• 25 – Guangwu claimed the throne as emperor of the Han dynasty after Wang Mang, who had seized the throne himself and proclaimed the Xin dynasty, died when peasant rebels besieged Chang'an.


• 1620 – The Mayflower departs from Southampton, England on its first attempt to reach North America.

The Mayflower was the ship that transported the first English Separatists, known today as the Pilgrims, from Plymouth to the New World in 1620.  

• 1729 – Death day of Thomas Newcomen, English engineer, invented the Newcomen atmospheric engine (Birth on 1664)

• 1772 – Russia, Prussia and Habsburg Austria began the First Partition of Poland to help restore the regional balance of power in Eastern Europe among those three countries.

• 1888 – Bertha Benz made the first long-distance automobile trip, going 106 km (66 mi) from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany, in a Benz Patent-Motorwagen, returning the next day.  Commemorated as the Bertha Benz Memorial Route since 2008.