- 1788 – American Pioneers to the Northwest Territory arrive at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers, establishing Marietta, Ohio as the first permanent American settlement of the new United States in the Northwest Territory, and opening the westward expansion of the new country.
- 1827 – John Walker, an English chemist, sells the first friction match that he had invented the previous year.
- 1891 – Ole Kirk Christiansen born, Danish inventor of Lego
- 1927 – First distance public television broadcast (from Washington, D.C. to New York City, displaying the image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover).
- 1933 – Prohibition is repealed for beer of no more than 3.2% alcohol by weight, eight months before the ratification of the XXI amendment.
- 1964 – IBM announces the System/360.
- 1969 – The Internet’s symbolic birth date: publication of RFC 1.
- 1999 – The World Trade Organization rules in favor of the United States in its long-running trade dispute with the European Union over bananas.