1633: Battle of Liaoluo Bay: Dutch East India Company is defeated by Chinese Ming naval forces in the southern Fujian Sea

1721: Tsar Peter the Great titles himself “Emperor of All Russia”

1879: Thomas Edison perfects the carbonized cotton filament light bulb

1884: International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C. adopts Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) worldwide and creates 24 international time zones with longitude zero at the Greenwich Meridian

1907: A run on Knickerbocker Trust Company stock leads to a nationwide run on US banks and the Panic of 1907

1962: US President John F. Kennedy makes a live television address about Soviet missile bases in Cuba and imposes a naval blockade on Cuba, beginning the Cuban Missile Crisis

Source: Onthisday.com