Today:
1. 1812: An earthquake devastated Caracas, Venezuela, killing an estimated 15,000–20,000 people.
2. 1885: The Métis people, led by Louis Riel, began the North-West Rebellion against the Canadian government in Saskatchewan, Canada.
3. 1892: American poet Walt Whitman died in Camden, New Jersey, at the age of 72.
4. 1913: Balkan Wars: Bulgarian forces captured Adrianople (modern-day Edirne, Turkey) from the Ottoman Empire after a prolonged siege.
5. 1945: The Battle of Iwo Jima ended as U.S. Marines secured the island from Japanese forces during World War II.
6. 1953: American medical researcher Dr. Jonas Salk announced the successful testing of a vaccine against poliomyelitis, commonly known as polio.
7. 1979: The Camp David Accords were signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, under the mediation of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, leading to a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.
8. 1982: A groundbreaking ceremony for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was held in Washington, D.C.
9. 1997: Thirty-nine members of the Heaven’s Gate cult were found dead in a mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe, California, believing their deaths would allow them to reach an extraterrestrial spacecraft they believed to be following the Hale-Bopp comet.
10. 2000: Vladimir Putin was elected as the president of Russia, succeeding Boris Yeltsin.