1. 538 - Witiges, king of the Ostrogoths, ends his siege of Rome, retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city in the hands of victorious Byzantine general Belisarius.
2. 1054 - Pope Leo IX escapes captivity & returns to Rome.
3. 1088 - Odo of Lagery elected as Pope Urban II, succeeding Victor III.
4. 1144 - Gherardo Caccianemici elected Pope Lucius II, succeeding Callistus II.
5. 1350 - Orvieto city says it will behead & burn Jewish-Christian couples.
6. 1365 - University of Vienna founded.
7. 1455 - First record of Johannes Gutenberg's Bible, letter dated this day by Enea Silvio Piccolomini refers to the Bible printed a year before.
8. 1496 - Jews are expelled from Syria.
9. 1572 - Poet Luís Vaz de Camões publishes the epic poem "Os Lusíadas" in Portugal.
10. 1594 - Company of Distant established for business on East-Indies.
11. 1597 - England sends troops to Amiens.
12. 1612 - Bermuda officially becomes part of the English colony of Virginia.
13. 1619 - Dutch settlement on Java changes name to Batavia.
14. 1622 - Ignatius of Loyola declared a saint.
15. 1664 - 1st naturalization act in American colonies.
16. 1664 - New Jersey becomes an English colony.
17. 1689 - Former English king James II lands in Ireland.
18. 1737 - Galileo's body moved to Church of Santa Croce in Florence, Italy.
19. 1755 - 1st steam engine in America installed, to pump water from a mine.
20. 1773 - Jeanne Baptiste Pointe de Sable found settlement now known as Chicago.
21. 1790 - French Revolution: The National Assembly issues a decree allowing for the sale of church land by French municipalities.
22. 1794 - Theatre Royal in London's Drury Lane opens after being rebuilt.
23. 1799 - Austria declares war on France.
24. 1832 - The ballet La Sylphide first premieres at the Opéra de Paris.
25. 1837 - British poet laureate Robert Southey writes in reply to 20 year-old Charlotte Brontë "Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be."
26. 1848 - 2nd Republic established in France.
27. 1849 - 1st gold seekers arrive in Nicaragua en route to California.
28. 1850 - 1st US $20 gold piece issued.
29. 1857 - Desjardins Canal train disaster: Canadian Great Western passenger train crashes through rotting timber bridge over Desjardins Canal, near Hamilton, Ontario, killing 59 people.
30. 1857 - Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Simon Boccanegra" premieres in Venice.
31. 1862 - 24th Grand National: Harry Lamplugh wins aboard the Huntsman; first French trained winner; only human fatality recorded in the event, jockey Joe Wynne.
32. 1867 - Last French troops leave Mexico.
33. 1868 - Great Britain annexes Basutoland in Africa (later renamed the Kingdom of Lesotho).
34. 1868 - Henry O'Farrell attempts to assassinate Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, in Sydney, Australia, duke is shot but survives.
35. 1868 - US Congress abolishes manufacturer's tax.
36. 1877 - Great Britain annexes Walvis Bay at Cape Colony, southern Africa.
37. 1881 - Andrew Watson makes his Scotland debut as the world's first black international football player and captain.
38. 1884 - Mississippi establishes 1st US state college for women.
39. 1888 - 2nd day of the Great Blizzard of '88 in north east US (400 die).
40. 1889 - Battle at Metema (Gallabad): Ethiopian Emperor Yohannes IV, defeated.
41. 1889 - Start of South Africa's 1st test, v England, Port Elizabeth.
42. 1891 - Clara Schumann plays Johannes Brahms's "Variations on a Theme by Haydn" for two pianos, with James Kwast in her last public concert (Frankfurt, Germany).
43. 1894 - Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time in a candy store in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
44. 1894 - Pittsburgh issues free season tickets for ladies on Tuesday & Friday.
45. 1896 - 1st movie in Netherlands (Kalver Str 220).
46. 1897 - Vincent d'Indy's opera "Fer Vaal" premieres in Brussels.
47. 1900 - President Steyn of Orange Free State flees from Bloemfontein.
48. 1901 - Ground is broken for Boston's 1st ballpark (Huntington Ave grounds).
49. 1903 - New York Highlanders (Yankees) baseball franchise is approved as a member of the American League.
50. 1904 - 1st main line electric train in UK (Liverpool to Southport).