On this day in 1899, German pharmaceutical company Bayer registered "Aspirin" as a trademark.
On this day in 1947, the Kaohsiung Massacre began in the southern Taiwan city of Taihoku (today known as Kaohsiung), following the 228 Incident. The crackdown would result in the deaths of some 2,700 citizens, in what would later become known as the “White Terror.”
On this day in 1957, Ghana became the first Sub-Saharan country to gain independence from the British.
On this day in 1967, Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defected to the United States.
And on this day in 2006, Taiwanese director Ang Lee became the first person of Asian descent to win the Academy Award for best director for his work on the gay cowboy love story "Brokeback Mountain".