1797 – “Old Ironsides,” the U.S. Navy frigate Constitution, was launched in Boston’s harbor.

1805 – The Battle of Trafalgar occurred off the coast of Spain. The British defeated the French and Spanish fleet.

1849 – The first tattooed man, James F. O’onnell, was put on exhibition at the Franklin Theatre in New York City, NY.

1865 – George William Gordon,a Jamaican national hero,is unfairly arrested and sentenced to death blackfacts.com

1872 – John H Conyers, The first African American to enter the US Naval Academy Blackfacts.com

1879 – Thomas Edison invented the electric incandescent lamp. It would last 13 1/2 hours before it would burn out.

1917 – The first U.S. soldiers entered combat during World War I near Nancy, France.

1918 – Margaret Owen set a typing speed record of 170 words per minute on a manual typewriter.

1925 – The photoelectric cell was first demonstrated at the Electric Show in New York City, NY.

1925 – The U.S. Treasury Department announced that it had fined 29,620 people for prohibition (of alcohol) violations.

1927 – In New York City, construction began on the George Washington Bridge.

1944 – During World War II, the German city of Aachen was captured by U.S. troops.

1945 – Women in France were allowed to vote for the first time.

1950 – Chinese forces invaded Tibet.

1959 – The Guggenheim Museum was opened to the public in New York. The building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

1967 – Thousands of demonstrators marched in Washington, DC, in opposition to the Vietnam War.

1980 – Valerie Thomas invented the illusion transmitter. BlackFacts.com

1983 – The Pentagon reported that 2,000 Marines were headed to Grenada to protect and evacuate Americans living there.

1986 – The U.S. ordered 55 Soviet diplomats to leave. The action was in reaction to the Soviet Union expelling five American diplomats

1989 – Bertram M. Lee and Peter C.B. Bynoe sign an agreement to purchase the National Basketball Association’s Denver Nuggets for $54 million. They become the first African American owners of a professional basketball team.  BlackFacts.com

1991 – Jesse Turner, an American hostage in Lebanon, was released after nearly five years of being imprisoned.

1993 – The play “The Twilight of the Golds” opened.

1994 – In 1960, Charles Edward Anderson earned a Ph.D. in Meteorology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, Massachusetts. Charles Edward Anderson the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in Meteorology; died today. blackfacts.com

1994 – North Korea and the U.S. signed an agreement requiring North Korea to halt its nuclear program and agree to inspections.

1998 – The New York Yankees set a major league baseball record of 125 victories for the regular and postseason combined.

1998 – Cancer specialist Dr. Jane Henney became the FDA’s first female commissioner.

2003 – The U.S. Senate voted to ban what was known as partial birth abortions.

2003 – North Korea rejected U.S. President George W. Bush‘s offer of a written pledge not to attack in exchange for the communist nation agreeing to end its nuclear weapons program.

On October 21, 1941, German soldiers go on a rampage, killing thousands of Yugoslavian civilians, including whole classes of schoolboys. Despite attempts to maintain neutrality at the outbreak of World War II, Yugoslavia finally succumbed to signing a “friendship treaty” with …read more

1740 – Maria Theresa became the ruler of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia with the death of her father, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.

1774 – The new Continental Congress, the governing body of America’s colonies, passed an order proclaiming that all citizens of the colonies “discountenance and discourage all horse racing and all kinds of gaming, cock fighting, exhibitions of shows, plays and other expensive diversions and entertainment.” 

1803 – The U.S. Senate approved the Louisiana Purchase. 

1818 – The U.S. and Great Britain established the boundary between the U.S. and Canada to be the 49th parallel.

1827 – The Battle of Navarino took place during the Greek War for Independence.

1873 – A Hippodrome was opened in New York City by showman Phineus T. (P.T.) Barnum.

1892 – The city of Chicago dedicated the World’s Columbian Exposition.

1903 – A joint commission ruled in favor of the U.S. concerning a dispute over the boundary between Canada and the District of Alaska.

1935 – Mao Zedong arrived in Hanoi after his Long March that took just over a year. He then set up the Chinese Communist Headquarters.

1942 – Pierre Laval told the French labor that they must serve in Germany.

1944 – Allied forces invaded the Philippines.

1944 – During World War II, the Yugoslav cities of Belgrade and Dubrovnik were liberated.

1947 – Hollywood came under scrutiny as the House Un-American Activities Committee opened hearings into alleged Communist influence within the motion picture industry.

1952 – The Mau Mau uprising against white settlers began in Kenya.

1955 – “No Time for Sergeants” opened on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre. The show starred Andy Griffith and Don Knotts made his Broadway debut. The last show was on September 14, 1957.

1957 – Walter Cronkite began hosting “The 20th Century.” The show aired until January 4, 1970.

1968 – Jackie Lee Bouvier Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis.

1979 – The John F. Kennedy Library in Boston was dedicated.

1984 – The U.S. State Department reduced the number of Americans assigned to the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.

1994 – The website WhiteHouse.gov was launched.

1995 – Britain, France and the U.S. announced a treaty that banned atomic blasts in the South Pacific.

2003 – A 40-year-old man went over Niagara Falls without safety devices and survived. He was charged with illegally performing a stunt.

2009 – European astronomers discover 32 exoplanets.