0786: Harun al-Rashid succeeds his older brother the Abbasid Caliph al-Hadi as Caliph of Baghdad.
1194: Richard I, King of England, is freed from captivity in Germany.
1787: Shay's Rebellion, an uprising of debt-ridden Massachusetts farmers against the new U.S. government, fails.
1795: France abolishes slavery in her territories and confers slaves to citizens.
1889: Harry Longabaugh is released from Sundance Prison in Wyoming, thereby acquiring the famous nickname, "the Sundance Kid."
1906: The New York Police Department begins fingerprint identification.
1909: California law segregates Caucasian and Japanese schoolchildren.
1915: Germany decrees British waters as part of the war zone; all ships to be sunk without warning.
1932: Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt inaugurates the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, N.Y.
1941: The United Service Organization (U.S.O.) is formed to cater to armed forces and defense industries.
1945: The Big Three, American, British and Soviet leaders, meet in Yalta to discuss the war aims.
1966: Senate Foreign Relations Committee begins televised hearings on the Vietnam War.
1974: Newspaper heiress Patty Hearst is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, beginning one of the most bizarre cases in FBI history.
1980: Syria withdraws its peacekeeping force in Beirut.
1986: The U.S. Post Office issues a commemorative stamp featuring Sojourner Truth.
Source: HistoryNet.com