EVENTS:
- 1816 – Indiana becomes the 19th U.S. state.
- 1907 – The New Zealand Parliament Buildings are almost completely destroyed by fire.
- 1917 – World War I: British General Edmund Allenby enters Jerusalem on foot and declares martial law.
- 1946 – The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is established.
- 1972 – Apollo 17 becomes the sixth and last Apollo mission to land on the Moon.
- 1998 – Thai Airways Flight 261 crashes near Surat Thani Airport, killing 101. The pilot flying the Airbus A310-300 is thought to have suffered spatial disorientation.
- 2001 – The People’s Republic of China joins the World Trade Organization.
- 2012 – At least 125 people are killed and up to 200 injured in bombings in the Alawite village of Aqrab, Syria.
- 2014 – The city of Detroit, Michigan emerges from the largest municipal bankruptcy in United States history.
- 2017 – A bomb detonated in the New York City Subway, in the Times Square–42nd Street/Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City. It is known as the 2017 New York City attempted bombing.
BIRTHS:
- 1843 – Robert Koch, German microbiologist and physician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1910)
- 1882 – Max Born, German physicist and mathematician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1970)
- 1911 – Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2006)
- 1918 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian soldier and author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2008)
- 1924 – Doc Blanchard, American football player and colonel (d. 2009)
- 1925 – Paul Greengard, American neuroscientist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1931 – Rajneesh, Indian guru, mystic, and educator (d. 1990)
- 1935 – Pranab Mukherjee, Indian journalist and politician, 13th President of India
- 1955 – Christian Sackewitz, German footballer and manager
- 1963 – Nigel Winterburn, English footballer and coach
- 1971 – Willie McGinest, American football player and sportscaster
- 1981 – Paul Medhurst, Australian footballer
- 1984 – Leighton Baines, English footballer
- 1988 – Tim Southee, New Zealand cricketer
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
- Human Rights and Peace Day (Kiribati)
- Indiana Day (United States)
- International Mountain Day (International)
- National Tango Day (Buenos Aires)
- Pampanga Day (Pampanga Province, the Philippines)
- Republic Day, the day when Upper Volta became an autonomous republic in the French Community in 1958. (Burkina Faso)
