| 1087 | William II (Rufus) is crowned King of England—will reign for 13 years | 931 |
| 1345 | Battle of Warns results in a victory for the Frisians over invading Holand forces | 673 |
| 1580 | Francis Drake returns to Portsmouth after circumnavigating the world | 438 |
| 1687 | Ottoman Turk ammunition dump inside the Parthenon explodes severely damaging the stucture and statues | 331 |
| 1789 | Thomas Jefferson is appointed the first U.S. Secretary of State | 229 |
| 1789 | John Jay is appointed the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court | 229 |
| 1802 | Slovene mathematician, physicist and artillery officer Jurij Bartolomej Vega dies, age 48 | 216 |
| 1820 | American frontiersman Daniel Boone dies, age 85 | 198 |
| 1820 | Robert Gibbon Johnson proves tomatoes are not poisonous by eating several on the steps of the courthouse in Salem, New Jersey | 198 |
| 1844 | first official international cricket match takes place in New York City—Canada beats the U.S. team by 23 runs | 174 |
| 1868 | German mathematician and astronomer August Ferdinand Möbius dies in Leipzig, age 77 | 150 |
| 1877 | German polymath, linguist, mathematician, physicist, and neohumanist Hermann Günther Grassmann dies, age 68 | 141 |
| 1908 | Cubs pitcher Edward Marvin "Big Ed" Reulbach pitches two shutouts in one day against the Brooklyn Dodgers | 110 |
| 1918 | Allied forces launch offensive operations on Germany's main west defensive Hindenburg Line | 100 |
| 1943 | Operation Jaywick: Australian raiders place limpet mines on Japanese ships in Singapore harbor—sink or seriously damage seven | 75 |
| 1945 | Hungarian composer Béla Barto&oacte;k dies in New York City, age 64 | 73 |
| 1950 | UN forces liberate Seoul, Korea | 68 |
| 1954 | Japanese train ferry Toya Maru sinks in a typhoon—approximately 1150 perish | 64 |
| 1960 | first televised presidential candidate debate—Kennedy and Nixon | 58 |
| 1962 | Jed Clampett shoots at some food and up comes bubbling crude—"The Beverly Hillbillies" moves to California on CBS for nine seasons | 56 |
| 1964 | Minnow wrecks on an uncharted desert isle—due to the courage of the fearless crew no one lost | 54 |
| 1969 | Abbey Road, the last recorded album by the Beatles, is released in the UK | 49 |
| 1977 | Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in northern Ukraine is commissioned | 41 |
| 1981 | Astros pitcher Nolan Ryan throws his fifth no-hitter breaking the record held by Sandy Koufax—Ryan will pitch two more | 37 |
| 1983 | U.S. loses the America's Cup for the first time in 132 years when Australia II beats Liberty | 35 |
| 1983 | launch vehicle for Soyuz T-10-1 explodes on the pad just prior to launch—crew of two are saved by the launch escape system | 35 |
| 1996 | Shannon Lucid returns to earth with U.S. and woman's endurance record of 188 days in space—broken in 2007 | 22 |
| 2000 | Brazilian guitarist and guitar composer Baden Powell de Aquino (Baden Powell) dies in Rio de Janeiro, age 63 | 18 |
| 2000 | ferry Express Samina sinks off the coast of the island of Paros—80 out of over 500 passengers die in one of Greece's worst sea disasters | 18 |
| 2001 | last Star Trek series, Enterprise premiers | 17 |
| 2002 | Senegalese ferry MV Le Joola capsizes and sinks—1863 die in second-worst non-military maritime disaster | 16 |
| 2003 | 8.3 earthquake strikes off the coast of Hokkaido, Japan generates a 4 m tsunami—849 injured | 15 |
| 2004 | Seattle ends San Francisco 49er's NFL record streak of 456 games without being shutout | 14 |
| 2005 | English television scriptwriter and author of more than 100 children's books Helen Cresswell dies, age 71 | 13 |
| 2005 | first of the new series of GPS satellites launched | 13 |
| 2006 | American professional golfer John Byron Nelson, Jr. dies, age 94 | 12 |
| 2008 | American actor, film director, producer, IndyCar driver, entrepreneur, activist, and philanthropist Paul Leonard Newman dies, age 83 | 10 |
| 2008 | Swiss pilot and inventor Yves Rossy becomes the first man to cross the English Channel with his jet-powered wings | 10 |
| 2010 | American film and stage actress, visual artist, and activist Gloria Frances Stuart (born Gloria Stewart) dies in Los Angeles, age 100 | 8 |
| 2013 | Mariano Rivera pitches his last inning in Yankee Stadium—retires with the MLB record of 652 saves | 5 |
| 2014 | American astronomer and pioneer in infrared astronomy Gerald "Gerry" Neugebauer dies in Tucson, Arizona, age 82 | 4 |
| 2016 | Columbian government and Marxist rebels sign a peace accord in Cartegena ending a 52-year guerrilla war | 2 |
Dates are always somewhat ambiguous, the exact date depends on whether local time is used (and local time where) or Universal Time—for events on the surface of the Earth, local time is probably best but for an event that spans across the planet, it is not clear which local time to use!.
For events in space it is more ambiguous.
Further for dates after the original adoption of the Gregorian calendar but before it became accepted in different countries, the date given may be a Julian date or a Gregorian date depending upon where the event occurred.
And, even the year may be different since the first of the year has not always been January 1 in all countries!
The attempt is to use a date that is the one that is typically given.
| day before yesterday | yesterday | tomorrow | day after tomorrow |