- 1646 – Birth of polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, one of the inventors of calculus
- 1742 – Birth of physicist and aphorist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
- 1784 – Death of composer Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
- 1972 – Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe and Holger Meins of the Red Army Faction are captured in Frankfurt after a shootout with the police
- 1990 – Currency union between East and West Germany: the Mark der DDR is replaced by the Deutsche Mark