Birthdays |
| 1807 | Henry Longfellow, American poet |
| 1902 | John Steinbeck, US novelist of 'Of Mice & Men' & 'Grapes of Wrath' |
| 1912 | Lawrence Durrell, English novelist and poet |
| 1930 | Joanne Woodward, British actress |
| 1932 | Elizabeth Taylor, English born film actress |
| 1941 | Paddy Ashdown, Liberal Democrats leader |
| 1960 | Paul Humphreys, Of 'OMD' |
Events |
| 1879 | Two American chemists announced the discovery of saccharin |
| 1900 | The Labour Party was founded, with Ramsay MacDonald as its secretary |
| 1933 | The German parliament building (Reichstag) was destroyed by fire |
| 1942 | The second world wars 'Battle of the Java Sea' took place |
| 1948 | The Communist Party took control in Czechoslovakia |
| 1980 | Columbian guerrillas seized the Dominican Republic's embassy, in Columbia |
| 1982 | Legislation in the European Court was passed, banning corporal punishment in schools |
| 1991 | An allied ceasefire in the Gulf War began; Iraqi forces withdrew from Kuwait |
| 1994 | The apartments of Prince Charles, in St James's Palace, were burgled |
| 1995 | Barings Bank, Britain's oldest merchant bank collapsed, with losses over 600 million |
