• 49 BC - Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, signaling the start of civil war.
• 1072 - Robert Guiscard conquers Palermo.
• 1475 - Stephen III of Moldavia defeats the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vaslui.
• 1645 - Archbishop William Laud is beheaded at the Tower of London.
• 1776 - Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense.
• 1806 - Dutch settlers in Cape Town surrender to the British.
• 1810 - The marriage of Napoleon and Josephine is annulled.
• 1861 - American Civil War: Florida secedes from the Union.
• 1863 - The London Underground, the world's oldest underground railway, opens between London Paddington station and Farringdon station.
• 1870 - John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil.
• 1901 - The first great Texas oil gusher is discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas.
• 1920 - The League of Nations holds its first meeting and ratifies the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I.
• 1922 - Arthur Griffith is elected President of the Irish Free State.
• 1923 - Lithuania seizes and annexes Memel.
• 1941 - Lend-Lease is introduced into the U.S. Congress.
• 1941 - World War II: The Greek army captures Kleisoura.
• 1946 - The first General Assembly of the United Nations opens in London. Fifty-one nations are represented.
• 1962 - Apollo Project: NASA announces plans to build the C-5 rocket booster. It became better known as the Saturn V moon rocket, which launched every Apollo moon mission.
• 1984 - The United States and the Vatican establish full diplomatic relations after 117 years.
• 1989 - Cuban troops begin withdrawing from Angola.
• 1990 - Time Warner is formed from the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc.
• 1995 - The World Youth Day was held in the Philippines.
• 1999 - A large piece of the chalk cliff at Beachy Head collapses into the sea.
• 2005 - A mudslide occurs in La Conchita, California, killing 10 people, injuring many more and closing the Highway 101, the main coastal corridor between San Francisco and Los Angeles, for 10 days.

Births