EVENTS:
- 1682 – Bishop Gore School, one of the oldest schools in Wales, is founded.
- 1917 – Russia is officially proclaimed a republic.
- 1958 – The first two German post-war rockets, designed by the German engineer Ernst Mohr, reach the upper atmosphere.
- 1959 – The Soviet probe Luna 2 crashes onto the Moon, becoming the first man-made object to reach it.
- 1960 – The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is founded.
- 1998 – Telecommunications companies MCI Communications and WorldCom complete their $37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom.
- 2000 – Microsoft releases Windows ME.
- 2015 – 20 people die in a flash flood in Utah.
- 2015 – The first observation of gravitational waves was made, announced by the LIGO and Virgo collaborations on 11 February 2016.
- 2018 – Hurricane Florence makes landfall near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, bringing catastrophic flooding to many areas cross the state’s coastline.
- 2022 – Death of Queen Elizabeth II: The Queen’s coffin is taken from Buckingham Palace, placed on a gun carriage of The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery and moved in a procession to Westminster Hall for her lying in state over the next four days with the queue of mourners stretching for miles along the River Thames.
BIRTHS:
- 1872 – John Olof Dahlgren, Swedish-American soldier, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1963)
- 1920 – Lawrence Klein, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2013)
- 1936 – Ferid Murad, American physician and pharmacologist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1944 – Günter Netzer, German footballer and manager
- 1956 – Paul Allott, English cricketer and sportscaster
- 1956 – Ray Wilkins, English footballer and manager
- 1957 – Kepler Wessels, South African cricketer and coach
- 1963 – Robin Singh, Trinidadian-Indian cricketer and coach
- 1973 – Terrell Fletcher, American football player
- 1973 – Linvoy Primus, English footballer
- 1983 – Frostee Rucker, American football player
- 1986 – Steven Naismith, Scottish footballer
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
- India — Hindi Day. The day Constituent Assembly adopted Hindi as the Official Language of the Union on 14 September 1949. Hence, it is celebrated as Hindi Day.
- Mexico — Day of the State of Chiapas entry into the Union.
- Nicaragua — Day of San Jacinto (1856).
