1974 – In an informal article in a medical journal, Henry Heimlich introduced the concept of abdominal thrusts, commonly known as the Heimlich maneuver, to treat victims of choking.
1982 – A failed assassination attempt was made on Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom, which event was later used as justification for the First Lebanon War.
1784 – Élisabeth Thible became the first woman to fly in an untethered hot air balloon, covering a distance of 4 km (2.5 mi) and reaching an estimated altitude of 1,500 m (4,900 ft).
1897 – The Ancient Temples and Shrines Preservation Law was passed, instituting the protection of structures and artifacts in Japan designated National Treasures.
1914 – Around 2,000 members of European society attended a ball at Kenwood House, England, in one of the last major social events before the outbreak of the First World War.
1881 – The Jeannette expedition to reach the North Pole from the Pacific Ocean via the Bering Strait came to an end when the USS Jeannette(pictured) was finally crushed and sank after having been trapped in ice for almost two years.
1904 – Irish author James Joyce(pictured) began a relationship with Nora Barnacle, and subsequently used the date to set the actions for his 1922 novel Ulysses, commemorated as Bloomsday.
2002 – A magnitude-6.5 earthquake struck northwestern Iran, killing at least 230 people and injuring 1,300 others; the official response, perceived to be slow, later caused widespread public anger.
1594 – Anglo-Spanish War: During the Action of Faial, an English attempt to capture a Portuguese carrack, reputedly one of the richest ever to set sail from the Indies, caused it to explode with all the treasure lost.
1374 – An outbreak of dancing mania, in which crowds of people danced themselves to exhaustion, began in Aachen (in present-day Germany) before spreading to other parts of Europe.
1989 – President Slobodan Milošević gave a speech at Gazimestan in which he described the possibility of "armed battles" in the future of Serbia's national development.
1889 – Hyde Park and several other Illinois townships voted to be annexed by Chicago, forming the largest city by area in the United States and the second-largest by population.