Source: HistoryNet.com
1066: William, Duke of Normandy, soon to be known as William the Conqueror invades England.
1607: Samuel de Champlain and his colonists return to France from Port Royal Nova Scotia.
1794: The Anglo-Russian-Austrian Alliance of St. Petersburg, which is directed against France, is signed.
1904: A woman is placed under arrest for smoking a cigarette on New York's Fifth Avenue.
1928: Sir Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin when he notices a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory.
1939: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agree on a division of Poland; Warsaw surrenders to German troops.
1959: Explorer VI, the U.S. satellite, takes the first video pictures of earth.
1961: Military coup in Damascus ends the Egypt-Syria union known as the United Arab Republic that was formed Feb. 1, 1958.
1963: Roy Lichtenstein's pop art work Whaam!, depicting in comic-book style a U.S. jet shooting down an enemy fighter, is exhibited for the first time.
1995: Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat sign an interim agreement concerning settlement on the Gaza Strip.
2008: SpaceX launches the first private spacecraft, Falcon 1.