1695 – Henry Every perpetrates one of the most profitable pirate raids in history with the capture of the Grand Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai. The loot from this raid is said to have totalled between £300,000 and £600,000.

1892 – One of the early bouts fought officially under the Marquis of Queensbury rules ends when James J. Corbett knocks out John L. Sullivan in the 21st round

1911 – French poet Guillaume Apollinaire is arrested and put in jail on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum

1936 – The last surviving member of the thylacine species, Benjamin, dies alone in its cage at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania.

1953 – Nikita Khrushchev is elected first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1978 – While walking across Waterloo Bridge in London, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov is assassinated by Bulgarian secret police agent Francesco Giullino. The assassination was achieved by firing a poisonous ricin pellet from a specially-designed umbrella.