1715 – King Louis XIV of France dies after a reign of 72 years—the longest of any major European monarch
1785 – Mozart publishes 6th string quartet opus 10 in Vienna
1939 – WWII starts, Germany invades Poland, takes Danzig
1952 – The Old Man and the Sea, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Ernest Hemingway, is first published.
1972 – Bobby Fischer (US) defeats Boris Spassky (USSR) for world chess title
1974 – The SR-71 Blackbird sets (and holds) the record for flying from New York to London: 1 hour 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds.