Today:
1. 1581: English explorer Sir Francis Drake is knighted by Queen Elizabeth I aboard the Golden Hind at Deptford.
2. 1818: The United States Congress adopts the flag of the United States with 13 red and white stripes and one star for each state (then 20).
3. 1841: William Henry Harrison, the 9th President of the United States, dies of pneumonia, becoming the first U.S. president to die in office.
4. 1949: NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is established when the North Atlantic Treaty is signed by twelve nations in Washington, D.C.
5. 1968: Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee.
6. 1975: Microsoft, a multinational technology company, is founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
7. 1983: The space shuttle Challenger makes its maiden voyage into space, launching from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
8. 2009: North Korea launches the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 rocket, which the United States and other countries condemn as a ballistic missile test.
9. 2013: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who had been in power since 1999, dies of cancer at the age of 58.
10. 2018: A bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior ice hockey team collides with a semi-trailer truck in Saskatchewan, Canada, resulting in 16 deaths and 13 injuries.