1974 – The Arecibo message is broadcast from Puerto Rico.

1938 – LSD is first synthesized by Albert Hofmann from ergotamine at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel.

1914 – The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens.

2022 – The world population reached eight billion.

1971 – Intel releases the world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.

1943 – The Holocaust: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies are to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps".

1938 – Nazi Germany bans Jewish children from public schools in the aftermath of Kristallnacht.

1960 – Ruby Bridges becomes the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in Louisiana.

1922 – The British Broadcasting Company begins radio service in the United Kingdom.

1851 – Moby-Dick, a novel by Herman Melville, is published in the USA.

1680 – German astronomer Gottfried Kirch discovers the Great Comet of 1680, the first comet to be discovered by telescope.

2001 – War on Terror: In the first such act since World War II, US President George W. Bush signs an executive order allowing military tribunals against foreigners suspected of connections to terrorist acts or planned acts on the United States.

1956 – The Supreme Court of the United States affirmed a lower court ruling that invalidated Alabama laws requiring segregated buses, thus ending the Montgomery bus boycott.

1947 – The Soviet Union completes development of the AK-47, one of the first proper assault rifles.

1940 – Walt Disney's animated musical film Fantasia is first released at New York's Broadway Theatre, on the first night of a roadshow.

1922 – The United States Supreme Court upholds mandatory vaccinations for public school students in Zucht v. King.

1859 - Jules Leotard performs the first flying trapeze circus act in Paris; he also designs the garment that bears his name.

1990 – Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web.

1969 – Vietnam War: Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the My Lai Massacre.

1954 – Ellis Island ceases operations.