EVENTS:
- 1824 – Mexico adopts a new constitution and becomes a federal republic.
- 1830 – Creation of the Kingdom of Belgium after separation from the Netherlands.
- 1895 – The first U.S. Open Men’s Golf Championship administered by the United States Golf Association is played at the Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island.
- 1957 – Space Race: Launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
- 1958 – Fifth Republic of France is established.
- 1966 – Basutoland becomes independent from the United Kingdom and is renamed Lesotho.
- 1974 – Founding of the New Democracy party in Greece.
- 1985 – The Free Software Foundation is founded in Massachusetts, United States.
- 2004 – SpaceShipOne wins Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight, by being the first private craft to fly into space.
- 2010 – The Ajka plant accident in western Hungary releases about a million cubic metres (35 million cubic feet) of liquid alumina sludge. Nine people are killed and 122 injured, and the Marcal and Danube rivers are severely contaminated.
- 2017 – Joint Nigerien-American Special Forces are ambushed by Islamic State militants outside the village of Tongo Tongo.
BIRTHS:
- 1877 – Razor Smith, English cricketer (d. 1946)
- 1884 – Ramchandra Shukla, Indian historian and author (d. 1941)
- 1884 – Subramaniya Siva, Indian author and activist (d. 1925)
- 1916 – Vitaly Ginzburg, Russian physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2009)
- 1918 – Kenichi Fukui, Japanese chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1998)
- 1931 – Basil D’Oliveira, South African-English cricketer and footballer (d. 2011)
- 1938 – Kurt Wüthrich, Swiss chemist and biophysicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1968 – Richard Hancox, English footballer and manager
- 1979 – Adam Voges, Australian cricketer
- 1983 – Chansi Stuckey, American football player
- 1987 – Will Puddy, English footballer
- 1990 – Saki, Japanese guitarist and songwriter
- 1993 – Mitchell Swepson, Australian cricketer
- 1994 – Mike Williams, American football player
- 1997 – Rishabh Pant, Indian cricketer
HOLIDAYS and OBSERVANCES:
- Cinnamon Roll Day or kanelbullens dag (Sweden)
- Day of Peace and Reconciliation (Mozambique)
- Independence Day (Lesotho), celebrates the independence of Lesotho from the United Kingdom in 1966.
- The beginning of World Space Week (International)
- World Animal Day (International)
