1066 ~
Battle of Hastings - William the Conqueror’s Normans defeated the Saxon army and kill King Harold II of England.
1882 ~ Birthday of Eamon de Valera, Irish politician and patriot.
1894 ~ Birthday of E. E. Cummings, American poet.
1926 ~
Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne, was published.
1940 ~ Birthday of Cliff Richard, British rock singer.
1944 ~ World War II: Given the choice between a public treason trial and a certain death by firing squad or suicide with honor, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel chose the latter.
1947 ~ Chuck Yeager flew a Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound, the first man to do so in level flight.
1962 ~
Cuban Missile Crisis began: A U-2 flight over Cuba took photos of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed.
1964 ~ Civil Rights movement leader
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
1994 ~ PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
shared the Nobel Peace Prize.