1258 – Mongol invasions: Baghdad falls to the Mongols, bringing the Islamic Golden Age to an end.
1306 – In front of the high altar of Greyfriars Church in Dumfries, Robert the Bruce murders John Comyn, sparking the revolution in the Wars of Scottish Independence.
1355 – The St Scholastica Day riot breaks out in Oxford, England, leaving 63 scholars and perhaps 30 locals dead in two days.
1502 – Vasco da Gama sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal, on his second voyage to India.
1567 – Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, is found strangled following an explosion at the Kirk o' Field house in Edinburgh, Scotland, a suspected assassination.
1712 – Huilliches in Chiloé rebel against Spanish encomenderos.
1763 – French and Indian War: The Treaty of Paris ends the war and France cedes Quebec to Great Britain.
1814 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Champaubert ends in French victory over the Russians and the Prussians.
1840 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
1846 – First Anglo-Sikh War: Battle of Sobraon: British defeat Sikhs in the final battle of the war.
1861 – Jefferson Davis is notified by telegraph that he has been chosen as provisional President of the Confederate States of America.
1862 – American Civil War: A Union naval flotilla destroys the bulk of the Confederate Mosquito Fleet in the Battle of Elizabeth City on the Pasquotank River in North Carolina.
1906 – , the first of a revolutionary new breed of battleships, is christened.
1920 – Józef Haller de Hallenburg performs the symbolic wedding of Poland to the sea, celebrating restitution of Polish access to open sea.
1920 – About 75% of the population in Zone I votes to join Denmark in the 1920 Schleswig plebiscites.
1923 – Texas Tech University is founded as Texas Technological College in Lubbock, Texas.
1930 – The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng launches the failed Yên Bái mutiny in hope of overthrowing French protectorate over Vietnam.
1933 – In round 13 of a boxing match at New York City's Madison Square Garden, Primo Carnera knocks out Ernie Schaaf.