1984 – Bhopal disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, kills more than 3,800 people outright and injures 150,000–600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.

1901 – In a State of the Union message, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt asks Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits".

1955 – American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

 buzz wrote: 
tomorrow?

cant there be one day a year, just one, where nothing happens annually.

1835 — Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, is born.

1947 – Red Scare: The "Hollywood Ten" are blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios.

1915 – Albert Einstein presents the field equations of general relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

1971 – During a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper (aka D. B. Cooper) parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines plane with $200,000 in ransom money. He has never been found.

1969 – Apollo program: The Apollo 12 command module splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second manned mission to land on the Moon.

1859 – Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, the anniversary of which is sometimes called "Evolution Day".

1924 – Edwin Hubble's scientific discovery that Andromeda, previously believed to be a nebula within our galaxy, is actually another galaxy, and that the Milky Way is only one of many such galaxies in the universe, was first published in a newspaper.

1889 – The first jukebox goes into operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco.

534 BC – Thespis of Icaria becomes the first recorded actor to portray a character onstage.

1963 – In Dallas, Texas, US President John F. Kennedy is assassinated and Texas Governor John Connally is seriously wounded. Suspect Lee Harvey Oswald is later captured and charged with the murder of both the President and police officer J. D. Tippit. Oswald is shot dead two days later by Jack Ruby while in police custody.

1928 – The premier performance of Ravel's Boléro takes place in Paris.

1694— Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet ) is born.

1971— DDT is outlawed for use in the USA.

1985 – Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.

1805 – Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio premieres in Vienna.