| 1803 | Death of Ngo Thi Nham (born 1786), Vietnamese scholar and member of the Ngo Thi literary clan. He was also well known for his contribution in the feat of arms of the Tay Son dynasty. |
| 1851 | Death of Hans Christian Oersted, Danish physicist (born 1777). Though his discoveries include metallic aluminium and the compressibility of water, he is best known for discovering the magnetic field generated by an electric current. |
| 1910 | Birth of Samuel Barber, US composer (died 1981). A musical prodigy, he wrote his first opera at the age of six. Barber's 1956 opera Vanessa, with a libretto by Gian-Carlo Menotti, won a Pulitzer Prize. |
| 1931 | Doan Tran Nghiep, Vietnamese patriot, is executed by the French in Ha Noi. |
| 1934 | Birth of Yuri Alexevich Gagarin, Russian cosmonaut. In 1961 he became the first man to travel in space. Gagarin died in a plane crash in 1968. |
| 1945 | To eliminate the danger of being attacked from behind if and when Allied troops land in Indochina, the Japanese fascists stage a coup de force, overthrow the French and become the sole rulers of Indochina. The Standing Committee of the Indochina Communist Party issued a historic appeal for actions to be taken, including the launching of a movement against Japanese fascism and preparing for a general uprising. |
| 1998 | A Bosnian Serb pleads guilty to a crime against humanity for raping four Muslim women in 1992, resulting in the first rape conviction at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. |
| 1999 | In the first visit by an Iranian president to a Western nation since the 1979 revolution, Mohammad Khatami arrives in Italy for a three-day visit, including a visit with the pope. |
| 2003 | Thai police say nearly 1,500 people were killed during a nationwide crackdown on methamphetamines. |
| 2004 | Pakistan test-fires its most advanced missile, capable of carrying a nuclear warhead deep into archrival India. The launch of the Shaheen 2 from an undisclosed location in Pakistan with its 2,000-km range is a vivid reminder of the fragile peace between the long-time enemies. |
| 2006 | Argentina's air force acknowledges for the first time that some of its members committed abuses during the country's Dirty War, a seven-year crackdown on dissent that erupted 30 years ago. |
| 2007 | Survivors of the March 10, 1945 US firebombing of Tokyo during World War II and bereaved family members sue the Japanese government for US$10.3 million, alleging it did not assist victims in the aftermath – the first group lawsuit of its kind. — AP/REUTERS/VNS |