1616: Sir Walter Raleigh is freed from the Tower of London after 13 years of imprisonment.
1739: Nadir Shah sacks Delhi, India and steals the jewels to the Peacock Throne.1815: After escaping imprisonment on Elba, Napoleon enters Paris with an army of about 300,000 beginning his Hundred Days Rule.
1852: Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is published.1899: At Sing Sing prison, Martha M. Place is sentence to become the first woman to be executed in the electric chair.
1904: BF Skinner is born.
1906: Ozzie Nelson is born.
1916: Albert Einstein published his general theory of relativity.
1922: The USS Langley is commissioned as the first US Navy aircraft carrier.
1922: Carl Reiner is born.
1936: Vaughan Meader is born. He was famous for his near-perfect impersonation of John F. Kennedy and he pretty much lost his job after that day in Dallas. I used to play his "The First Family" record on my college radio show all the time.1942: At Terowie, Australia, Douglas MacArthur makes his famous speech where he says, "I came out of Bataan and I shall return."
1945: Rick Berman, producer of most modern Star Trek, is born. Love him or hate him, he still was very influential.1948: John de Lancie is born. He played the evil (or perhaps just Puckish) superbeing Q on Star Trek.1952: The United States ratifies a peace treaty with Japan.
1958: Holly Hunter is born.1962: Stephen Sommers is born. He directed such popcorn flicks as The Mummy and Deep Rising.1965: LBJ sends federal troops to Alabama to protect civil rights marchers.
1969: John Lennon and Yoko Ono get married in Gibraltar.Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.