1460 University of Basel founded in Swiss Confederacy (now Switzerland)

1581 Francis Drake, world explorer, knighted by Queen Elizabeth I aboard his galleon "Golden Hind" at Deptford, England

1655 The miraculous statue entitled the Infant of Prague is solemnly crowned by command of Cardinal Harrach

1687 English King James II publishes his Declaration of Indulgence, a step towards establishing freedom of religion in the British Isles

1789 First US Congress begins regular sessions during George Washington's presidency at Federal Hall, NYC (ends 1791)

1814 An officer mutiny forces French Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte to abdicate for the first time in flavor of his son, who is not accepted by the Allies occupying Paris

1818 Congress decides on the US flag: 13 red & white stripes & 20 stars

1828 Casparus van Wooden patents chocolate milk powder in Amsterdam

1841 Vice President John Tyler becomes the 10th President of the United States after the death of President William Henry Harrison

1850 City of Los Angeles incorporated

1866 Ashmun Institute, in Oxford, Pennsylvania, is renamed Lincoln University

1870 Golden Gate Park forms by City Order #800

1887 Susanna Madora Salter elected 1st US woman mayor in Argonia, Kansas

1896 Announcement of the discovery of gold in the Yukon

1902 Cecil Rhodes scholarship fund forms with $10 million

1905 Earthquake in Kangra India, kills 20,000

1912 Chinese republic proclaimed in Tibet

1917 US Senate agrees (82-6) to participate in WWI

1932 Charles G. King, University of Pittsburgh isolates Vitamin C, using adrenal samples provided by Hungarian Albert Szent-Györgyi

1933 USS Akron dirigible crashes into Atlantic Ocean, off coast of New Jersey, in stormy weather; 73 die including US Navy Rear Admiral William A. Moffett - a major proponent of the airship fleet, there were 3 survivors

1943 WWII: US Army Air Force bomber 'Lady Be Good' fails to return to Soluch, Libya base after its maiden flight; presumed lost at sea, wreck was discovered in desert 15 years later

1947 Convention on International Civil Aviation goes into effect

1947 Largest group of sunspots on record

1947 UN's International Civil Aviation Organization forms

1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) treaty signed in Washington, D.C.

1960 SETI Project Ozma begins at the Green Bank, WV, radio astronomy center

1968 Apollo 6 launched atop Saturn V; unmanned

1968 US civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee

1968 Riots break out in over 100 cities in the United States following the assassination of African-American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.

1969 Haskell Karp receives the 1st temporary artificial heart, implanted by surgeon Denton Cooley at Texas Heart Institute in Houston

1972 1st electric power plant fueled by garbage begins operating

1973 World Trade Center, then the world's tallest building, opens in New York (110 stories). Later destroyed in 9/11 terrorist attacks.

1975 Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800

1981 Henry Cisneros becomes 1st Mexican-American mayor (San Antonio)

1983 6th NASA Space Shuttle Mission: Challenger 1 launches

1991 Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania and six others are killed when a helicopter collides with their plane over an elementary school in Merion, Pennsylvania.

1994 Netscape Communications founded as Mosaic Communications

1997 STS 83 (Columbia 22), launches

1999 Jack Ma founds Chinese internet company Alibaba

2010 Africa's tallest monument, the African Renaissance Monument, dedicated outside Dakar, Senegal, designed by Pierre Goudiaby to commemorate Senegal's 50th anniversary of independence

2013 Poecilotheria rajaei, a giant tarantula with a 20cm leg span, is discovered in Sri Lanka

2014 President of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, claims that climate change will lead to battles over water and food within the next five to ten years

2017 Alibaba becomes the world's largest retailer according to US Securities and Exchange Commission

2017 Pink Star diamond sets world record price of $71 million for a gem at an action in Hong Kong

2022 Eon Musk buys 9.2% of Twitter stock, making him the company's largest shareholder

2023 Finland officially joins NATO at a ceremony in Brussels, becoming its 31st member and doubling NATO's border with Russia