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.