EVENTS:
- 1481 – The largest of three earthquakes strikes the island of Rhodes and causes an estimated 30,000 casualties.
- 1837 – The University of Athens is founded in Athens, Greece.
- 1877 – Labatt Park, the oldest continually operating baseball grounds in the world has its first game.
- 1913 – Raja Harishchandra the first full-length Indian feature film is released, marking the beginning of the Indian film industry.
- 1937 – Gone with the Wind, a novel by Margaret Mitchell, wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
- 1939 – The All India Forward Bloc is formed by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.
- 1960 – The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) is established.
- 2002 – A military MiG-21 aircraft crashes into the Bank of Rajasthan in India, killing eight.
- 2003 – New Hampshire‘s famous Old Man of the Mountain collapses.
- 2015 – Two gunmen launch an attempted attack on an anti-Islam event in Garland, Texas, which was held in response to the Charlie Hebdo shooting.
- 2016 – 88,000 people were evacuated from their homes in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada as a wildfire ripped through the community, destroying approximately 2400 homes and buildings.
- 2023 – Nine students and a security guard are killed in the Belgrade school shooting, the first attack of its kind in Serbia.
BIRTHS:
- 1867 – J. T. Hearne, English cricketer (d. 1944)
- 1892 – George Paget Thomson, English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1975)
- 1896 – V. K. Krishna Menon, Indian lawyer, jurist, and politician, Indian Minister of Defence (d. 1974)
- 1902 – Alfred Kastler, German-French physicist and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1984)
- 1918 – Ted Bates, English footballer and manager (d. 2003)
- 1922 – Len Shackleton, English footballer and journalist (d. 2000)
- 1933 – Steven Weinberg, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1935 – Ron Popeil, American businessman, founded the Ronco Company
- 1940 – Clemens Westerhof, Dutch footballer and manager
- 1951 – Ashok Gehlot, Indian politician, 21st Chief Minister of Rajasthan
- 1955 – David Hookes, Australian cricketer, coach, and sportscaster (d. 2004)
- 1959 – Uma Bharti, Indian activist and politician, 16th Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh
- 1961 – Steve McClaren, English footballer and manager
- 1966 – Firdous Bamji, Indian-American actor
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
