Today:
1. 1775: Paul Revere and William Dawes set out on horseback from Boston to Lexington, Massachusetts, warning residents of the approaching British troops, an event that became known as “Paul Revere’s Ride.”
2. 1906: An earthquake struck San Francisco, California, causing widespread destruction and fires. It remains one of the most significant natural disasters in U.S. history.
3. 1942: The Doolittle Raid, the first air raid by the United States to strike the Japanese home islands during World War II, was launched. It boosted American morale and demonstrated the vulnerability of the Japanese homeland.
4. 1955: Physicist Albert Einstein passed away in Princeton, New Jersey, at the age of 76. He is best known for developing the theory of relativity and his famous equation, E=mc².
5. 1983: A suicide bomber destroyed the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans.
6. 1988: The United States launched Operation Praying Mantis, a retaliatory strike against Iran in the Persian Gulf following the mining of the USS Samuel B. Roberts.
7. 1996: In Lebanon, the Lebanese army killed over 100 civilians in the shelling of the United Nations compound in Qana during the Israeli military operation “Grapes of Wrath.”
8. 2007: The Supreme Court of the United States upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in a 5-4 decision.
9. 2019: The Mueller Report, the final report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, was released to the public with redactions.
10. 2021: NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter successfully completed its first powered flight on another planet, marking the first controlled flight of an aircraft on Mars.