• 1043 – Edward the Confessor was crowned King of England, the last king of the House of Wessex.
• 1895 – The libel trial instigated by Irish author Oscar
Wilde began, eventually resulting in Wilde's arrest, trial and imprisonment on
charges of gross indecency.
• 1922 – Joseph Stalin became the first General Secretary of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
• 1946 – Imperial Japanese Army officer Masaharu Homma was
executed for war crimes relating to the Bataan Death March.