| 1817 | | Mississippi is admitted as the 20th state. |
| 1861 | | Kentucky is admitted to the Confederate States of America. |
| 1862 | | The U.S. House of Representatives passes a bill creating the state of West Virginia. |
| 1869 | | Governor John Campbell signs the bill that grants women in Wyoming Territory the right to vote as well as hold public office. |
| 1898 | | The United States and Spain sign the Treaty of Paris, ceding Spanish possessions, including the Philippines, to the United States. |
| 1917 | | The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to the International Red Cross. |
| 1918 | | U.S. troops are called to guard Berlin as a coup is feared. |
| 1919 | | Captain Ross Smith becomes the first person to fly 11,500 miles from England to Australia. |
| 1936 | | Edward VIII abdicates to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American-born divorcee. |
| 1941 | | Japanese troops invade the Philippine island of Luzon. |
| 1941 | | The siege of Tobruk in North Africa is raised. |
| 1943 | | Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill that postpones a draft of pre-Pearl Harbor fathers. |
| 1943 | | Allied forces bomb Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. |
| 1949 | | 150,000 French troops mass at the border in Vietnam to prevent a Chinese invasion. |
| 1950 | | Dr. Ralph J. Bunche becomes the first African-American to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. |
| 1977 | | On UN Human Rights Day, the Soviet Union places 20 prominent dissidents under house arrest, cutting off telephones and threatening to break up a planned silent demonstration in Moscow's Pushkin Square. Soviet newspapers decry human rights violations elsewhere in the world. |
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