The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established, with its capital in Moscow. 1922.
José Rizal—a physician, man of letters, and leading spokesman of the Philippine reform movement—was publicly executed by the Spanish rulers of the country, enraging and uniting Filipinos. He had been convicted of sedition after an insurrection in the Philippines in which he had no direct role. 1896.
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and Percy Bysshe Shelley married, two years after they had eloped to France while Shelley was still married. She would publish Frankenstein about a year later, and her poet husband would drown six years later. 1816.
During the Maratha Wars, the Maratha chief Daulat Rao Sindhia signed the Treaty of Surji-Arjungaon, ceding political power and territory in India to the British. 1803.
The United States acquired nearly 30,000 square miles (78,000 square km) of northern Mexican territory with the signing of the Gadsden Purchase. 1853.
LeBron James, one of the greatest all-around basketball players of all time, was born in Akron, Ohio. 1984.
