1999: Kosovo War: Three Chinese citizens are killed and 20 wounded when a NATO aircraft apparently inadvertently bombs the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Serbia.
1992: Three employees at a McDonald's Restaurant in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, are brutally murdered and a fourth permanently disabled after a botched robbery. It is the first "fast-food murder" in Canada.
1992: Michigan ratifies a 203-year-old proposed amendment to the United States Constitution making the 27th Amendment law. This amendment bars the U.S. Congress from giving itself a mid-term pay raise.
1946: Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering (later renamed Sony) is founded with around 20 employees.
1945: World War II: General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France, ending Germany's participation in the war. The document takes effect the next day.
1942: During the Battle of the Coral Sea, United States Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attack and sink the Imperial Japanese Navy light aircraft carrier Shōhō; the battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.
1930: The 7.1 Mw Salmas earthquake shakes northwestern Iran and southeastern Turkey with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). Up to three-thousand people were killed.
1928: The Jinan incident begins with Japanese forces killing the Chinese negotiating team in Jinan, China, and going on to kill over 2,000 Chinese civilians in the following days.
1920: The Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto, opens the first exhibition by the Group of Seven.
1920: Treaty of Moscow: Soviet Russia recognizes the independence of the Democratic Republic of Georgia only to invade the country six months later.
1920: Kiev Offensive: Polish troops led by Józef Piłsudski and Edward Rydz-Śmigły and assisted by a symbolic Ukrainian force capture Kiev only to be driven out by the Red Army counter-offensive a month later.
1915: Japanese 21 Demands Ultimatum to China (Commemorated as National Day of Humiliation)
1915: World War I: German submarine U-20 sinks RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans. Public reaction to the sinking turns many formerly pro-Germans in the United States against the German Empire
1895: In Saint Petersburg, Russian scientist Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrates to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society his invention, the Popov lightning detector — a primitive radio receiver. In some parts of the former Soviet Union the anniversary of this day is celebrated as Radio Day.
1864: The world's oldest surviving clipper ship, the City of Adelaide is launched by William Pile, Hay and Co. in Sunderland, England, for transporting passengers and goods between Britain and Australia.
1832: Greece's independence is recognized by the Treaty of London.
1824: World premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Vienna, Austria. The performance is conducted by Michael Umlauf under the composer's supervision.