1745: England, Austria, Saxony and the Netherlands form an alliance against Russia.
1871: Prussian troops begin to bombard Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.
1892: A coal mine explosion kills 100 in McAlister, OK.
1900: The Boers attack the British in Ladysmith, South Africa, but are turned back.
1908: A subway line opens linking the New York boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan.
1940: Great Britain begins rationing sugar, meat and butter.
1954: President Dwight Eisenhower proposes stripping convicted Communists of their U.S. citizenship.
1963: President John F. Kennedy attends the unveiling of the Mona Lisa.
1975: Ella T. Grasso becomes the Governor of Connecticut; the first female governor in the United States who did not come into office by succeeding her husband.
1982: AT&T agrees to divest itself of 22 subdivisions as part of an antitrust agreement.
1994: Valeri Polyakov, a Russian cosmonaut leaves earth, bound for the Mir space station; he will spend a record 437 days in space.
2002: U.S. President George W. Bush signs into law the No Child Left Behind Act, intended to improve America’s educational system.
2011: An attempted assassination of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords is part of a shooting spree in which Jared Lee Loughner kills six and wounds 13.