In 1813, British troops burned Buffalo, N.Y., during the War of 1812.

In 1860, 10 days after South Carolina seceded from the Union, the state militia seized the U.S. Arsenal in Charleston.

In 1922, Vladimir Lenin proclaimed the establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which lasted nearly seven decades.

In 1942, a near-riot of bobby-soxers greeted the opening of Frank Sinatra’s singing engagement at the Paramount Theater in New York’s Times Square.

In 1965, Ferdinand Marcos was inaugurated for his first term as president of the Philippines.

In 1999, former Beatle George Harrison fought off a knife-wielding intruder who’d broken into his mansion west of London and stabbed him in the chest. (The attacker was later acquitted of attempted murder by reason of insanity.)