EVENTS:
- 1866 – Wesley College, Melbourne, is established.
- 1886 – Modern hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England.
- 1896 – An X-ray generating machine is exhibited for the first time by H. L. Smith.
- 1916 – A 611-gram chondrite type meteorite strikes a house near the village of Baxter in Stone County, Missouri.
- 1919 – Bentley Motors Limited is founded.
- 1960 – Capital Airlines Flight 20 crashes into a farm in Charles City County, Virginia, killing all 50 aboard, the third fatal Capital Airlines crash in as many years.
- 1969 – United Airlines Flight 266 crashes into Santa Monica Bay killing all 32 passengers and six crew members.
- 1977 – Australia’s worst rail disaster occurs at Granville, Sydney killing 83.
- 1993 – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is officially observed for the first time in all 50 states.
- 2000 – The Tagish Lake meteorite impacts the Earth.
- 2007 – The strongest storm in the United Kingdom in 17 years kills 14 people and Germany sees the worst storm since 1999 with 13 deaths.
- Hurricane Kyrill causes at least 44 deaths across 20 countries in Western Europe.
- 2012 – A series of coordinated actions take place in protest against Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act.
- 2018 – A bus catches fire on the Samara–Shymkent road in Yrgyz District, Aktobe, Kazakhstan. The fire kills 52 passengers, with three passengers and two drivers escaping.
- 2019 – An oil pipeline explosion near Tlahuelilpan, Hidalgo, Mexico, kills 137 people.[17]
- 2023 – A helicopter crash in Ukraine leaves 14 people dead, including the country’s Interior Minister, Denys Monastyrsky.
BIRTHS:
- 1918 – Nicholas Oresko, American sergeant, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 2013)
- 1921 – Yoichiro Nambu, Japanese-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2015)
- 1927 – Sundaram Balachander, Indian actor, singer, and veena player (d. 1990)
- 1937 – John Hume, Northern Irish educator and politician, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1951 – Bob Latchford, English footballer
- 1954 – Jagdish Mali, Indian photographer (d. 2013)
- 1961 – Peter Beardsley, English footballer and manager
- 1967 – Dean Bailey, Australian footballer and coach (d. 2014)
- 1972 – Vinod Kambli, Indian cricketer, sportscaster, and actor
- 1973 – Anthony Koutoufides, Australian footballer
- 1979 – Kenyatta Jones, American football player
- 1980 – Julius Peppers, American football player
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
