1494: Piero the Unfortunate of the de’ Medici family, ruler of Florence, loses power and flees the state

1799: Napoleon Bonaparte pulls off a coup and becomes the dictator of France under the title of First Consul

1980: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein declares a holy war against Iran

1989: East Berlin opens its borders at Checkpoint Charlie when thousands arrive after a bureaucratic error announces that restrictions on travel to the West have been lifted

1994: Darmstadtium, chemical element 110, is discovered at GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research near Darmstadt, Germany

1998: Brokerage houses are ordered to pay $1.03 billion to NASDAQ investors to compensate for price-fixing, the largest civil settlement in US history

2020: Drugmakers BioNTech and Pfizer announce their COVID-19 vaccine is over 90% effective in a first look at the results from their phase 3 trial involving nearly 44,000 people

Source: Onthisday.com