- 840: death of Louis the Pious, emperor, King of the Franks
- 1638: at the Battle of Kallo, the Austrian forces defeated the Dutch troops near Antwerp during the Eighty Years' War
- 1966: death of Georges Lemaître, astronomer, originator of the Big Bang theory
- 1980: death of Jijé, comics artist of Spirou et Fantasio, father of the Marcinelle school
