| 871 | Æthelred of Wessex is defeated by the Vikings in the Battle of Marton | 1148 |
| 1394 | birth of Persian astronomer, mathematician and sultan Ulugh Beg in Sultaniyeh, Timurid Empire | 625 |
| 1442 | Battle of Hermannstadt near Szeban, KIngdom of Hungary ends with a Hungarian victory over the Ottoman Empire | 577 |
| 1508 | Ferdinand II of Aragon commissions Amerigo Vespucci chief navigator of the Spanish Empire | 511 |
| 1599 | Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck born in Antwerp | 420 |
| 1615 | British scientist Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh born in Youghal, Ireland | 404 |
| 1621 | Plymouth Colony signs a peace treaty with Massasoit of the Wampanoags | 398 |
| 1622 | Jamestown Massacre—Indians attack settlers and kill 347, a fourth of the population | 397 |
| 1638 | Anne Hutchinson expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony for religious dissent | 381 |
| 1713 | Fort Neoheroka of the Tuscarora in North Carolina is taken by colonial forces after a three-week seige—950 killed or enslaved | 306 |
| 1739 | Persian Nadir Shah occupies Delhi in India and sacks the city | 280 |
| 1761 | French physician Pierre Fauchard, father of modern dentistry, dies in Paris, age about 83 | 258 |
| 1765 | British Parliment passes the Stamp Act—a tax directed toward the American colonies | 254 |
| 1784 | the Emerald Buddha is moved with great ceremony to its current location in Wat Phra Kaew, Thailand | 235 |
| 1806 | Lewis and Clark's Corp of Discovery begins the return journey back to the U.S. | 213 |
| 1832 | German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe dies, age 82 | 187 |
| 1868 | American physicist and Nobel laureate Robert Andrews Millikan born in Morrison, Illinois | 151 |
| 1871 | William Woods Holden, governor of North Carolina, becomes the first governor of a U.S. state to be removed from office by impeachment | 148 |
| 1894 | Stanley Cup first awarded | 125 |
| 1941 | Grand Coulee Dam begins to generate electricity | 78 |
| 1945 | League of Arab States is formed in Cairo with six country members | 74 |
| 1960 | Arthur Leonard Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes are awarded the first patent for a laser | 59 |
| 1963 | Beatles first album Please Please Me is released in the U.K. | 56 |
| 1993 | Intel ships the first Pentium chips | 26 |
| 1994 | American cartoonist, animator, film producer, and director Walter Benjamin Lantz dies in Burbank, California, age 94 | 25 |
| 1995 | Valeri Polyakov returns to earth after a single-mission record of 438 days in space | 24 |
| 1995 | Yelena Vladimirovna Kondakova lands after a five-month stay at the Mir with the women's record in space of 178 days | 24 |
| 1996 | American astronaut Shannon Lucid launches to Mir—only woman long-duration crew member of Mir | 23 |
| 1997 | Tara Lipinski, age 14 years and 10 months, becomes the youngest women's World Figure Skating Champion | 22 |
| 2001 | American animator, director, producer, voice actor, and cartoon artist William Denby "Bill" Hanna dies in Los Angeles, age 90 | 18 |
| 2004 | Turkish-American astronomer and a director of the American Association of Variable Star Observers Janet Akyüz Mattei dies, age 61 | 15 |
| Paxton's birthday | ||
| 2010 | last communication received from Spirit—sol 2210 | 9 |
| 2010 | Scottish physician and pharmacologist and Nobel laureate (Medicine, 1988) James Whyte Black dies in London, age 85 | 9 |
| 2012 | American computer scientist David Leigh Waltz dies in Princeton, New Jersey, age 68 | 7 |
| 2013 | fire at the Ban Mae Surin refugee camp in Thailand, kills 37 Karen refugees, injures 200 others, and destroys hundreds of huts | 6 |
| 2014 | Dodgers beat Diamondbacks 3-1 in Sydney, Australia—first MLB opening day game in Australia | 5 |
| 2014 | massive mudslide engulfs dozens of homes near Oso, Washington—over 30 perish | 5 |
| 2014 | boat traveling on Africa's Lake Albert carrying people from the Kyangwali refugee settlement capsizes—251 people die | 5 |
| 2016 | second of the twin pair of comets 252P/LINEAR and P/2016 BA14 in similar orbits makes its closest approach to Earth—2.2 million miles | 3 |
| 2016 | three suicide terrorist bombs in the Brussels' airport and subway kill 35 and injure over 330 others | 3 |
| 2017 | Edicule that by tradition houses Jesus' tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem reopens after a year-long restoration | 2 |
| 2017 | attacker drives a car into pedestrians along the side of Westminster Bridge in London—6 die and 49 others injured | 2 |
| 2018 | Dutch school director who was instrumental in saving over 600 Jewish children during WWII Johan van Hulst dies, age 107 | 1 |
| 2018 | Humanity Star launched by Rocket Lab's first orbital launch burns up in Earth's atmosphere after two months | 1 |
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 |