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| 1535 | Sir Thomas More, English politician, humanist, scholar,writer and devout Catholic, is executed at the Tower of London afterbeing found guilty of high treason. His political essay "Utopia"speculates about life under an ideal government. |
| 1796 | Nicholas I, czar of Russia, is born. He suppressed theDecembrist movement and led Russia into the Crimean War in 1853. Hisreign as emperor ended with Russia's defeat in the war in 1856. |
| 1885 | French chemist Louis Pasteur successfully treats a patientwith his anti-rabies vaccine. He also founded modern microbiology,invented the process of pasteurization, and developed vaccines foranthrax and chicken cholera. |
| 1907 | Hsu Hsi-lin, a Chinese revolutionary and follower of Dr.Sun Yat-sen, revolts at Anching and assassinates Eng Ming, governorof China's Anhwei province. Hsu was later arrested and executed. |
| 1923 | The Soviet Union institutes its first constitution. |
| 1923 | Nancy Reagan, wife of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan,is born as Nancy Davis. As first lady of the United States, sheestablished a nationwide anti-drug campaign. |
| 1931 | The Republic of China's first higher civil serviceexamination is held in Nanking. |
| 1935 | The Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader in exile, is born.He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. |
| 1938 | The first session of the People's Political Council ofChina opens in Hankow and adopts a program of armed resistance andnational reconstruction. |
| 1947 | Chiang Kai-shek calls on all Chinese to help the governmentin suppressing the communist rebellion. |
| 1964 | The Nyasaland Protectorate becomes the independent state ofMalawi, with Dr. Hasting Banda as its first president. |
| 1964 | The Republic of China recognizes Malawi. |
| 1965 | Two ROC gunboats sink five communist ships and damage twoothers south of the ROC-controlled island of Kinmen in the TaiwanStrait. |
| 1966 | The ROC Legislative Yuan approves the Sino-Haiti treaty ofamity signed in Port-au-Prince on Feb. 15, 1966. |
| 1971 | Louis Armstrong, the American jazz trumpeter known as"Satchmo," dies of a heart attack at the age of 71. A virtuosomusician and popular, gravely-voiced singer, he greatly influencedthe development of jazz. |
| 1975 | Tennis player Arthur Ashe defeats Jimmy Connors to becomethe first black men's singles champion at Wimbledon. |
| 1976 | Chu Teh, founder of Communist China's People's LiberationArmy, dies at the age of 90. |
| 1986 | Tunku Abdul Rahman, the founding father and first primeminister of Malaysia, arrives in Taipei for a five-day visit. |
| 1988 | An explosion on the North Sea oil rig Piper Alpha, operatedby Occidental Petroleum, results in the loss of 166 lives. |
| 1994 | President Bill Clinton becomes the first American leader tovisit the former Soviet Baltic republics. |
| 1997 | Cambodia's Second Prime Minister Hun Sen claims control ofPhnom Penh and ousts First Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh. |
| 1998 | A Cathay Pacific Airways passenger jet becomes the firstplane to touch down at Hong Kong's new airport at Chek Lap Kok, afterthe closure of the old Kai Tak airport. |
| 1999 | Air Canada opens a Taipei-Vancouver route when an AirCanada A340 Airbus passenger jet plane touches down in Taipei at theend of the carrier's maiden flight from Vancouver. |
| 2000 | The ROC Ministry of Finance decides to abolish the incometax-free status of soldiers and junior high and elementary schoolteachers. |
| 2000 | Republic of China Premier Tang Fei says that Taiwan andmainland China have never reached consensus at the official level onthe "one China" issue. Confucius' lesson of the day: "Without the knowledge of the useof language, a man cannot judge or know the character of men."ENDITEM |
