1521 – Ferdinand Magellan, reached the island of Homonhon, in the Philippines, with 150 crew. Members of his expedition became the first Spaniards to reach the Philippine archipelago, but were not the first Europeans. He landed with three small ships, Concepcion, Trinidad and Victoria and called the place the Arcigelago de San Lazaro since it was the feast day of Saint Lazarus of Bethany.
1945 – Ninety percent of Würzburg, Germany is destroyed in only 20 minutes by British bombers. 5,000 are killed.
1950 – Communist Czechoslovakia's ministry of foreign affairs asks nuncios of Vatican to leave the country.
1958 – The Ford Motor Company produces its 50 millionth automobile, the Thunderbird, averaging almost a million cars a year since the company's founding.
1978 – Former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro is kidnapped and later killed by his captors.
1978 – Supertanker Amoco Cadiz splits in two after running aground on the Portsall Rocks, three miles off the coast of Brittany, resulting in the largest oil spill in history at that time.
1995 – Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment was officially ratified in 1865.