1520 – Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés fight their way out of Tenochtitlan.
1794 – Native American forces under Blue Jacket attack Fort Recovery.
1805 – The U.S. Congress organizes the Michigan Territory.
1859 – French acrobat Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope.
1864 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln grants Yosemite Valley to California for "public use, resort and recreation".
1882 – Charles J. Guiteau is hanged in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of U.S. President James Garfield.
1892 – The Homestead Strike begins near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
1905 – Albert Einstein sends the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduces special relativity, for publication in Annalen der Physik.
1906 – The United States Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act.
1921 – U.S. President Warren G. Harding appoints former President William Howard Taft Chief Justice of the United States.
1922 – In Washington D.C., U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Dominican Ambassador Francisco J. Peynado sign the Hughes–Peynado agreement, which ends the United States occupation of the Dominican Republic.
1934 – The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, takes place.
1944 – World War II: The Battle of Cherbourg ends with the fall of the strategically valuable port to American forces.
1953 – The first Chevrolet Corvette rolls off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan.
1956 – A TWA Super Constellation and a United Airlines DC-7 collide above the Grand Canyon in Arizona and crash, killing all 128 on board both airliners.
1959 – A United States Air Force F-100 Super Sabre from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, crashes into a nearby elementary school, killing 11 students plus six residents from the local neighborhood.
1966 – The National Organization for Women, the United States' largest feminist organization, is founded.
1971 – Ohio ratifies the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, reducing the voting age to 18, thereby putting the amendment into effect.
1972 – The first leap second is added to the UTC time system.
1985 – Thirty-nine American hostages from the hijacked TWA Flight 847 are freed in Beirut after being held for 17 days.
1986 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Bowers v. Hardwick that states can outlaw homosexual acts between consenting adults.
2013 – 19 firefighters die controlling a wildfire in Yarnell, Arizona.
1891 – Man Mountain Dean, American wrestler and sergeant (d. 1953)
1891 – Ed Lewis, American wrestler and manager (d. 1966)
1895 – Heinz Warneke, German-American sculptor and educator (d. 1983)
1917 – Lena Horne, American actress, singer, and dancer (d. 2010)
1919 – Ed Yost, American inventor, invented the hot air balloon (d. 2007)
1934 – Harry Blackstone, Jr., American magician and author (d. 1997)
1938 – Billy Mills, American runner
1942 – Robert Ballard, American lieutenant and oceanographer
1943 – Florence Ballard, American singer (The Supremes) (d. 1976)
1944 – Ron Swoboda, American baseball player and sportscaster
1966 – Mike Tyson, American boxer and actor
1985 – Michael Phelps, American swimmer
1986 – Allegra Versace, Italian-American businesswoman
1882 – Charles J. Guiteau, American preacher and lawyer, assassin of James A. Garfield (b. 1841)
1890 – Samuel Parkman Tuckerman, American organist and composer (b. 1819)
1899 – E. D. E. N. Southworth, American author (b. 1819)
2001 – Chet Atkins, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (b. 1924)
2001 – Joe Henderson, American saxophonist and composer (b. 1937)
2003 – Buddy Hackett, American actor and singer (b. 1924)