3316 (444 B.C.E.):
The rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, which had been in ruins since the destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians, was completed under the leadership of Nechemia (Nechemia 6:15).
3862 (102 CE):
Yahrzeit of Rabbi Elazar, Tanna and son of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.
1852:
Birthday of Henri Moissan, chemist who discovered the element fluorine, invented a furnace for vaporizing metals, devised an economical method for producing acetylene gas, and won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1906.
1901:
Birthday of William Paley, American businessman, primarily involved in the media, and best known as the chief executive who built the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) from a small radio station into one of the foremost radio and television networks in America.
1910:
Birthday of Ángel Briz, Spanish diplomat known as "the angel of Budapest." He initially received authorization to provide papers to 200 Jews, but he and his assistants continued, issuing fake Spanish papers to 5,200 Jews between June and December 1944, saving them from deportation to Auschwitz and certain death. On October 18, 1966, Yad Vashem recognized Angel Briz as a Righteous Among the Nations.
1937:
Joseph Friedman, an American inventor with a broad range of interests and ideas, was issued a patent for his new invention of the flexible drinking straw. Friedman attempted to sell his straw patent to several existing straw manufacturers beginning in 1937 without success, so he established The Flexible Straw Corporation and built his own machine to produce the straws.
1941:
Thirty-three thousand, seven hundred and seventy one Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis in a ravine outside of Kiev, Russia. The two day massacre is immortalized in Yevgeni Yevtushenko's poem Babi Yar.
“No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A drop, sheer as the crudest gravestone.
I am afraid.
Today, I am as old
As the entire Jewish race itself…”
1954:
The crew of the Israeli freighter Bat Galim was arrested on the false accusation of firing at Egyptian fishermen at the entrance to the Suez Canal and their cargo was confiscated.