| 1640 | Portugal regained its independence, driving out the Spaniards. |
| 1824 | The presidential election was turned over to the U.S. House of Representatives when a deadlock developed among John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford and Henry Clay. Adams ended up the winner. |
| 1842 | Midshipman Philip Spencer, son of Secretary of War John C. Spencer, was hanged for mutiny from the yardarm of the USS Somers, the first Navy officer executed for mutiny. |
| 1880 | A telephone was first installed in the White House. |
| 1891 | James Naismith, a physical education teacher at a YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, created the indoor sport of basketball. |
| 1913 | 1913 - In Pittsburgh, the first drive-in automobile service station opened for business. It was operated by the Gulf Refining Company. |
| 1918 | Iceland became an independent state from Denmark, though still remained under the king of Denmark. |
| 1919 | Lady Astor was sworn in as the first female member of the British Parliament. |
| 1922 | Skywriting was introduced when a pilot flew over New York City and spelled out "hello." |
| 1934 | Sergei M. Kirov, political rival of Josef Stalin, was assassinated in Leningrad, beginning Stalin's purge in which he eliminated his opponents in the Communist Party, the government, the armed forces, and the intelligentsia. |
| 1939 | The movie "Gone With the Wind" premiered in New York City. |
| 1942 | Nationwide gasoline rationing went into effect in the United States. |
| 1942 | The British Government unveils plans for a welfare state offering care to all from the cradle to the grave. |
| 1943 | Winston Churchill, President Franklin D Roosevelt and Marshall Joseph Stalin make their first joint declaration against the Axis Powers after the Tehran conference. |
| 1953 | The first issue of "Playboy" magazine was published by Hugh Hefner; it featured Marilyn Monroe as the centerfold. |
| 1955 | Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, defied the law by refusing to give up her seat to a white man aboard a Montgomery, Ala., city bus. Mrs. Parks was arrested, sparking a year-long boycott of the buses by blacks. |
| 1957 | The New York City Ballet debuted "Agon," a collaboration of composer Igor Stravinsky and choreographer George Balanchine. |
| 1959 | Representatives of 12 countries, including the United States, signed a treaty in Washington setting aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, free from military activity. |
| 1965 | An airlift of refugees from Cuba to the United States began in which thousands of Cubans were allowed to leave their homeland. |
| 1969 | The U.S. government held its first draft lottery since World War II. |
| 1970 | Divorce became legal in Italy, in certain cases. |
| 1978 | President Jimmy Carter put more than 56 million acres of Alaska into the national park system. |
| 1989 | Pope John Paul II and Mikhail Gorbachev met in Rome, ending 70 years of hostility between the Vatican and the USSR. |
| 1990 | British and French workers digging the Channel Tunnel between their countries finally met after knocking out a passage in a service tunnel. |
| 1991 | Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union. |
| 1992 | In Mineola, N.Y., Amy Fisher was sentenced to five to 15 years in prison for shooting and seriously wounding Mary Jo Buttafuoco. (Fisher served nearly seven years.) |
| 1994 | U.S. Congress passed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) treaty. |
| 1997 | A 14-year-old student opened fire on a morning prayer group at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky., killing three students and wounding five; Michael Carneal later pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murder and was sentenced to life in prison with no ch |
| 1999 | An international team of scientists announced it had mapped virtually an entire human chromosome. |
| 2000 | Vicente Fox was sworn in as president of Mexico, ending 71 years of ruling-party domination. |
| 2004 | Tom Brokaw signed off "NBC Nightly News" for the last time as principal anchor. |
