Events

• 1481 – Battle of Westbroek: An army of 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers raised by David of Burgundy, Bishop of Utrecht, attacks an armed mob of people from nearby Utrecht who were trying to avenge the massacre of the inhabitants of Westbroek.
• 1704 – Second Battle of Anandpur: In the Second Battle of Anandpur, Aurangzeb’s two generals, Wazir Khan and Zaberdast Khan executed two children of Guru Gobind Singh, Zorawar Singh aged eight and Fateh Singh aged five, by burying them alive into a wall.
• 1776 – American Revolutionary War: In the Battle of Trenton, the Continental Army attacks and successfully defeats a garrison of Hessian forces.
• 1790 – Louis XVI of France gives his public assent to Civil Constitution of the Clergy during the French Revolution.
• 1793 – Second Battle of Wissembourg: France defeats Austria.
• 1799 – Henry Lee III’s eulogy to George Washington in congress declares him as “first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen”.
• 1805 – Austria and France sign the Treaty of Pressburg.
• 1806 – Napoleonic Wars: Battles of Pultusk and Golymin: Russian forces hold French forces under Napoleon.
• 1861 – American Civil War: The Trent Affair: Confederate diplomatic envoys James Murray Mason and John Slidell are freed by the United States government, thus heading off a possible war between the United States and the UK.
• 1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Chickasaw Bayou begins as General William Tecumseh Sherman begins landing his troops.
• 1862 – The largest mass-hanging in US history took place in Mankato, Minnesota, where 38 Native Americans died (refer to Dakota War of 1862).
• 1898 – Marie and Pierre Curie announce the isolation of radium.
• 1943 – World War II: German warship Scharnhorst is sunk off of Norway’s North Cape after a battle against major Royal Navy forces.
• 1944 – World War II: George S. Patton’s Third Army breaks the encirclement of surrounded US forces at Bastogne, Belgium.
• 1948 – Cardinal József Mindszenty is arrested in Hungary and accused of treason and conspiracy.
• 1948 – The last Soviet troops withdraw from North Korea.
• 1972 – Vietnam War: As part of Operation Linebacker II, 120 American B-52 Stratofortress bombers attacked Hanoi, including 78 launched from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, the largest single combat launch in Strategic Air Command history.
• 1980 – Witnesses report the first of several sightings of unexplained lights near RAF Woodbridge, in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, England, an incident called “Britain’s Roswell”.
• 1991 – The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union meets and formally dissolves the Soviet Union, ending the Cold War.
• 1994 – Four Armed Islamic Group hijackers seize control of Air France Flight 8969. When the plane lands at Marseille, a French Gendarmerie assault team boards the aircraft and kills the hijackers.
• 1998 – Iraq announces its intention to fire upon US and British warplanes that patrol the northern and southern no-fly zones.
• 2004 – Orange Revolution: The final run-off election in Ukraine is held under heavy international scrutiny.
• Independence and Unity Day (Slovenia).

People (Births)

• 1716 – Jean François de Saint-Lambert, French soldier and philosopher (d. 1803).
• 1837 – Morgan Bulkeley, American soldier and politician, 54th Governor of Connecticut (d. 1922).
• 1837 – George Dewey, American admiral (d. 1917).
• 1869 – Mathieu Cordang, Dutch cyclist (d. 1942).
• 1887 – Arthur Percival, English general (d. 1966).
• 1908 – Ralph Hill, American runner (d. 1994).
• 1947 – James T. Conway, American general.
• 1969 – Isaac Viciosa, Spanish runner.
• 1975 – María Vasco, Spanish race walker.
• 1984 – Alex Schwazer, Italian race walker.
• 1989 – Yohan Blake, Jamaican sprinter.

People (Deaths)

• 1360 – Thomas Holland, 1st Earl of Kent, English commander (b. 1314).
• 1784 – Seth Warner, American colonel (b. 1743).
• 1925 – Jan Letzel, Czech architect, designed the Hiroshima Peace Memorial (b. 1880).
• 1966 – Herbert Otto Gille, German general (b. 1897).
• 1970 – Lillian Board, South African-English runner (b. 1948).
• 1972 – Harry S. Truman, American colonel and politician, 33rd President of the United States (b. 1884).
• 1974 – Frederick Dalrymple-Hamilton, Scottish admiral (b. 1890).
• 2005 – Erich Topp, German commander (b. 1914).
• 2006 – Gerald Ford, American commander, lawyer, and politician, 38th President of the United States (b. 1913).
• 2012 – Ibrahim Tannous, Lebanese general (b. 1929).
• 2014 – James B. Edwards, American dentist, soldier, and politician, 3rd United States Secretary of Energy (b. 1927).