1989
51 people were killed when a dredger crashed into the pleasure cruiser Marchioness on the River Thames in London

1988
The Chiado, the historic commercial centre of Lisbon, Portugal, was destroyed by fire.

1968
The Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia .

1940
Ramón Mercader attacked Leon Trotsky with an ice axe.

1908
Birth of Kingsley Davis, American sociologist and demographer .

1858
Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution together with Alfred Russel Wallace's paper which drew a similar conclusion.

1833
Birth of Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States .
