1541 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto and his forces enter Tula territory in present-day western Arkansas, encountering fierce resistance.
1882 – Thomas Edison's first commercial hydroelectric power plant (later known as Appleton Edison Light Company) begins operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States.
1907 – McKinley National Memorial, the final resting place of assassinated U.S. President William McKinley and his family, is dedicated in Canton, Ohio.
1927 – Babe Ruth becomes the first baseball player to hit 60 home runs in a season.
1935 – The Hoover Dam, astride the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada, is dedicated.
1938 – Britain, France, Germany and Italy sign the Munich Agreement, allowing Germany to occupy the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.
1939 – NBC broadcasts the first televised American football game between the Waynesburg Yellow Jackets and the Fordham Rams. Fordham won the game 34–7.
1943 – The United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) at Kings Point, New York was dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1947 – The World Series, featuring the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers, is televised for the first time.
1949 – The Berlin Airlift ends.
1954 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Nautilus is commissioned as the world's first nuclear reactor powered vessel.
1955 – Film star James Dean dies in a road accident aged 24.
1962 – Mexican-American labor leader César Chávez founds the National Farm Workers Association, which later becomes United Farm Workers.
1962 – James Meredith enters the University of Mississippi, defying segregation.
1968 – The Boeing 747 is rolled out and shown to the public for the first time at the Boeing Everett Factory.
1972 – Roberto Clemente records the 3,000th and final hit of his career.
1977 – Because of US budget cuts and dwindling power reserves, the Apollo program's ALSEP experiment packages left on the Moon are shut down.
1980 – Ethernet specifications are published by Xerox working with Intel and Digital Equipment Corporation.
1982 – Cyanide-laced Tylenol kills six people in the Chicago area. Seven are killed in all.
1832 – Ann Jarvis, American activist, co-founded Mother's Day (d. 1905)
1861 – William Wrigley, Jr., American businessman, founded Wrigley Company (d. 1932)
1924 – Truman Capote, American author, playwright, and screenwriter (d. 1984)
1941 – Samuel F. Pickering, Jr., American author and educator
1953 – Deborah Allen, American singer-songwriter and producer
1975 – Jay Asher, American author
1981 – Dominique Moceanu, American gymnast
1770 – George Whitefield, English-American priest and theologian (b. 1714)
1955 – James Dean, American actor (b. 1931)
1978 – Edgar Bergen, American actor and ventriloquist (b. 1903)
2003 – Robert Kardashian, American lawyer and businessman (b. 1944)
2012 – Barry Commoner, American biologist, academic, and politician (b. 1917)
2017 - Monty Hall, Television Host, "Let's Make a Deal" (b. 1921)