625 BC Nabopolassar becomes King of Babylon (625-605 BC)
1174 Damascus surrenders voluntarily to Saladin
1248 The liberation of Seville from the Moors by King Ferdinand III of Castile.
1459 Battle of Blore Heath: The Yorkists defeat the Lancastrians
1510 The Ottomans capture Kutaisi, the capital of Western Georgia, and burn Gelati Monastery.
1783 Benjamin Franklin has a congenial conversation with Giacomo Casanova in Paris
1808 Battle of Tudela: A Napoleonic army under Marshal Jean Lannes defeats the Spanish under General Francisco Castaños
1832 Belgian War for Independence: French capture Antwerp from the Dutch
1861 Combat at Ft Pickens, Fla
1863 Battles of Chattanooga & Orchard Knob: Union forces under U.S. Grant initiate a breakthrough of the Confederate investment of the city
1915 Battle of Ctesiphon: Turks defeat the British 6th Indian Div, after a two-day fight -- the British retreat to Kut, where they are besieged
1939 Nazis compel Polish Jews to wear a yellow star
1939 The German battleships 'Scharnhorst' & 'Gneisenau' sink the greatly outclassed armed merchant cruiser HMS 'Rawalpindi' in the North Atlantic off the Faroes
1942 Japanese bomb Port Darwin, Australia
1942 SS 'Ben Lomond' is torpedoed in the S Atlantic; Poon Lim (1917-1991) begins 133 days adrift
1943 Operation Galvanic: US forces secure Tarawa & Makin
1944 Gen Patch's Seventh Army liberates Strassbourg
1945 Meat & butter rationing ends in the US
1946 Bombardment of Haiphong: The French fleet shells the port, held by the Viet Minh, inflicting heavy casualties and initiating the "First Indochina War"
1974 Massacre of the Sixty: 60 imprisoned former government officials are executed by the Derg (Revolutionary Council), in Addis Ababa
1983 USSR leaves disarmament talks
1985 Egyptian commandos storm hijacked EgyptAir jet in Malta, 58 die
2020