1772 ~ Birthday of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Poet.
1805 ~
Battle of Trafalgar - British fleet led by Admiral Lord Nelson defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain.
1833 ~ Birthday of Alfred Nobel, Swedish inventor and benefactor of the Nobel Prize.
1854 ~
Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.
1912 ~ Birthday of Sir Georg Solti, Conductor.
1917 ~ Birthday of Dizzy Gillespie, Jazz Musician.
1929 ~ Birthday of Ursula K. Le Guin, Science Fiction Author.
1944 ~ The first kamikaze attack:
HMAS Australia was hit by a Japanese plane carrying a 200 kg bomb.
1945 ~
Women's suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time.
1966 ~
A coal tip fell on the village of Aberfan, killing 144 people, mostly schoolchildren.