

1967 First radio pulsars detected by British postgraduateJocelyn Bell Burnell and her supervisor Antony Hewish at Cambridge University

1968John Lennon is fined £150 for unauthorized drug possession

1972 LA Dodgers tradeFrank Robinson to California Angels

1974 Baseball CommissionerBowie Kuhn suspends NY Yankees ownerGeorge Steinbrenner for two years because of his Federal conviction for illegal contributions to political campaigns[1]

1975Bobby Orr plays his last game for the Boston Bruins

1978 Atlantic Records releases "Briefcase Full of Blues", the debut album by The Blues Brothers (Dan Aykroyd andJohn Belushi); album tops the chart and becomes best-selling blues record of all-time

1978 Cincinnati Reds fire their managerSparky Anderson after 9 years

1979 PopeJohn Paul II's first papal visit to Turkey, almost 1 1/2 years before Turkish native Mehmet Ali Agca attempts to kill him

1981 New Zealand general election won by ruling National party and Prime MinisterRobert Muldoon

1982 Germany'sSylvia Hanika stages remarkable comeback to upset tennis iconMartina Navratilova 1–6, 6–3, 6–4 and win her only WTA Tour Championship in NYC

1984 Over 250 years after their deaths,William Penn and his wife Hannah Callowhill Penn are made Honorary Citizens of the United States

1986 USReagan administration exceeds SALT II arms limitations for 1st time

1988Picasso's "Acrobat & Harlequin" sells for $38.46 million

1989Queen Latifah releases her debut hip hop album "All Hail the Queen" featuring single "Ladies First"

1989Rickey Henderson signs record $3,000,000 contract per year with baseball's Oakland Athletics

1990 Conservative Party choosesJohn Major to succeedMargaret Thatcher as leader and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

1990 Singapore'sLee Kuan Yew resigns, ending his term as Singapore's longest-serving Prime Minister

1994 Convicted serial killerJeffrey Dahmer is clubbed to death by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver in the Columbia Correctional Institution gymnasium in Portage, Wisconsin

1999 In an all-American final,Pete Sampras beatsAndre Agassi 6–1, 7–5, 6–4 to win his 5th and final ATP Tour World Championship tennis title in Hanover, Germany

2005 Ballon d'Or: FC Barcelona's Brazilian midfielderRonaldinho is named best football player in Europe ahead of Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard and Liverpool's Steven Gerrard

2010 In a classic matchup,Roger Federer wins his 5th season-ending ATP World Tour Finals tennis title with a 6–3, 3–6, 6–1 victory overRafael Nadal of Spain in the final in London, England

2012 "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" 1st of the Hobbit film series, directed byPeter Jackson, starringMartin Freeman andIan McKellen, premieres in Wellington, New Zealand

2015 British boxerTyson Fury beats UkrainianWladimir Klitschko by unanimous decision to win WBA, WBO, IBF, IBO, The Ring magazine and lineal heavyweight titles in Düsseldorf, Germany; ends Klitschko's 9 year reign as champion

2015Jamie Vardy scores for Leicester City in a 1-1 draw against Manchester United at the King Power Stadium; EPL record 11th consecutive game in which Vardy scores

2016 Musical "Hamilton" starringLin-Manuel Miranda andAnthony Ramos sets new record for most money earned in a week on Broadway - $3.3 million

2017Uhuru Kenyatta sworn in for a second term as president of Kenya

2020Joe Biden injures his foot playing with his dog Major