962: Under future Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas, Byzantine troops storm the city of Aleppo and recover the tattered tunic of John the Baptist during the Byzantine-Arab Wars

1688: King James II, the last Roman Catholic British monarch flees to France from William of Orange

1783: US General George Washington resigns his military commission as Commander-in-Chief of the Army to Congress

1888: Vincent van Gogh cuts off his left ear with a razor, after argument with fellow painter Paul Gauguin, and sends to a female courtesan for safe keeping

1913: US President Woodrow Wilson signs Federal Reserve Act into law – creates the central banking Federal Reserve System

1920: Government of Ireland Act / Home Rule Act passes, partitioning Ireland

1954: First human kidney transplant is performed by Dr. Joseph E. Murray at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts

1968: Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders become the first people to orbit the Moon aboard Apollo 8

Source: Onthisday.com