EVENTS:
- 1777 – Articles of Confederation (United States) are submitted to the states for ratification.
- 1800 – The United States Congress holds its first session in Washington, D.C.
- 1871 – The National Rifle Association is granted a charter by the state of New York.
- 1896 – The Western Pennsylvania Hockey League, which later became the first ice hockey league to openly trade and hire players, began play at Pittsburgh’s Schenley Park Casino.
- 1933 – United States recognizes Soviet Union.
- 1947 – American scientists John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain observe the basic principles of the transistor, a key element for the electronics revolution of the 20th century.
- 2000 – A catastrophic landslide in Log pod Mangartom, Slovenia, kills seven, and causes millions of SIT of damage. It is one of the worst catastrophes in Slovenia in the past 100 years.
- 2013 – Fifty people are killed when Tatarstan Airlines Flight 363 crashes at Kazan Airport, Russia.
- 2019 – The first known case of COVID-19 is traced to a 55-year-old man who had visited a market in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China.
BIRTHS:
- 1902 – Eugene Wigner, Hungarian physicist and mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1995)
- 1906 – Soichiro Honda, Japanese engineer and businessman, co-founded the Honda Motor Company (d. 1991)
- 1922 – Stanley Cohen, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1935 – Bobby Joe Conrad, American football player
- 1951 – Butch Davis, American football player and coach
- 1959 – Terry Fenwick, English footballer and manager
- 1977 – Paul Shepherd, English footballer
- 1978 – Reggie Wayne, American football player
- 1982 – Yusuf Pathan, Indian cricketer
- 1987 – Craig Noone, English footballer
- 1989 – Ryan Griffin, American football player
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
