1494: Spain and Portugal divided the new lands they had discovered between themselves.
1498: Christopher Columbus left on his third voyage of exploration.
1546: Peace of Ardes ended the war between France and England.
1654: Louis XIV was crowned king of France.
1712: The Pennsylvania Assembly banned the importation of slaves.
1775: The United Colonies changed their name to the United States.
1776: Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed to the Continental Congress a resolution calling for a Declaration of Independence.
1863: Mexico City was captured by French troops.
1892: J.F. Palmer patented the cord bicycle tire.
1892: John Joseph Doyle became the first pinch-hitter in baseball when he was used in a game.
1900: Boxer rebels cut the rail links between Peking and Tientsin in China.
1903: Professor Pierre Curie revealed the discovery of Polonium.
1909: Mary Pickford made her motion picture debut in "The Violin Maker of Cremona."
1929: The sovereign state of Vatican City came into existence as copies of the Lateran Treaty were exchanged in Rome.
1932: Over 7,000 war veterans marched on Washington, DC, demanding their bonuses.
1935: Pierre Laval received emergency powers to save the franc.
1937: The cover of "LIFE" magazine showed the latest in campus fashions of the times, which included saddle shoes.
1939: King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, arrived in the U.S. It was the first visit to the U.S. by a reigning British monarch.
1942: The Battle of Midway ended. The sea and air battle lasted 4 days. Japan lost four carriers, a cruiser, and 292 aircraft, and suffered 2,500 casualties. The U.S. lost the Yorktown, the destroyer USS Hammann, 145 aircraft, and suffered 307 casualties.
1942: Japan landed troops on the islands of Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians. The U.S. invaded and recaptured the Alutians one year later.
1944: Off of the coast of Normandy, France, the Susan B. Anthony sank. All 2,689 people aboard survived.
1948: The Communists completed their takeover of Czechoslovakia.
1955: "The $64,000 Question" premiered.
1966: Sony Corporation unveiled its brand new consumer home videotape recorder. The black and white only unit sold for $995.
1965: In the U.S., the Gemini 4 mission was completed. The mission featured the first spacewalk by an American.
1968: In Operation Swift Saber, U.S. Marines swept an area 10 miles northwest of Danang in South Vietnam.
1976: "The NBC Nightly News", with John Chancellor and David Brinkley, aired for the first time.
1981: Israeli F-16 fighter-bombers destroyed Iraq’s only nuclear reactor.
1993: Woody Allen lost his custody battle against Mia Farrow.
1994: The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia declared the RMS Titanic, Inc. (RMST) salvor-in-possession of the wreck and the wreck site of the RMS Titanic.
1998: James Byrd Jr., at age 49, was murdered in Jasper, TX. Byrd had been dragged to death behind a pickup truck. On February 25, 1999 William King was sentenced to the death penalty for the racial crime while two other men charged awaited trial.
2000: U.S. Federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered the breakup of Microsoft Corporation.
2002: Michael Skakel was convicted of beating his neighbor Martha Moxley to death in 1975. The two were 15 years old at the time.