Events

• 690 – Empress Wu Zetian establishes the Zhou Dynasty of China.
• 1346 – The English capture King David II of Scotland at Neville’s Cross and imprison him for eleven years.
• 1448 – An Ottoman army defeats a Hungarian army at the Second Battle of Kosovo.
• 1660 – The Nine regicides who signed the death warrant of Charles I of England are hanged, drawn and quartered.
• 1662 – Charles II of England sells Dunkirk to Louis XIV of France for 40,000 pounds.
• 1777 – American Revolutionary War: British General John Burgoyne surrenders his army at Saratoga, New York.
• 1781 – American Revolutionary War: British General Charles, Earl Cornwallis surrenders at the Siege of Yorktown.
• 1800 – War of the Second Coalition: Britain takes control of the Dutch colony of Curaçao.
• 1806 – Former leader of the Haitian Revolution, Emperor Jacques I, is assassinated after an oppressive rule.
• 1861 – Aboriginal Australians kill Nineteen Europeans in the Cullin-la-ringo massacre.
• 1912 – Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia declare war on the Ottoman Empire, joining Montenegro in the First Balkan War.
• 1933 – Albert Einstein flees Nazi Germany and moves to the United States.
• 1940 – The body of Communist propagandist Willi Münzenberg found in South France, starting a never-resolved mystery.
• 1941 – World War II: The USS Kearny becomes the first US Navy vessel to be torpedoed by a U-boat.
• 1943 – The Burma Railway (Burma–Thailand Railway) is completed.
• 1943 – Nazi Holocaust in Poland: Sobibór extermination camp is closed.
• 1973 – OPEC imposes an oil embargo against countries they deem to have helped Israel in the Yom Kippur War.
• 1994 – Russian journalist Dmitry Kholodov is assassinated while investigating corruption in the armed forces.

People (Births)

• 1833 – José E. Días, Paraguayan general (d. 1867).
• 1882 – Haritina Korotkevich, Russian war heroine (d. 1904).
• 1892 – Theodor Eicke, German SS general (d. 1943).
• 1903 – Andrei Grechko, Soviet general (d. 1976).
• 1913 – Faik Türün, Turkish general (d. 2003).
• 1919 – Violet Milstead, Canadian World War II aviator and bush pilot (d. 2014).
• 1924 – Anton Geiser, Croatian SS officer (d. 2012).
• 1930 – Robert Atkins, American physician and cardiologist, created the Atkins diet (d. 2003).
• 1933 – William Anders, Hong Kong-American general and astronaut.
• 1948 – Robert Jordan, American soldier and author (d. 2007).

People (Deaths)

• 1586 – Philip Sidney, English courtier, poet, and general (b. 1554).
• 1660 – Adrian Scrope, English colonel and politician (b. 1601).
• 1781 – Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke, English admiral (b. 1705).
• 1806 – Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Haitian commander and politician, Governor-General of Haiti (b. 1758).
• 1868 – Laura Secord, Canadian war heroine (b. 1775).
• 1893 – Patrice de MacMahon, Duke of Magenta, French general and politician, 3rd President of France (b. 1808).
• 1966 – Sidney Hatch, American runner and soldier (b. 1883).
• 1978 – Giovanni Gronchi, Italian educator, soldier, and politician, 3rd President of the Italian Republic (b. 1887).
• 2001 – Rehavam Ze’evi, Israeli historian, general, and politician, Tourism Minister of Israel (b. 1926).
• 2008 – Ben Weider, Canadian businessman, co-founded the International Federation of BodyBuilding & Fitness (b. 1923).