Events

• 1410 – The Peace of Bicêtre suspends hostilities in the Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War.
• 1675 – Plymouth Colony governor Josiah Winslow leads a colonial militia against the Narragansett during King Philip’s War.
• 1795 – The French Directory, a five-man revolutionary government, is created.
• 1899 – The Boers begin their 118-day siege of British-held Ladysmith during the Second Boer War.
• 1912 – Bulgaria defeats the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Lule Burgas, the bloodiest battle of the First Balkan War, which opens her way to Constantinople.
• 1914 – World War I: The Russian Empire declares war on the Ottoman Empire and the Dardanelles are subsequently closed.
• 1917 – The Balfour Declaration proclaims British support for the “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” with the clear understanding “that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities”.
• 1917 – The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, in charge of preparation and carrying out the Russian Revolution, holds its first meeting.
• 1936 – The British Broadcasting Corporation initiates the BBC Television Service, the world’s first regular, “high-definition” (then defined as at least 200 lines) service.
  • Renamed BBC1 in 1964, the channel still runs to this day.
• 1940 – World War II: First day of Battle of Elaia-Kalamas between the Greeks and the Italians.
• 1949 – The Dutch-Indonesian Round Table Conference ends with the Netherlands agreeing to transfer sovereignty of the Dutch East Indies to the United States of Indonesia.
• 1951 – Six thousand British troops arrive in Suez after the Egyptian government abrogates the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936.
• 1951 – Canada in the Korean War: A platoon of The Royal Canadian Regiment defends a vital area against a full battalion of Chinese troops in the Battle of the Song-gok Spur. The engagement lasts into the early hours the next day.
• 1956 – Hungarian Revolution: Imre Nagy requests UN aid for Hungary. Nikita Khrushchev meets with leaders of other Communist countries to seek their advice on the situation in Hungary, selecting János Kádár as the country’s next leader on the advice of Josip Broz Tito.
• 1956 – Suez Crisis: Israel occupies the Gaza Strip.
• 1963 – South Vietnamese President Ngô Đình Diệm is assassinated following a military coup.
• 1964 – King Saud of Saudi Arabia is deposed by a family coup, and replaced by his half-brother Faisal.
• 1965 – Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Quaker, sets himself on fire in front of the river entrance to the Pentagon to protest the use of napalm in the Vietnam War.
• 1967 – Vietnam War: US President Lyndon B. Johnson and “The Wise Men” conclude that the American people should be given more optimistic reports on the progress of the war.

People (Births)

• 1696 – Conrad Weiser, American soldier, monk, and judge (d. 1760).
• 1754 – Gaspard de Bernard de Marigny, French general (d. 1794).
• 1766 – Joseph Radetzky von Radetz, Austrian field marshal (d. 1858).
• 1844 – John J. Loud, American inventor, first ballpoint pen (d. 1916).
• 1918 – Alexander Vraciu, American commander and pilot of Romanian descent (d. 2015).
• 1983 – Ebonette Deigaeruk, Nauruan weightlifter.
• 1995 – Hanna Öberg, Swedish biathlete, Olympic champion.

People (Deaths)

• 1852 – Pyotr Kotlyarevsky, Russian general (b. 1782).
• 1877 – Friedrich Graf von Wrangel, Prussian field marshal (b. 1784).
• 1930 – Viggo Jensen, Danish weightlifter, target shooter, and gymnast (b. 1874).
• 1952 – Mehmet Esat Bülkat, Greek-Turkish general (b. 1862).
• 1996 – John G. Crommelin, American admiral and politician (b. 1902).
• 2012 – Robert Morton Duncan, American soldier and judge (b. 1927).
• 2014 – Veljko Kadijević, Croatian general and politician, 5th Federal Secretary of People’s Defence (b. 1925).