EVENTS:
- 660 BC – Traditional date for the foundation of Japan by Emperor Jimmu.
- 1794 – First session of United States Senate opens to the public.
- 1826 – University College London is founded under the name University of London.
- 1826 – Swaminarayan writes the Shikshapatri, an important text within Swaminarayan Hinduism.
- 1938 – BBC Television produces the world’s first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of a section of the Karel Čapek play R.U.R., that coined the term “robot“.
- 1978 – Censorship: China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.
- 1990 – Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster Prison outside Cape Town, South Africa after 27 years as a political prisoner.
- 1997 – Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.
- 2014 – A military transport plane crashes in a mountainous area of Oum El Bouaghi Province in eastern Algeria, killing 77 people.
- 2016 – A man shoots six people dead at an education center in Jizan Province, Saudi Arabia.
- 2017 – North Korea test fires a ballistic missile across the Sea of Japan.
- 2018 – Saratov Airlines Flight 703 crashes near Moscow, Russia. All 71 people on board die.
- 2020 – COVID-19 pandemic: The World Health Organization officially names the coronavirus outbreak as COVID-19, with the virus being designated SARS-CoV-2.
- 2024 – 2024 Finnish presidential election: Alexander Stubb is elected as the 13th president of Finland.
BIRTHS:
- 1891 – J. W. Hearne English cricketer (d. 1965)
- 1937 – Bill Lawry, Australian cricketer and sportscaster
- 1967 – Hank Gathers, American basketball player (d. 1990)
- 1969 – John Salako, Nigerian-English footballer, manager, and sportscaster
- 1972 – Steve McManaman, English footballer
- 1974 – Nick Barmby, English footballer and manager
- 1974 – Isaiah Mustafa, American football player and actor
- 1980 – Mark Bresciano, Australian footballer
- 1993 – Ben McLemore, American basketball player
- 1997 – Mike Hughes, American football player
- 1998 – Josh Jacobs, American football player
