2000 – Soyuz TM-31 launches, carrying the first resident crew to the International Space Station. The ISS has been crewed continuously since then.

1922 – Benito Mussolini is made Prime Minister of Italy.

1961 – The Soviet Union detonates the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful explosive device ever detonated.

1938 – Orson Welles broadcasts a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, causing a massive panic in some of the audience in the United States.

1969 – The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.

1863 – Eighteen countries meet in Geneva and agree to form the International Red Cross.

2009 – US President Barack Obama signs the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

1922 – Italian fascists led by Benito Mussolini march on Rome and take over the Italian government.

1886 – US president Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty.

1726 – The novel Gulliver's Travels written by Jonathan Swift is published.

1994 – Gliese 229B is the first Substellar Mass Object to be unquestionably identified.

1962 – By refusing to agree to the firing of a nuclear torpedo at a US warship, Vasily Arkhipov averts nuclear war.

2001 – The United States passes the USA PATRIOT Act into law.

1977 – Ali Maow Maalin, the last natural case of smallpox, develops a rash in Somalia. The WHO and the CDC consider this date to be the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most spectacular success of vaccination.

Operation Gladio

1940 – Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is named the first African American general in the United States Army.

1946 – A camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.

1945 – The United Nations Charter comes into effect.

1861 – The first transcontinental telegraph line across the United States is completed.

1959 – In New York City, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opens to the public.