Today:
1. 1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama reached India, landing in Calicut.
2. 1506 – Christopher Columbus, the Italian explorer who discovered the Americas, died in Valladolid, Spain.
3. 1862 – President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law, which provided 160 acres of public land to settlers after five years of residence and cultivation.
4. 1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.
5. 1883 – The eruption of Krakatoa began, leading to one of the most violent volcanic events in recorded history.
6. 1902 – The United States ended its military occupation of Cuba, officially handing control to the newly formed Republic of Cuba.
7. 1927 – Charles Lindbergh took off from New York to Paris in the Spirit of St. Louis on the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight.
8. 1932 – Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland to become the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic.
9. 1969 – The Battle of Hamburger Hill in Vietnam concluded, a brutal and controversial battle during the Vietnam War.
10. 1983 – The first publications of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS appeared in the journal Science.