The major monotheist faiths all have something to celebrate today. In 638, we had the introduction of the Islamic calendar, in 1492, the Jewish Pentateuch was first printed and in 1552 the Book of Common Prayer became mandatory in England. Followers of Mammon will celebrate that in 1571, Queen Elizabeth I opened Royal Exchange in London. In 1950 the Knesset passed a resolution that states Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and in 1793 Russia and Prussia partitioned Poland for the second, but not the last, time. In 1941 aviator Charles Lindbergh testified before Congress, advocating neutrality with Germany and two years later Montgomery's 6th Army captured Tripoli. 
 
In 1968 North Korea seizes USS Pueblo for allegedly spying and in 1973 President Richard Nixon said Good Night Vietnam by announcing that a peace accord with the nation. Europeans will no doubt be celebrating the 1719 creation of the Principality of Liechtenstein. Who could forget that this day in 1849 saw the granting of a patent for an envelope-making machine and Mrs Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman physician in US. These events may not be related. 
 
It was a good day for culture, seeing the birth of Stendahl in 1783, Antonio Gramsci, the Italian philosopher in 1891 and Sergei Eisenstein, the Russian, director of Battleship Potemkin in 1898. For Belgium, this was when Django Reinhardt arrived, in 1910. In 1806, Former British Prime Minister William Pitt, the Younger stopped getting older and Composer Michele Puccini played his last note. 
 
Events 
 
393 – Roman Emperor Theodosius I proclaims his nine year old son Honorius co-emperor. 
971 – In China, the war elephant corps of the Southern Han are soundly defeated at Shao by crossbow fire from Song Dynasty troops. 
1546 – Having published nothing for eleven years, Francois Rabelais publishes the Tiers Livre, his sequel to Gargantua and Pantagruel. 
1556 – The deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hits Shaanxi province, China. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000. 
1570 – The assassination of regent James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray throws Scotland into civil war. 
1855 – The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota, a crossing made today by the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge. 
1870 – In Montana, U.S. cavalrymen kill 173 Native Americans, mostly women and children, in the Marias Massacre. 
1912 – The International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague. 
1920 – The Netherlands refuses to surrender ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany to the Allies. 
1937 – In Moscow, 17 leading Communists go on trial accused of participating in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime and assassinate its leaders. 
1943 – Duke Ellington plays at Carnegie Hall in New York City for the first time. 
1997 – Madeleine Albright becomes the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State. 
2002 – "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh returns to the United States in FBI custody. 
2002 – Reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan and is subsequently murdered . 
2003 – Final communication between Earth and Pioneer10 
 
Births 
 
1786 – Auguste de Montferrand, French architect (d. 1858)
1832 – Edouard Manet, French artist (d. 1883)
1840 – Ernst Abbe, German physicist (d. 1905)
1872 – Goce Delchev, a revolutionary from the Balkans – leader of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (d. 1903)
1872 – Paul Langevin, French physicist (d. 1946)|
1897 – Sir William Samuel Stephenson, Canadian soldier, W.W.II codename, Intrepid. Inspiration for James Bond. (d. 1989)
1907 – Hideki Yukawa, Japanese physicist, Nobel laureate (d. 1981)
1916 – Airey Neave, British Major, politician and indictment server at the Nuremberg Trials (d. 1979)
1919 – Bob Paisley, English Football player and manager. (d. 1996)
1919 – Hans Hass, Austrian zoologist and underwater scientist
1928 – Jeanne Moreau, French actress
1929 – Patriarch Filaret (Mykhailo Denysenko) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Kiev Patriarch
1943 – Gil Gerard, American actor
1943 – Millie Jackson, American singe
1944 – Rutger Hauer, Dutch actor
1947 – Megawati Sukarnoputri, 5th President of Indonesia
1953 – John Luther Adams, American composer
1957 – Princess Caroline of Monaco
1972 – Ewen Bremner, Scottish actor

 
Deaths 

1622 – William Baffin, English explorer
1744 – Giambattista Vico, Italian philosopher and historian (b. 1668)
1785 – Matthew Stewart, Scottish mathematician (b. 1717)
1789 – Frances Brooke, English writer (b. 1724)
1803 – Arthur Guinness, Irish brewer (b. 1725)
1875 – Charles Kingsley English writer (b. 1819)
1956 – Alexander Korda, Hungarian/British film director (b. 1893)
1976 – Paul Robeson, American actor, singer, and social activist (b. 1898)
1992 – Markos Vafiadis, leader of the Communist Party of Greece (b. 1906)
1999 – Prince Lincoln Thompson, Jamaican musician (b. 1949)
2004 – Helmut Newton, German-born photographer (b. 1920)
2005 – Morys George Lyndhurst Bruce, 4th Baron Aberdare, British politician (b. 1921)
2005 – Johnny Carson, American television host (b. 1925)
2007 – E. Howard Hunt, American Watergate figure (b. 1918)