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- 1881 - The whaler Rodgers is destroyed by a fire at St. Lawrence Bay on the Siberian coast. . Before the fire, Rodgers had charted Wrangel Island, proving conclusively that it was not part of the Asian continent.
- 1912 - Lt. Theodore G. Ellyson, the first U.S. Navy officer to qualify as an airplane pilot, tests the Navys first C-1 flying boat at Hammondsport, N.Y.
- 1942 - USS Northampton (CA 26) is sunk and USS Pensacola (CA 24), USS New Orleans (CA 32), and USS Minneapolis (CA 36) are badly damaged by a Japanese torpedo counter-attack during the Battle of Tassafaronga at Guadalcanal.
- 1943 - PBY aircraft sink the Palau-bound Japanese cargo ship Himalaya Maru south of New Hanover, Bismarck Archipelago.
- 1993 - President William J. Clinton signs legislation that lifts the ban on women serving aboard combat ships.
- 2001 - The Battle of Tora Bora begins when naval reconnaissance aircraft spot Taliban troops fleeing toward Tora Bora, a summit that rises from the Spin Ghar Mountains about 35 miles southwest of Jalalibad, Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden had lavished gifts among the local Suleiman Khel tribesmen who thus sheltered the fugitive and his followers.