Events

• 1248 – Conquest of Seville by Christian troops under King Ferdinand III of Castile.
• 1499 – Pretender to the throne Perkin Warbeck is hanged for reportedly attempting to escape from the Tower of London.
  • He had invaded England in 1497, claiming to be the lost son of King Edward IV of England.
• 1531 – The Second War of Kappel results in the dissolution of the Protestant alliance in Switzerland.
• 1733 – The start of the 1733 slave insurrection on St. John in what was then the Danish West Indies.
• 1808 – Napoleonic Wars: French and Poles defeat the Spanish at Battle of Tudela.
• 1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Chattanooga begins: Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant reinforce troops at Chattanooga, Tennessee, and counter-attack Confederate troops.
• 1914 – Mexican Revolution: The last of US forces withdraw from Veracruz, occupied seven months earlier in response to the Tampico Affair.
• 1934 – An Anglo-Ethiopian boundary commission in the Ogaden discovers an Italian garrison at Walwal, well within Ethiopian territory. This leads to the Abyssinia Crisis.
• 1939 – World War II: HMS Rawalpindi is sunk by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.
• 1940 – World War II: Romania becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis powers.
• 1943 – World War II: The Deutsche Opernhaus on Bismarckstraße in the Berlin neighbourhood of Charlottenburg is destroyed.
  • It will eventually be rebuilt in 1961 and be called the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
• 1943 – World War II: Tarawa and Makin atolls fall to American forces.
• 1946 – French naval bombardment of Hai Phong, Vietnam, kills thousands of civilians.
• 1955 – The Cocos Islands are transferred from the control of the United Kingdom to that of Australia.
• 1959 – French President Charles de Gaulle declares in a speech in Strasbourg his vision for “Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals”.
• 1971 – Representatives of the People’s Republic of China attend the United Nations, including the United Nations Security Council, for the first time.
• 1981 – Iran-Contra Affair: Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), giving the Central Intelligence Agency the authority to recruit and support Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
• 2010 – Bombardment of Yeonpyeong: North Korean artillery attack kills two civilians and two marines on Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea.

People (Births)

• 1402 – Jean de Dunois, French soldier (d. 1468).
• 1749 – Edward Rutledge, American captain and politician, 39th Governor of South Carolina (d. 1800).
• 1804 – Franklin Pierce, American general, lawyer, and politician, 14th President of the United States (d. 1869).
• 1897 – Karl Gebhardt, German physician and war criminal (d. 1948).
• 1899 – Manuel dos Reis Machado, Brazilian martial artist and educator (d. 1974).
• 1902 – Aaron Bank, American colonel (d. 2004).
• 1922 – Võ Văn Kiệt, Vietnamese soldier and politician, 6th Prime Minister of Vietnam (d. 2008).
• 1923 – Daniel Brewster, American colonel, lawyer, and politician (d. 2007).
• 1923 – Julien J. LeBourgeois, American admiral (d. 2012).
• 1954 – Aavo Pikkuus, Estonian cyclist.
• 1956 – Shane Gould, Australian swimmer and coach.
• 1964 – Marilyn Kidd, Australian rower.
• 1968 – Robert Denmark, English runner and coach.
• 1980 – Ishmael Beah, Sierra Leonean child soldier and American author.
• 1982 – Asafa Powell, Jamaican sprinter.

People (Deaths)

• 1763 – Friedrich Heinrich von Seckendorff, German field marshal and diplomat (b. 1673).
• 1833 – Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, French general and politician, French Minister of Foreign Affairs (b. 1762).
• 1974 – notable victims of the Massacre of the Sixty:
  • Abiye Abebe, Ethiopian general and politician (b. 1918).
  • Aman Andom, Ethiopian general and politician, President of Ethiopia (b. 1924).
  • Aklilu Habte-Wold, Ethiopian politician, Prime Minister of Ethiopia (b. 1912).
  • Asrate Kassa, Ethiopian commander (b. 1922).
  • Endelkachew Makonnen, Ethiopian politician, Prime Minister of Ethiopia (b. 1927).
• 2005 – Frank Gatski, American football player and soldier (b. 1919).