EVENTS:
- 1862 – Alvan Graham Clark discovers the white dwarf star Sirius B, a companion of Sirius, through an 18.5-inch (47 cm) telescope now located at Northwestern University.
- 1918 – A series of accidental collisions on a misty Scottish night leads to the loss of two Royal Navy submarines with over a hundred lives, and damage to another five British warships.
- 1950 – United States President Harry S. Truman announces a program to develop the hydrogen bomb.
- 1953 – A North Sea flood causes over 1,800 deaths in the Netherlands and over 300 in the United Kingdom
- 1958 – The first successful American satellite detects the Van Allen radiation belt.
- 1966 – The Soviet Union launches the unmanned Luna 9 spacecraft as part of the Luna program.
- 1968 – Nauru gains independence from Australia.
- 1995 – President Bill Clinton authorizes a $20 billion loan to Mexico to stabilize its economy.
- 1996 – An explosives-filled truck rams into the gates of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka in Colombo, Sri Lanka killing at least 86 and injuring 1,400.
- 2003 – The Waterfall rail accident occurs near Waterfall, New South Wales, Australia.
- 2011 – A winter storm hits North America for the second time in the same month, causing $1.8 billion in damage across the United States and Canada and killing 24 people.
- 2013 – An explosion at the Pemex Executive Tower in Mexico City kills at least 33 people and injures more than 100.
- 2018 – Blue moon and total lunar eclipse.
- 2019 – Abdullah of Pahang is sworn in as the 16th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
- 2020 – The United Kingdom‘s membership within the European Union ceases in accordance with Article 50, after 47 years of being a member state.
- 2022 – Sue Gray, a senior civil servant in the United Kingdom, publishes an initial version of her report on the Downing Street Partygate controversy.
- 2023 – The last Boeing 747, the first wide-body airliner, is delivered.
BIRTHS:
- 1868 – Theodore William Richards, American chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1928)
- 1881 – Irving Langmuir, American chemist and physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1957)
- 1889 – Frank Foster, English cricketer (d. 1958)
- 1902 – Alva Myrdal, Swedish sociologist and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1986)
- 1929 – Rudolf Mössbauer, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2011)
- 1935 – Kenzaburō Ōe, Japanese author and academic, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1944 – John Inverarity, Australian cricketer and coach
- 1966 – Umar Alisha, Indian journalist and philanthropist
- 1975 – Fred Coleman, American football player and coach
- 1985 – Adam Federici, Australian footballer
- 1988 – Brett Pitman, English footballer
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
