EVENTS:
- 1815 – Adoption of Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland.
- 1839 – In Boston, Massachusetts, the American Statistical Association is founded.
- 1901 – The S. Army War College is established.
- 1968 – Penny Ann Early became the first woman to play major professional basketball, for the Kentucky Colonels in an ABA game against the Los Angeles Stars.
- 1971 – The Soviet space program‘s Mars 2 orbiter releases a descent module. It malfunctions and crashes, but it is the first man-made object to reach the surface of Mars.
- 1983 – Avianca Flight 011: A Boeing 747 crashes near Madrid‘s Barajas Airport, killing 181.
- 2001 – A hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.
- 2009 – Nevsky Express bombing: A bomb explodes on the Nevsky Express train between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, derailing it and causing 28 deaths and 96 injuries.
- 2015 – An active shooter inside a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA, shoots at least four members of the Colorado Springs Police Department. One officer later dies. Two civilians were also killed, and six injured. The shooter later surrendered.
BIRTHS:
- 1857 – Charles Scott Sherrington, English physiologist, bacteriologist, and pathologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1952)
- 1878 – Jatindramohan Bagchi, Indian poet and critic (d. 1948)
- 1888 – Ganesh Vasudev Mavalankar, Indian activist and politician, 1st Speaker of the Lok Sabha (d. 1956)
- 1903 – Lars Onsager, Norwegian-American chemist and physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1976)
- 1907 – Harivansh Rai Bachchan, Indian poet and author (d. 2003)
- 1941 – Aimé Jacquet, French footballer, coach, and manager
- 1942 – Henry Carr, American football player and sprinter (d. 2015)
- 1952 – Bappi Lahiri, Indian singer-songwriter and producer
- 1960 – Ken O’Brien, American football player and coach
- 1971 – Larry Allen, American football player
- 1980 – Michael Yardy, English cricketer
- 1981 – Matthew Taylor, English footballer
- 1989 – Freddie Sears, English footballer
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
