1405 –
Chinese explorer Zheng He led a massive fleet of 317 ships from Suzhou on a trade mission to India.

1833 – Noongar warrior Yagan, wanted for leading attacks on white colonists in Western Australia, was killed, becoming a symbol of the unjust and sometimes brutal treatment of the indigenous peoples of Australia by colonial settlers.

1940 – French World War I hero Philippe Pétain (pictured) became Chief of State of Vichy France.

1943 – In a massive ethnic cleansing operation, units of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army attacked various Polish villages in the Volhynia region of present-day Ukraine, killing the Polish civilians and burning those settlements to the ground.

1978 – A tanker truck loaded with 23 tons of highly flammable liquid propylene caught fire and exploded in Alcanar, Spain, killing 217 people and severely burning 200 others