1832 A horse-drawn streetcar was used for the first time to carry passengers in the United States. It was introduced in New York on Fourth Avenue between Prince Street and 14th Street.
1851 Nicolas Soult, French military leader and politician, died. He was responsible for the French conquest of Algeria during the 1840s.
1922 Charles Schulz, U.S. cartoonist whose daily comic strip Peanuts brought him wealth and fame, born.
1940 In World War II, Germany began walling off the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw, sealing in its 400,000 inhabitants.
1949 India's Constituent Assembly passed the country's Constitution; it came into force two months later.
1965 France launched its first satellite into orbit.
1966 French president Charles de Gaulle opened the world's first tidal power station at the Rance Estuary in Brittany.
1967 The birth of the People's Republic of South Yemen was proclaimed in Aden by the National Liberation Front.
1968 German novelist Arnold Zweig, best known for his "The Case of Sergeant Grischa", died.
1970 Pope Paul VI was attacked by a Bolivian artist dressed as a priest at Manila Airport, but was unhurt in the dagger attack.
1974 Japanese prime minister Kakuei Tanaka resigned following allegations of irregularities in his private business affairs.
1979 A Pakistan International Airlines Boeing 707 crashed in Jeddah; all 156 passengers and crew were killed.
1979 The International Olympic Committee voted to readmit China after an absence of 21 years.
1989 President Alfredo Cristiani announced the suspension of all relations with Nicaragua, accusing the left-wing government there of fanning El Salvador's civil war.
1989 Opposition candidate Luis Alberto Lacalle of the Blanco (National) Party was elected president in Uruguay's first free elections since 1971.
1989 President Ahmed Abdallah of Comoros was assassinated and the mercenary-led presidential guard under Bob Denard seized effective control.
1990 Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew resigned, ending his reign as the world's longest-serving prime minister and giving way to the man he picked to succeed him, Goh Chok Tong.
1993 Belgium's first general strike in almost half a century brought industry and transport to a standstill and forced the government to agree to talks with the unions.
1993 Iraq agreed to long-term monitoring of its arms potential and said it hoped this would persuade the UN to lift sanctions.
1996 South Korea's Parliament ratified the country's membership of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
1998 Japan expressed deep remorse for its actions in China during World War II in a joint declaration during a visit by Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
1999 A Croatian court ruled that ailing President Franjo Tudjman was unfit to rule and handed power to Parliament Speaker Vlatko Pavletic.
1999 A Milan judge ordered Italian opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi to stand trial on charges of alleged bribery.