973: Persian mathematician Al-Biruni, who calculated the Earth's radius at 6,339.6 km, is born.
1254: Marco Polo, Venetian merchant and explorer, is born.
1821: Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and El Salvador jointly declare their independence from Spain.
1902: Measures begin to be taken in Athens against cholera.
1903: In the United States, Governor J. C. Walton, declaring war on the Ku Klux Klan, places Oklahoma under martial law.
1928: Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin.
1934: Tram lines begin to be removed from the streets of Athens. Buses will be introduced in their place.
1935: Adolf Hitler adopts the swastika as the official symbol of Nazi Germany. On the same day, the infamous Nuremberg Laws strip German Jews of German citizenship and ban marriage between Jews and non-Jews.
1940: In Britain, the BBC claims that 185 Reich aircraft are shot down in a single day.
1946: Oliver Stone, American film director, and American actor Tommy Lee Jones are born.
1959: Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the United States.
1967: Academic Spyridon Marinatos discovers a Minoan-era palace on Santorini, with significant archaeological finds.
1969: Hard rock band Deep Purple records the "Concerto for Group and Orchestra" live with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London at the Royal Albert Hall.
1983: The US Senate condemns the Soviet Union's shooting down of a South Korean jumbo jet, which killed all 269 people on board.
1890: English crime novelist Agatha Christie is born; she wrote around 80 novels and created the famous detective Hercule Poirot. Her play The Mousetrap is the longest-running play in London's West End.
1992: In Japan, a government survey shows that 13% of the population are elderly.
1993: A poll shows that 65% of Israelis support the Israel-PLO agreement.
1995: At the 4th UN World Conference on Women, held in China, a declaration on women's rights is adopted, calling on governments to take measures to improve women's living and working conditions.
2004: Johnny Ramone, guitarist of the Ramones, dies.
2006: Oriana Fallaci, renowned Italian journalist, dies.
2008: Actor Stavros Paravas dies.
2008: Richard Wright, founding member of Pink Floyd, dies.
Richard Wright,
2008: Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy, the largest corporate bankruptcy in US history.
