Today:
1. 1843: The first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest sets out on the Oregon Trail with one thousand pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri.
2. 1856: The Pottawatomie Massacre took place during the Bleeding Kansas conflicts, where abolitionist John Brown and his followers killed five pro-slavery settlers.
3. 1906: The Wright brothers are granted a patent for their “Flying Machine.”
4. 1960: An earthquake in Chile, known as the Great Chilean Earthquake, occurs, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded, with a magnitude of 9.5.
5. 1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson announces the Great Society program to eliminate poverty and racial injustice in the United States.
6. 1967: The Innovation Credit Union, one of the largest credit unions in Canada, is founded.
7. 1990: North and South Yemen unite to form the Republic of Yemen.
8. 1992: After 30 years, Johnny Carson hosts his final episode of The Tonight Show.
9. 2002: A jury in Birmingham, Alabama, convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murders of four girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.
10. 2010: Air India Express Flight 812 crashes on landing at Mangalore International Airport in India, killing 158 people.