| 1791 | The Bill of Rights goes into effect after being ratified by Virginia. |
| 1890 | Sioux leader Sitting Bull is killed in a skirmish with U.S. soldiers. |
| 1917 | The new Bolshevik government in Russia signs an armistice with the German government. |
| 1961 | An Israeli court convicts Adolf Eichmann of war crimes committed during World War II. |
| 1981 | Javier Pérez de Cuéllar is sworn in as secretary general of the United Nations. |
| 1983 | The last U.S. troops leave Grenada, which they entered in October after a Marxist coup there. |
| 2000 | Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma officially decommissions the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, site of the world's worst nuclear accident in 1986. |
| 2005 | Iraqi legislative elections give a group of Shiite Muslim religious parties the largest bloc of seats in the parliament. |
