1960 – Ruby Bridges becomes the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in Louisiana.

1922 – The British Broadcasting Company begins radio service in the United Kingdom.

1851 – Moby-Dick, a novel by Herman Melville, is published in the USA.

1680 – German astronomer Gottfried Kirch discovers the Great Comet of 1680, the first comet to be discovered by telescope.

2001 – War on Terror: In the first such act since World War II, US President George W. Bush signs an executive order allowing military tribunals against foreigners suspected of connections to terrorist acts or planned acts on the United States.

1956 – The Supreme Court of the United States affirmed a lower court ruling that invalidated Alabama laws requiring segregated buses, thus ending the Montgomery bus boycott.

1947 – The Soviet Union completes development of the AK-47, one of the first proper assault rifles.

1940 – Walt Disney's animated musical film Fantasia is first released at New York's Broadway Theatre, on the first night of a roadshow.

1922 – The United States Supreme Court upholds mandatory vaccinations for public school students in Zucht v. King.

1859 - Jules Leotard performs the first flying trapeze circus act in Paris; he also designs the garment that bears his name.

1990 – Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web.

1969 – Vietnam War: Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the My Lai Massacre.

1954 – Ellis Island ceases operations.

1948 – Aftermath of World War II: In Tokyo, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East sentences seven Japanese military and government officials, including General Hideki Tojo, to death for their roles in World War II.

1938 – Nazi Germany issues the Decree on the Elimination of Jews from Economic Life prohibiting Jews from selling goods and services or working in a trade, totally segregating Jews from the German economy.

1933 – Nazi Germany uses a referendum to ratify its withdrawal from the League of Nations.

1927 – Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin in undisputed control of the Soviet Union.

1923 – Adolf Hitler is arrested in Munich for high treason for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch.

1869 – The Victorian Aboriginal Protection Act is enacted in Australia, giving the government control of indigenous people's wages, their terms of employment, where they could live, and of their children, effectively leading to the Stolen Generations.

1989 – Germans begin to tear down the Berlin Wall.