In 1892, opening ceremonies were held for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, though the fair itself did not open until May 1893. In 1940, Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls was first published. In 1959, the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum opened in New York City. In 1967, following a peaceful demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial, thousands of antiwar protesters marched to the Pentagon, resulting in hundreds of arrests. In 1983, the meter was redefined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458th of a second.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), poet/essayist; Alfred Nobel (1833-96), explosives manufacturer; "Dizzy" Gillespie (1917-93), jazz musician; Celia Cruz (1925-2003), singer; "Whitey" Ford (1928- ), baseball player; Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018), novelist; Judith "Judge Judy" Sheindlin (1942- ), TV personality; Benjamin Netanyahu (1949- ), Israeli politician; Carrie Fisher (1956-2016), actress/writer; Kim Kardashian (1980- ), TV personality; Zack Greinke (1983- ), baseball player; Aaron Tveit (1983- ), actor

In 1975, Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk hit a home run that glanced off the foul pole at Fenway in Boston, giving the Red Sox a 12th-inning victory over the Cincinnati Reds in World Series Game 6.

Of the seven fundamental units of measure in the International System, only the kilogram is defined by a specific physical object: it is the mass of a platinum-iridium bar kept by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in France.

"The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next." – Ursula K. Le Guin