| 404BC | Spartan forces led by Lysander defeat Athens bringing the Peloponnesian War to an end | 2421 |
| 1507 | Martin Waldseemüller produces a globe and map of the Earth being the first to bear the name 'America' | 511 |
| 1599 | English military and political leader Oliver Cromwell born in Huntingdon, England | 419 |
| 1607 | Dutch fleet under admiral Jacob van Heemskerk deals the Spanish navy a major defeat in the Battle of Gibraltar | 411 |
| 1672 | reflecting telescope design attributed to Laurent Cassegrain is published —now called the Cassegrain reflector | 346 |
| 1690 | Flemish artist David Teniers the Younger dies in Brussels, age 79 | 328 |
| 1707 | Spanish-French army defeats forces of England, Portugal, and Dutch in the Battle of Almansa in Spain | 311 |
| 1744 | Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius dies in Uppsala, Sweden, age 42 | 274 |
| 1782 | Anne Bonney is buried after dying a natural death, age 80, 60 years after being captured as a pirate companion to Calico Jack | 236 |
| 1792 | highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier is first person to executed by the newly invented guillotine | 226 |
| 1792 | La Marseillaise is composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle—adopted as French national anthem in 1795 | 226 |
| 1800 | English poet William Cowper dies, age 68 | 218 |
| 1840 | French mathematician and physicist Siméon Denis Poisson dies, age 58 | 178 |
| 1846 | Thornton Affair—open conflict begins over the disputed border of Texas, triggering the Mexican-American War | 172 |
| 1848 | Irish astronomer Andrew Graham discovers Metis, 9th known asteroid | 170 |
| 1849 | birth of German mathematician Christian Felix Klein | 169 |
| 1859 | British and French engineers begin construction on the Suez Canal | 159 |
| 1874 | Guglielmo Marconi, inventor, born | 144 |
| 1876 | Chicago Cubs (as White Stockings) play their first game—beat Louisville 4-0 | 142 |
| 1878 | English novelist Anna Mary Sewell dies in Norfolk, England, age 58 | 140 |
| 1898 | U.S. declares war on Spain to initiate the Spanish-American War | 120 |
| 1900 | physicist Wolfgang Pauli born | 118 |
| 1901 | New York State requires first automobile license plates | 117 |
| 1915 | Allied forces land on the Ottoman held Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey | 103 |
| 1916 | first Anzac Day observed—national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand for those who served and died in all wars | 102 |
| 1944 | United Negro College Fund is incorporated by Frederick D. Patterson | 74 |
| 1953 | Nature publishes paper by James Watson and Francis Crick describing the double helix nature of DNA | 65 |
| 1960 | USS Triton completes first submerged circumnavigation of the earth | 58 |
| 1990 | Violeta Chamorro takes office as the President of Nicaragua—first woman to hold the position | 28 |
| 2000 | French mathematician Lucien Marie Le Cam dies in Berkeley, California, age 75 | 18 |
| 2000 | American theatrical producer David Merrick (born David Lee Margulois) dies in London, age 88 | 18 |
| 2002 | British-South African entrepreneur Mark Richard Shuttleworth becomes the second space tourist with launch of Soyuz TM-34 | 16 |
| 2003 | Human Genome Project announces completion of the mapping of the human genome | 15 |
| 2004 | March for Women's Lives protesting restrictions on abortion brings 800,000 to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. | 14 |
| 2005 | final section of the Obelisk of Axum is returned to Ethiopia after being stolen by the invading Italian army in 1937 | 13 |
| 2010 | English writer Alan Sillitoe dies in London, age 82 | 8 |
| 2014 | German Jewish writer and journalist Stefanie Zweig dies in Frankfurt, Germany, age 81 | 4 |
| 2015 | 7.8 earthquake centered near Katmandu, Nepal kills over 9000 and injures more than 23,000 | 3 |
| 2016 | French satellite Microscope to test General Relativity is launched from French Guiana using a Soyuz | 2 |
| 2017 | Nasdaq closes above 6,000 for the first time | 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 |