1652: The Spanish painter and engraver Jose de Ribera (b. 1591) died
1666: A fire ravages thousands of houses in London, a disaster left in the history of England as the "Great Fire"
1861: Mircea Demetriade, poet and dramatist, was born (d. 1914)
1902: "A Trip To The Moon", the first science fiction film, directed by the Frenchman Georges Méliès, is released
1929: The British-Dutch company Unilever was founded
1937: French pedagogue Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the International Olympic Committee (b. 1863), died
1942: German troops entered Stalingrad
1945: Ho Chi Minh declares Vietnam's independence from France, the day becoming a national holiday
1951: The British musician Mik Kaminski, who became known as a violinist in the Electric Light Orchestra, was born
1958: In Bucharest, the George Enescu Museum is inaugurated
1961: Colombian footballer Carlos Valderama was born
1964: Mezzo-soprano Ruxandra Donose was born
1964: Canadian actor Keanu Reeves was born
1966: Mexican actress Salma Hayek (Pinault) was born
1966: French Formula 1 driver Olivier Panis was born
1969: Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese leader (b. 1890) dies
1971: Norwegian athlete Kjetil André Aamodt, world and Olympic champion in alpine skiing, was born
1973: The English writer J.R.R. died. Tolkien, author of the novel "The Hobbit" and the trilogy "The Lord of the Rings" (b. 1892)
1976: The Unirea store in Bucharest, the current Unirea Shopping Center, is inaugurated, the largest commercial unit in Romania at that time, the building being designed by the architect Gheorghe Leahu
1991: the USA recognized the independence of the Baltic States
2001: South African doctor Christiaan Barnard, surgeon who - in 1967 - performed the first heart transplant in the world (b. 1922), died
2002: Rodica Ojog-Braşoveanu, writer of detective novels (born 1939), dies
2002: The doctors of the Fundeni Clinical Institute performed, for the first time in the country, a bone marrow transplant in a patient with acute leukemia
2005: Alexandru Paleologu, writer, diplomat and politician, dies (b. 1919)
2008: Georgia and Russia officially broke diplomatic relations, following the war for the control of the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia
2013: Two children were attacked by stray dogs in a Bucharest park, one of the brothers dying
2014: Eminescologists gathered in Chisinau, in a World Congress
2015: A study published by the journal Nature showed that the number of trees on Earth has fallen below 3 trillion
2015: Barack Obama became the first American president to reach Alaska
2016: Death of Nicolae Vieru, male gymnastics champion, former president of the Romanian Gymnastics Federation and vice-president of the world specialized forum (b. 1932)
2016: Death of Islam Karimov, dictator of Uzbekistan (b. 1938)
2016: South Korean company Samsung recalls Galaxy Note 7 phones after finding that some exploded during or after charging
2017: The poet Gheorghe Istrate (b. 1940) died
2018: A fire ravages the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, the oldest scientific institution in the South American state
2020: Journalist Emanuel Isopescu, star of public television (b. 1945), dies
2020: Spanish justice ruled that the heirs of former dictator Francisco Franco must return the Pazo de Meirás property, the family's summer residence, because it is property of the Iberian state