Having survived capture by Indians (reputedly through the efforts of Pocahontas, a chief's daughter), John Smith became president of Jamestown colony, the first permanent English settlement in North America, this day in 1608.
| 1988: | | By winning the U.S. Open, Steffi Graf completed the grand slam of tennis; she was the first woman to accomplish the feat since Margaret Court in 1970. |
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| 1974: | | | Guinea-Bissau gained independence from Portugal. |
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| 1919: | | Austria and the Allied powers signed the Treaty of Saint-Germain, concluding World War I. |
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| 1894: | | The United Daughters of the Confederacy, an American women's patriotic society, was founded in Nashville, Tennessee. |
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| 1813: | | U.S. naval forces under the command of Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. |
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| 1721: | | The Second Northern War (1700–21) was concluded by the Peace of Nystad. |
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| 1651: | | Japanese rebel Yui Shosetsu committed suicide after the failure of his plot against the Tokugawa shogunate. |
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| 1419: | | John the Fearless, second duke of Burgundy, was killed during a meeting with the future king Charles VII at Montereau, France. |
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| 422: | | Celestine I was elected to succeed Boniface I as pope. |
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