- 1618 Second Defenestration of Prague: Two Catholic Lords Regent and their secretary are thrown out of a window and amazingly are not seriously injured by the 70-foot (21 m) fall; event triggers the Thirty Years' War
Franklin Invents Bifocals
1785 Benjamin Franklin describes his invention of bifocals in a letter to his friend George Whatley
- 1845 New York City Police Department (NYPD) is formed, replacing an old night watch system
- 1900 William Harvey Carney becomes the first African-American soldier awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Civil War at the Battle of Fort Wagner
Laugh-O-Gram Films
1922 Walt Disney incorporates his first film company, Laugh-O-Gram Films
- 1966 Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu becomes the first Māori Queen, succeeding her father, King Korokī
The Marshall Mathers LP
2000 Eminem releases his third studio album "The Marshall Mathers LP," the fastest-selling studio album ever (Grammy - Best Rap Album, 2001)
- 2001 Marco Siffredi becomes the first person to snowboard down Mount Everest via the Norton Couloir (some share record accreditation with Stefan Gatt)
- 2016 Chinese archaeologists announce findings of the earliest use of barley in China to make beer, in Shaanxi Province between 3,400 and 2,900 BCE
- 2017 Library of Al-Qarawiyyin, the world's oldest continually operating library, reopens after a major restoration by King Mohammed VI in Fez, Morocco [1]
- 2018 Hamburg, Germany, becomes the first city to ban diesel cars on some roads
- 2019 Brazilian cosmetics group Natura buys UK's Avon for $2 billion, creating the world's fourth-largest cosmetics company
- 2022 New York City removes its last public payphones in Midtown Manhattan, they will become part of a museum display [1]
Apple's Best Album Ever
2024 Apple Music names Lauryn Hill's "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" the best album ever made [1]
