Today:
1. 1588 – The Spanish Armada, with 130 ships and 30,000 men, set sail from Lisbon heading for the English Channel. It was one of the largest fleets ever assembled for military purposes.
2. 1780 – Charleston, South Carolina was taken by British forces during the American Revolutionary War.
3. 1820 – Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, was born in Florence, Italy. She came to prominence during the Crimean War for her pioneering work in nursing.
4. 1932 – The body of the kidnapped son of Charles Lindbergh, the American aviator, was found close to the Lindbergh’s home in New Jersey.
5. 1937 – King George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey in London, following the abdication of his brother, King Edward VIII.
6. 1949 – The Soviet Union lifted its blockade of Berlin. The blockade had been a Soviet attempt to starve out the allied presence in West Berlin.
7. 1965 – The Soviet spacecraft Luna 5 crashed on the Moon after a failed attempt to land.
8. 1978 – The Commerce Department said hurricanes would no longer be named exclusively after women, a practice that had been in place since 1953.
9. 2002 – Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter arrived in Cuba for a five-day visit. Carter was the first former or serving U.S. President to visit the island since the 1959 revolution.
10. 2008 – A massive earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale struck Sichuan, China. It resulted in over 87,000 deaths and extensive damage to the region.