- 1728 82 survivors of the Dutch ship Zeewijk sail into Batavia on a hand-built boat, ten months after being shipwrecked off the western coast of Australia [1]
1887 "Europe's first motoring competition" is 'won' by The Marquis de Dion on a steam-powered quadricycle built by French toymaker and engineer Georges Bouton; French newspaper Le Velocipede organized the 'test', and Bouton was the only participant
- 1902 Using the ISO 8601 standard Year Zero definition for the Gregorian calendar preceded by the Julian calendar, the one billionth minute since the start of January 1 Year Zero occurs at 10:40 AM on this date
- 1919 American stuntman and parachute developer Leslie Irvin (23) makes the first premeditated free-fall parachute jump from a plane above the US Army Air Service's McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio [1]
- 1928 RCA and GE install three test television sets in homes in Schenectady, New York, allowing trials of inventor Ernst Alexanderson's home television receiver; a poor, unsteady 1.5-square-inch picture is received from a radio transmitter
- 1930 First night of organized baseball is played in Independence, Kansas
- 1937 First animated cartoon electric sign is displayed in NYC
- 1937 Pan Am operates the first scheduled commercial transpacific flight
Pennsylvania 6-5000
1940 Glenn Miller records the song "Pennsylvania 6-5000" in NYC; tune is named after phone number of the Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan
2004 Shrek the sheep from Tarras, Central Otago, New Zealand, is finally shorn live on TV after 6 years avoidance; the fleece weighed 27 kg (60 lb)
- 2018 Shaquem Griffin is the first one-handed person to be drafted into the NFL; selected by Seattle Seahawks
- 2019 American diver Victor Vescovo makes the deepest dive ever to the bottom of the Mariana trench at 10,927m (35,849ft), and finds a plastic bag
Game of Thrones: The Long Night
2019 TV series "Game of Thrones: The Long Night" episode debuts with the longest battle ever screened (nearly 80 mins), surpassing "Lord of the Rings" Battle of Helm's Deep (44 mins)
- 2021 NASA's Parker Solar Probe becomes the first spacecraft to cross the Alfvén critical boundary, the outer atmosphere of the Sun [1]
