EVENTS:
- 1865 – US Secretary of State William Seward proclaims the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, prohibiting slavery throughout the United States.
- 1956 – Japan joins the United Nations.
- 1958 – Project SCORE, the world’s first communications satellite, is launched.
- 1966 – Saturn’s moon Epimetheus is discovered by Richard L. Walker.
- 1973 – The Islamic Development Bank is founded.
- 1978 – Dominica joins the United Nations.
- 1997 – HTML 4.0 is published by the World Wide Web Consortium.
- 1999 – NASA launches into orbit the Terra platform carrying five Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.
- 2006 – The first of a series of floods strikes Malaysia. The death toll of all flooding is at least 118, with over 400,000 people displaced.
- 2006 – United Arab Emirates holds its first-ever elections.
- 2015 – Kellingley Colliery, the last deep coal mine in Great Britain, closes.
- 2017 – Amtrak Cascades passenger train 501, derailed near DuPont, Washington, a city in United States near Olympia, Washington killing 6 people, and injuring 70 others.
BIRTHS:
- 1856 – J. J. Thomson, English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1940)
- 1887 – Bhikhari Thakur, Indian actor, singer, and playwright (d. 1971)
- 1890 – Edwin Howard Armstrong, American engineer, invented FM radio (d. 1954)
- 1939 – Harold E. Varmus, American biologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1955 – Vijay Mallya, Indian businessman and politician
- 1963 – Karl Dorrell, American football player and coach
- 1964 – Don Beebe, American football player and coach
- 1968 – Nina Wadia, Indian-English actress
- 1969 – Justin Edinburgh, English footballer and manager
- 1974 – Peter Boulware, American football player and politician
- 1980 – Benjamin Watson, American football player
- 1984 – Paul Harrison, English footballer
- 1988 – Seth Doege, American football player
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
