Today:
1683: William Penn signs a friendship treaty with the Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania. This treaty is celebrated as one of the only treaties never sworn to and never broken.
1757: The Battle of Plassey ends with a decisive British victory over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies. This battle laid the foundation for the British Empire in India.
1894: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is founded at the Sorbonne in Paris, at the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin.
1919: The German fleet is scuttled at Scapa Flow in Scotland to prevent the ships from falling into Allied hands after World War I.
1940: Adolf Hitler visits Paris during the German occupation of France in World War II.
1956: Gamal Abdel Nasser is elected as the President of Egypt.
1960: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves Enovid as the first oral contraceptive, which greatly influences women’s reproductive rights and sexual freedom.
1961: The Antarctic Treaty, which establishes Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent, comes into force.
1985: A terrorist bomb explodes aboard Air India Flight 182, causing the plane to crash into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people on board.
2016: The United Kingdom votes in a referendum to leave the European Union, an event commonly referred to as “Brexit.”