43 BC: Roman orator and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero is assassinated in Formiae by soldiers under the command of Mark Antony

1909: Inventor Leo Baekeland patents the first thermosetting plastic, Bakelite, sparking the birth of the plastics industry

1941: The Imperial Japanese Navy, with 353 planes, attacks the US fleet at Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Hawaii, killing 2,403 people

1965: Roman Catholic Pope Paul VI and Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras I simultaneously lift the mutual excommunications that led to the split of the two churches in 1054 during the Great Schism

1988: A 6.9 magnitude earthquake in Spitak, Armenia, kills 25,000 to 50,000 people and leaves up to 500,000 homeless

1988: PLO delegation led by Yasser Arafat proclaims the State of Palestine and recognizes the existence of the State of Israel for the first time

2022: After widespread public protests, China announces a major loosening of COVID-19 restrictions for the entire country, allowing home quarantine and scrapping QR codes, effectively ending China’s zero-COVID policy

Source: Onthisday.com