2004: A new constitution is signed by Iraq's Governing Council.
1985: A supposed failed assassination attempt on Islamic cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah in Beirut, Lebanon kills at least 45 and injures 175 others.
1983: While addressing a convention of Evangelicals, U.S. President Ronald Reagan labels the Soviet Union an "evil empire".
1979: Philips demonstrates the compact disc publicly for the first time.
1963: The Ba'ath Party comes to power in Syria in a coup d'état by a clique of quasi-leftist Syrian Army officers calling themselves the National Council of the Revolutionary Command.
1957: The 1957 Georgia Memorial to Congress, which petitions the U.S. Congress to declare the ratification of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution null and void, is adopted by the U.S. state of Georgia.
1942: World War II: Imperial Japanese Army forces captured Rangoon, Burma from British.
1942: World War II: Imperial Japanese Army forces gave ultimatum to Dutch East Indies Governor General Jonkheer Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer and KNIL Commander in Chief Lieutenant General Hein Ter Poorten, to unconditionally surrender.
1775: An anonymous writer, thought by some to be Thomas Paine, publishes "African Slavery in America", the first article in the American colonies calling for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery.
1702: Queen Anne, the younger sister of Mary II, becomes Queen regnant of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
1658: Treaty of Roskilde: After a devastating defeat in the Northern Wars (1655-1661), Frederick III, the King of Denmark-Norway is forced to give up nearly half his territory to Sweden to save the rest.
1655: John Casor becomes the first legally-recognized slave in England's North American colonies where a crime was not committed.
1618: Johannes Kepler discovers the third law of planetary motion.
1576: Spanish explorer Diego García de Palacio first sights the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Copán.