Events

• 27 BCE – Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus is granted the title Augustus by the Roman Senate, marking the beginning of the Roman Empire.
• 378 – General Siyaj K’ak’ conquers Tikal, enlarging the domain of King Spearthrower Owl of Teotihuacán.
• 550 – Gothic War: The Ostrogoths, under King Totila, conquer Rome after a long siege, by bribing the Isaurian garrison.
• 929 – Emir Abd-ar-Rahman III establishes the Caliphate of Córdoba.
• 1537 – Bigod’s Rebellion, an armed insurrection attempting to resist the English Reformation, begins.
• 1547 – Grand Duke Ivan IV of Muscovy becomes the first Tsar of Russia, replacing the 264-year-old Grand Duchy of Moscow with the Tsardom of Russia.
• 1707 – The Scottish Parliament ratifies the Act of Union, paving the way for the creation of Great Britain.
• 1757 – Forces of the Maratha Empire defeat a 5,000-strong army of the Durrani Empire in the Battle of Narela.
• 1780 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Cape St. Vincent.
• 1809 – Peninsular War: The British defeat the French at the Battle of La Coruña (Refer to Napoleonic Wars).
• 1878 – Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878): Battle of Philippopolis: Captain Aleksandr Burago with a squadron of Russian Imperial army dragoons liberates Plovdiv from Ottoman rule.
• 1900 – The United States Senate accepts the Anglo-German treaty of 1899 in which the United Kingdom renounces its claims to the Samoan islands.
• 1920 – The League of Nations holds its first council meeting in Paris, France.
• 1945 – World War II: Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker.
• 1991 – Coalition Forces go to war with Iraq, beginning the Gulf War.
• 1992 – El Salvador officials and rebel leaders sign the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City, Mexico ending the 12-year Salvadoran Civil War that claimed at least 75,000 lives.
• 2001 – US President Bill Clinton awards former President Theodore Roosevelt a posthumous Medal of Honour for his service in the Spanish-American War.
• 2002 – The UN Security Council unanimously establishes an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and the remaining members of the Taliban.

People (Births)

• 1675 – Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon, French soldier and diplomat (d. 1755).
• 1757 – Richard Goodwin Keats, English admiral and politician, 3rd Commodore-Governor of Newfoundland (d. 1834).
• 1807 – Charles Henry Davis, American admiral (d. 1877).
• 1815 – Henry Halleck, American lawyer, general, and scholar (d. 1872).
• 1821 – John C. Breckinridge, American general and politician, 14th Vice President of the United States (d. 1875).
• 1853 – Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton, Greek-English general (d. 1947).
• 1895 – Evripidis Bakirtzis, Greek soldier and politician (d. 1947).
• 1901 – Fulgencio Batista, Cuban colonel and politician, 9th President of Cuba (d. 1973).
• 1902 – Eric Liddell, Scottish runner, rugby player, and missionary (d. 1945).
• 1907 – Paul Nitze, American banker and politician, 10th United States Secretary of the Navy (d. 2004).
• 1908 – Günther Prien, German Navy captain (d. 1941).
• 1911 – Roger Lapébie, French cyclist (d. 1996).
• 1925 – James Robinson Risner, American general and pilot (d. 2013).
• 1948 – Ants Laaneots, Estonian general.
• 1955 – Jerry M. Linenger, US Navy captain, physician, and astronaut.
• 1962 – Joel Fitzgibbon, Australian electrician and politician, 51st Australian Minister of Defence.
• 1976 – Martina Moravcová, Slovak swimmer.
• 1987 – Charlotte Henshaw, English swimmer.

People (Deaths)

• 1443 – Erasmo of Narni, Italian mercenary (b. 1370).
• 1585 – Edward Clinton, 1st Earl of Lincoln, English admiral and politician (b. 1512).
• 1750 – Ivan Trubetskoy, Russian field marshal and politician (b. 1667).
• 1901 – Hiram Rhodes Revels, American soldier, minister, and politician (b. 1822).
• 1917 – George Dewey, American admiral (b. 1837).
• 1957 – Alexander Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone, English general and politician, 16th Governor General of Canada (b. 1874).
• 1961 – Max Schöne, German swimmer (b. 1880).
• 1962 – Ivan Meštrović, Croatian sculptor and architect, designed the Monument to the Unknown Hero (b. 1883).
• 1971 – Philippe Thys, Belgian cyclist (b. 1890).
• 1972 – Teller Ammons, American soldier and politician, 28th Governor of Colorado (b. 1895).
• 1988 – Andrija Artuković, Croatian politician, war criminal, and Porajmos perpetrator, 1st Minister of Interior of the Independent State of Croatia (b. 1899).
• 2006 – Stanley Biber, American soldier and physician (b. 1923).
• 2009 – Joe Erskine, American boxer and runner (b. 1930).
• 2013 – André Cassagnes, French technician and toy maker, created the Etch A Sketch (b. 1926).
• 2014 – Hiroo Onoda, Japanese lieutenant (b. 1922).
• 2017 – Eugene Cernan, US Navy captain, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1934).