EVENTS:
- 1791 – The United States Bill of Rights becomes law when ratified by the Virginia General Assembly.
- 1933 – The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution officially becomes effective, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment that prohibited the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol.
- 1970 – Soviet spacecraft Venera 7 successfully land on Venus. It is the first successful soft landing on another planet
- 1981 – A suicide car bombing targeting the Iraqi embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, levels the embassy and kills 61 people, including Iraq’s ambassador to Lebanon. The attack is considered the first modern suicide bombing.
- 1997 – Tajikistan Airlines Flight 3183 crashes in the desert near Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, killing 85.
- 2010 – A boat carrying 90 asylum seekers crashes into rocks off the coast of Christmas Island, Australia, killing 48 people.
- 2014 – Man Haron Monis takes 18 hostages inside a café in Martin Place for 16 hours in Sydney. Monis and two hostages are killed when police raid the café the following morning.
- 2017 – a moment magnitude of 6.5 struck the Java Island in the city of Tasikmalaya. 4 confirmed deaths, 36 injured, and 200 displaced.
BIRTHS:
- 1852 – Henri Becquerel, French physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1908)
- 1860 – Niels Ryberg Finsen, Faroese-Danish physician and educator, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1904)
- 1908 – Swami Ranganathananda, Indian monk, scholar, and author (d. 2005)
- 1917 – Shan-ul-Haq Haqqee, Indian-Pakistani linguist and lexicographer (d. 2005)
- 1938 – Billy Shaw, American football player
- 1940 – Nick Buoniconti, American football player and sportscaster
- 1967 – David Howells, English footballer and coach
- 1976 – Baichung Bhutia, Indian footballer and manager
- 1978 – Jerome McDougle, American football player
- 1981 – Thomas Herrion, American football player (d. 2005)
- 1990 – Lavanya Tripathi, Indian actress
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
