2009 – US President Barack Obama signs the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

1922 – Italian fascists led by Benito Mussolini march on Rome and take over the Italian government.

1886 – US president Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty.

1726 – The novel Gulliver's Travels written by Jonathan Swift is published.

1994 – Gliese 229B is the first Substellar Mass Object to be unquestionably identified.

1962 – By refusing to agree to the firing of a nuclear torpedo at a US warship, Vasily Arkhipov averts nuclear war.

2001 – The United States passes the USA PATRIOT Act into law.

1977 – Ali Maow Maalin, the last natural case of smallpox, develops a rash in Somalia. The WHO and the CDC consider this date to be the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most spectacular success of vaccination.

Operation Gladio

1940 – Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is named the first African American general in the United States Army.

1946 – A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.

1945 – The United Nations Charter comes into effect.

1861 – The first transcontinental telegraph line across the United States is completed.

1959 – In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opens to the public.

1940 – The first edition of the Ernest Hemingway novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is published.

1973 – Watergate scandal: "Saturday Night Massacre": United States President Richard Nixon fires U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refuse to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who is finally fired by Solicitor General Robert Bork.

1961 – The Soviet Navy performs the first armed test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, launching an R-13 from a Golf-class submarine.

1947 – Cold War: The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communist infiltration of the Hollywood film industry, resulting in a blacklist that prevents some from working in the industry for years.

1953 – Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is published.

1943 – Streptomycin, the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis, is isolated by researchers at Rutgers University.