1880 – American Canoe Association founded at Lake George, NY, first Commodore William L. Alden
1914 – British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey famously remarks “The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time.”
1940 – Lithuanian SSR is accepted into USSR
1944 – Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp gases 4,000 gypsies
1949 – Basketball Association of America (BAA) and National Basketball League (NBL) merge to form National Basketball Association (NBA), Maurice Podoloff elected head of new league
1975 – Poland and West Germany reach accord about returning ethnic Germans
1979 – Fastest jai-alai shot (188 mph), Jose Arieto at Newport Jai Alai, Rhode Island
1998 – The Oval stages first competitive cricket match played under floodlights in London when home team Surrey loses to Sussex by 8 wickets in the day/night 40-over fixture
1998 – Irish band Boyzone release their best-selling single “No Matter What” composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman
2000 – South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Amnesty Committee grants amnesty to Curnick Ndlovu, the KwaZulu-Natal leader of the African National Congress and United Democratic Front, for committing sabotage during December 1961 and June 1963 near Durban