| 1804 | Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned emperor of France. |
| 1805 | In the Battle of Austerlitz (now Slavkov, Czech Republic ), Napoleon, with a French army of about 68,000, defeats an Austro-Russian army of nearly 90,000. |
| 1823 | Pres. James Monroe enunciates the Monroe Doctrine, warning that Europe should not intervene in the Americas. |
| 1851 | Louis Napoleon, nephew of the Emperor Napoleon , takes power in a coup d'état in France, later restoring the empire and becoming Emperor Napoleon III. |
| 1859 | Abolitionist John Brown, who seized the Armory at Harpers Ferry, is hanged for treason. |
| 1942 | The first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is produced at the Univ. of Chicago by a team of physicists led by Enrico Fermi and Arthur Compton. |
| 1954 | The Senate votes to censure Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R, WI) for contempt of a Senate subcommittee, abuse of its members, and insults to the Senate during investigation hearings. |
| 1956 | Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro , with some 80 insurgents, invades Cuba . His forces are crushed by the army, but Castro escapes into the mountains and leads an ultimately successful guerrilla movement. |
| 1971 | Six states under the protection of Great Britain become independent as the United Arab Emirates. |
| 1982 | Dentist Barney Clark becomes the first recipient of a permanent artificial heart . |
| 1999 | The British Parliament officially grants home rule to Northern Ireland. |
| 2001 | Houston-based energy firm Enron Corp. becomes the largest firm ever to file for bankruptcy. |
| John Walker Lindh, an American from San Anselmo, CA, is captured fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan. | |
| 2005 | North Carolina carries out the 1,000th U.S. execution since 1976. |
