1959: Power in Cuba seized by Fidel Castro.
After defeating the forces of dictator General Fulgencio Batista, Fidel Castro became premier of Cuba this day in 1959 and transformed the island country into the Western Hemisphere's first communist state.
| 1959: | | American tennis player John McEnroe was born in West Germany. |
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| 1949: | | The first Knesset (Hebrew: “Assembly”), the unicameral parliament of Israel and supreme authority of that state, opened in Jerusalem. |
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| 1945: | | American paratroopers landed on Corregidor Island in the Philippines during World War II, and within two weeks they recaptured it from the Japanese. |
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| 1938: | | Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg admitted an Austrian Nazi to his cabinet, believed to be the first step in the German overthrow of his government. |
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| 1937: | | | DuPont chemist Wallace Hume Carothers patented nylon. |
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| 1918: | | The 20-member Taryba (council) of Lithuanian delegates proclaimed their country an independent state. |
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| 1903: | | | American ventriloquist and radio comedian Edgar Bergen was born in Chicago. |
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| 1620: | | | Frederick William, the Great Elector of Brandenburg in 1640–88, who restored the Hohenzollern dominions after the devastations of the Thirty Years' War, was born. |
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