1691 – The charter for the Province of Massachusetts Bay was issued.
1763 – King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which closed Indigenous lands in North America north and west of the Alleghenies to white settlements.
1777 – American Revolutionary War: The Americans defeated the British in the Second Battle of Saratoga, also known as the Battle of Bemis Heights.
1780 – American Revolutionary War: American militia defeated royalist irregulars led by British major Patrick Ferguson in South Carolina.
1826 – The Granite Railway began operations as the first chartered railway in the U.S.
1864 – American Civil War: A US Navy ship captured a Confederate raider in a Brazilian seaport.
1868 – Cornell University held opening day ceremonies; initial student enrollment was 412, the highest at any American university to that date.
1870 – Franco-Prussian War: Léon Gambetta escaped the siege of Paris in a hot-air balloon.
1913 – Ford Motor Company introduced the first moving vehicle assembly line.
1916 – Georgia Tech defeated Cumberland University 222–0 in the most lopsided college football game in American history.
1919 – KLM, the flag carrier of the Netherlands, was founded. It is the oldest airline still operating under its original name.
1940 – World War II: The McCollum memo proposed bringing the United States into the war in Europe by provoking the Japanese to attack the United States.
1944 – World War II: During an uprising at Birkenau concentration camp, Jewish prisoners burned down Crematorium IV.
1950 – Mother Teresa established the Missionaries of Charity.
1950 – The Frank Sinatra Show debuted.
1957 – RCA Victor announced that they had already received 500,000 advance orders for Elvis’ Christmas album.
1958 – The U.S. manned space-flight project was renamed Project Mercury.
1959 – The Soviet probe Luna 3 transmitted the first-ever photographs of the far side of the Moon.
1963 – President John F. Kennedy signed the ratification of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
1963 – Buddhist crisis: Amid worsening relations, outspoken South Vietnamese First Lady Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu arrived in the US for a speaking tour, continuing a flurry of attacks on the Kennedy administration.
1963 -The Beach Boys album Little Deuce Coupe was released.
1964 – The Beatles appeared on Shindig! The show was taped in London and included the songs “I’m a Loser,” “Kansas City,” and “Boys.”
1967 – Due to a dispute over a hotel bill Cass Elliot spent the night in a London jail.
1967 – The Beatles refuse an offer to play Shea Stadium for $1 million.
1982 – The musical Cats opened at the Wintergarden Theatre. In 1997 the show became the longest running show in Broadway history.
1985 – The Mameyes landslide killed almost 200 people in Puerto Rico.
1986 – Run D.M.C. spoke and performed for 4,000 children in New York at an anti-crack rally.
1988 – A hunter discovered three gray whales trapped under the ice near Alaska; the situation became a multinational effort to free the whales.
1989 – Jefferson Airplane charges a can of food for admission to a concert.
1993 – The flood of ’93 ended at St. Louis, Missouri, 103 days after it began, as the Mississippi River fell below flood stage.
1996 – Fox News Channel began broadcasting.
1998 – Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, was found tied to a fence after being savagely beaten by two young adults in Laramie, Wyoming. He died five days later.
2001 – The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan began with an air assault and covert operations on the ground.
2002 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis launched on STS-112 to continue assembly of the International Space Station.
2008 – Asteroid 2008 TC3 impacted the Earth over Sudan, the first time an asteroid impact was detected prior to its entry into earth’s atmosphere.
