EVENTS:
- 1421 – A seawall at the Zuiderzee dike in the Netherlands breaks, flooding 72 villages and killing about 10,000 people. This event will be known as St. Elizabeth’s flood.
- 1918 – Latvia declares its independence from Russia.
- 1929 – Grand Banks earthquake: Off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean, a Richter magnitude 7.2 submarine earthquake, centered on the Grand Banks, breaks 12 submarine transatlantic telegraph cables and triggers a tsunami that destroys many south coast communities in the Burin Peninsula.
- 1944 – The Popular Socialist Youth is founded in Cuba.
- 1963 – The first push-button telephone goes into service.
- 1993 – In South Africa, 21 political parties approve a new constitution, expanding voting rights and ending white minority rule.
- 2013 – NASA launches the MAVEN probe to Mars.
- 2020 – The Utah monolith, built sometime in 2016 is discovered by state biologists of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.
BIRTHS:
- 1888 – Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, Indian yoga instructor (d. 1989)
- 1897 – Patrick Blackett, Baron Blackett, English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1974)
- 1901 – V. Shantaram, Indian actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1984)
- 1906 – George Wald, American neurobiologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1997)
- 1920 – Ron Suart, English football player and manager (d. 2015)
- 1951 – Pete Morelli, American football official
- 1954 – Evan Gray, New Zealand cricketer
- 1973 – Nic Pothas, South African cricketer and coach
- 1980 – Luke Chadwick, English footballer
- 1982 – Greg Estandia, American football player
- 1983 – Michael Dawson, English footballer
- 1997 – Robert Sánchez, Spanish footballer
- 2004 – Luka Romero, Mexican-Argentine footballer
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
- Independence Day (Latvia), celebrates the independence of Latvia from Russia in 1918.
- Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Morocco from France and Spain in 1956.
- National Day (Oman)
- Remembrance Day of the Sacrifice of Vukovar in 1991 (Croatia)
