Today:
1242 – During the Battle on the Ice, Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod defeated the Teutonic Knights on the frozen Lake Peipus in present-day Estonia.
1614 – Pocahontas, the daughter of Chief Powhatan, married English colonist John Rolfe in Virginia, helping to establish a period of peace between the colonists and the Powhatan Confederacy.
1621 – The Mayflower set sail from Plymouth Colony to return to England.
1792 – U.S. President George Washington exercised the first presidential veto, rejecting a bill concerning congressional apportionment.
1879 – Chile declared war on Bolivia, starting the War of the Pacific, which later involved Peru as well.
1930 – Mohandas Gandhi defied British law by marching to the sea and making salt, initiating the Salt Satyagraha, a key episode in the Indian independence movement.
1951 – Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were sentenced to death in the United States for conspiracy to commit espionage during the Cold War.
1955 – Winston Churchill resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom due to failing health.
1976 – James Callaghan became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, succeeding Harold Wilson.
1992 – Serbian troops began besieging Sarajevo, marking the beginning of the Bosnian War.