On this day in 1937, while landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, on its first transatlantic crossing of the year, the German dirigible Hindenburg burst into flames and was destroyed, killing 36 of the 97 persons aboard.
| 1954: | | Roger Bannister of Britain became the first athlete to run a mile in less than four minutes. |
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| 1942: | | The American garrison on Corregidor Island, under the command of General Jonathan M. Wainwright, surrendered to Japanese invaders after a 27-day standoff during World War II. |
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| 1931: | | | American baseball star Willie Mays was born in Westfield, Alabama. |
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| 1915: | | American motion-picture actor and director Orson Welles was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin. |
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| 1856: | | | Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, was born in Freiberg, Moravia, Austrian Empire (now Príbor, Czech Republic). |
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| 1840: | | The “penny black” stamp, issued in Great Britain, went into circulation as the first prepaid postage stamp in history. |
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