EVENTS:
- 526 – A devastating earthquake strikes Antioch, Turkey, killing 250,000.
- 1790 – The United States enacts its first copyright statute, the Copyright Act of 1790.
- 1910 – The creation of the Union of South Africa.
- 1935 – A 7.7 Mw earthquake destroys Quetta in modern-day Pakistan killing 40,000.
- 1962 – The West Indies Federation dissolves.
- 1970 – The Ancash earthquake causes a landslide that buries the town of Yungay, Peru; more than 47,000 people are killed.
- 1981 – The burning of Jaffna library in Sri Lanka. It is one of the violent examples of ethnic biblioclasm of the twentieth century.
- 2013 – The asteroid 1998 QE2 and its moon make their closest approach to Earth for the next two centuries.
- 2017 – A car bomb exploded in a crowded intersection in Kabul near the German embassy during rush hour, killing over 90 and injuring 463.
- 2019 – A shooting occurs inside a municipal building at Virginia Beach, Virginia, leaving 13 people dead, including the shooter, and four others injured.
BIRTHS:
- 1852 – Julius Richard Petri, German microbiologist, invented the Petri dish (d. 1921)
- 1887 – Saint-John Perse, French poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1975)
- 1911 – Maurice Allais, French economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2010)
- 1928 – Pankaj Roy, Indian cricketer (d. 2001)
- 1931 – John Robert Schrieffer, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1932 – Jay Miner, American computer scientist (d. 1994)
- 1941 – Louis Ignarro, American pharmacologist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1946 – Steve Bucknor, Jamaican cricketer and umpire
- 1966 – Roshan Mahanama, Sri Lankan cricketer
- 1980 – Craig Bolton, Australian footballer and sportscaster
- 1989 – Sean Johnson, American footballer
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
- Anniversary of Royal Brunei Malay Regiment (Brunei)
- Castile–La Mancha Day (Castile-La Mancha)
- World No Tobacco Day (International)
