| 539BC | Babylon falls to the forces of Cyrus | 2557 |
| 1091 | estimated F4 tornado touches down in London destroying a number of buildings but killing only 2—England's first recorded tornado | 928 |
| 1346 | Battle of Neville's Cross ends with a decisive English victory over the invading Scots and the capture of King David II of Scotland | 673 |
| 1448 | Second Battle of Kosovo begins—ends with a decisive Ottoman victory over Hungary and Wallachia forces led by John Hunyadi | 571 |
| 1456 | University of Greifswald in Greifswald, Germany, founded with the approval of the Holy Roman Empire and the Pope | 563 |
| 1552 | German Lutheran theologian, wrote the preface of Copernicus's book, Andreas Osiander dies, age 53 | 467 |
| 1610 | Louis XIII is crowned King of France at age 9—will reign for 33 years | 409 |
| 1660 | nine of the regicides who signed the death warrant of Charles I are hanged, drawn, and quartered at Charing Cross | 359 |
| 1739 | Royal Charter granted by George II to Thomas Coram establishes London Foundling Hospital—world's first incorporated charity | 280 |
| 1777 | Battle of Saratoga—British General John Burgoyne surrenders his army to the revolutionary forces | 242 |
| 1835 | The Texas Rangers formally organized | 184 |
| 1836 | Russian portraitist Orest Adamovich Kiprensky dies in Rme, age 54 | 183 |
| 1849 | Polish romantic composer Frédéric François Chopin dies in Paris, age 39 | 170 |
| 1860 | first British Open Championship was played at the Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland | 159 |
| 1887 | German physicist Gustav Kirchhoff dies, age 63 | 132 |
| 1898 | icebreaker Yermak launched at Newcastle upon Tyne—first modern icebreaker designed to ride up on and crush ice | 121 |
| 1905 | the October Manifesto issued by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia in response to the 1905 revolution—precursor of first Russian constitution | 114 |
| 1910 | American abolitionist and poet Julia Ward Howe dies in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, age 91 | 109 |
| 1919 | RCA Corporation founded as the Radio Corporation of America—ceased to exist after 67 years | 100 |
| 1931 | Al Capone convicted of tax evasion, sentenced to 11 years in prison | 88 |
| 1933 | Albert Einstein arrives in U.S. as a refugee from Nazi Germany | 86 |
| 1941 | U.S. Navy destroyer USS Kearny is hit by a torpedo from U-568 before the U.S. had entered the war but survives | 78 |
| 1956 | Queen Elizabeth II officially opens Calder Hall—world's first nuclear power plant to deliver commercial quantities of electrical power | 63 |
| 1963 | French mathematician Jacques Salomon Hadamard dies in Paris, age 97 | 56 |
| 1963 | NASA announces the selection of its third astronaut group, 'The Fourteen' | 56 |
| 1964 | Prime Minister of Australia Robert Menzies formally inaugurates the artificial Lake Burley Griffin in the middle of the capital Canberra | 55 |
| 1969 | Bell Laboratories demonstrates the CCD (charge-coupled-device) it developed | 50 |
| 1976 | most penalized game in modern NFL history with 39 flags for 310 yards—Seahawks at Buccaneers | 43 |
| 1989 | 6.9 magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake near San Francisco cancels third game of World Series | 30 |
| 1998 | English actress of theatre, film, and television Joan Bogle Hickson dies in Colchester, U.K., age 92 | 21 |
| 1999 | Greek-American physicist Nicholas Constantine Metropolis dies in Los Alamos, New Mexico, age 84 | 20 |
| 2000 | American football player and the first draft pick in the history of the 49ers in 1950 Leo Joseph Nomellini dies, age 76 | 19 |
| 2001 | Israel's tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi is assassinated in a terrorist attack, age 75 | 18 |
| 2002 | American competition swimmer and diver and Olympic champion (1920) Aileen Muriel Riggin (Aileen Soule) dies in Honolulu, age 96 | 17 |
| 2002 | launch of ESA's International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) | 17 |
| 2005 | Chinese writer Li Yaotang (Ba Jin) dies in Shanghai, age 100 | 14 |
| 2006 | the population of the U.S. is estimated to have reached 300 million | 13 |
| 2009 | American author of books for children and young adults Norma Fox Mazer dies in Montpelier, Vermont, age 78 | 10 |
| 2009 | American composer for television and movies Victor Mizzy dies in Bel Air, California, age 93 | 10 |
| 2012 | American inventor and scientist Stanford Robert Ovshinsky dies, age 89 | 7 |
| 2012 | ordinary chondrite meteorite hits the roof of a home in Novato, California—fragment from a larger body, no damage | 7 |
| 2013 | American producer and a founder of Filmation Louis 'Lou" Scheimer dies in Los Angeles, age 84 | 6 |
| 2015 | French actress and film producer Gabrielle Danièle Marguerite Andrée Girard (Danièle Delorme) dies in Paris, age 89 | 4 |
| 2016 | China launches Shenzhou 11 with two astronauts to dock with Tiangong 2 space lab for a 30-day mission | 3 |
| 2016 | Orbital ATK Antares launch vehicle return to flight after two years—Cygnus cargo craft to the International Space Station | 3 |
| 2018 | recreational use of cannabis becomes legal in Canada | 1 |
| 2018 | student opens fire and sets off an explosion in a technical school in Crimea—17 killed (including gunman) and 40 others injured | 1 |
| 2018 | ringing of the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is performed by a robot, Universal Robots' UR5e | 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 |