EVENTS:
- 1809 – The Royal Opera House in London opens.
- 1906 – A typhoon with tsunami kills an estimated 10,000 people in Hong Kong.
- 1919 – The Netherlands gives women the right to vote.
- 1947 – The United States Air Force becomes an independent branch of the United States armed forces.
- 1947 – The National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency are established in the United States under the National Security Act.
- 1959 – Vanguard 3 is launched into Earth orbit.
- 1977 – Voyager I takes first photograph of the Earth and the Moon together.
- 2013 – Cygnus Orb-D1 is launched into space.
- 2014 – Scotland votes against independence from the United Kingdom.
- 2015 – Two security personnel, 17 worshippers in a mosque, and 13 militants are killed following a Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan attack on a Pakistan Air Force base on the outskirts of Peshawar.
- 2016 – 17 Indian Army security personnel killed in the Indian Administrated Kashmir by anti-government militants.
- 2018 – Rainy season flooding across Nigeria killed more than 100 people
BIRTHS:
- 1906 – Kaka Hathrasi, Indian poet and author (d. 1995)
- 1907 – Edwin McMillan, American physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1991)
- 1917 – Phil Taylor, English footballer and manager (d. 2012)
- 1942 – Alex Stepney, English footballer
- 1945 – John McAfee, Scottish-American computer programmer, founded McAfee
- 1946 – Otis Sistrunk, American football player and wrestler
- 1950 – Vishnuvardhan, Indian actor
- 1950 – Shabana Azmi, Indian actress and singer
- 1954 – Tommy Tuberville, American football player and coach
- 1958 – Derek Pringle, Kenyan-English cricketer and journalist
- 1959 – Ian Arkwright, English footballer
- 1962 – John Fashanu, English footballer and manager
- 1968 – Upendra, Indian actor, singer, director, and screenwriter
- 1970 – Darren Gough, English cricketer
- 1974 – Sol Campbell, English footballer
- 1980 – Chris Tarrant, Australian footballer
- 1984 – Dashon Goldson, American football player
- 1990 – Lewis Holtby, German footballer
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
- Day of National Music (Azerbaijan)
- National Day or Dieciocho, the date of the first Government Junta after the Chilean independence on February 12, 1818 (Chile)
- World Water Monitoring Day (International)
