HISTORY TODAY

 1659 – Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Maratha King kills Afzal Khan, Adilshahi in the battle popularly known as Battle of Pratapgarh.

 1945 – Heavy fighting in Surabaya between Indonesian nationalists and returning colonialists after World War II, today celebrated as Heroes’ Day (Hari Pahlawan).

 1951 – With the rollout of the North American Numbering Plan, direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone service begins in the United States.

 1979 – A 106-car Canadian Pacific freight train car- rying explosive and poisonous chemicals from Windsor, Ontario, Canada derails in Mississauga, Ontario, just west of Toronto, causing a massive explosion and the largest peacetime evacuation in Canadian history and one of the largest in North American history.

 1983 – Bill Gates introduces Windows 1.0.

 1989 – Germans begin to tear down the Berlin Wall.

 2006 – Sri Lankan Tamil politician Nadarajah Raviraj is assassinated in Colombo.

 2008 – Over five months after landing on Mars, NASA declares the Phoenix mission concluded after communications with the lander were lost.