Today:
1497 – Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama set sail from Lisbon on his first voyage to India.
1663 – Charles II of England granted a Royal Charter to Rhode Island.
1776 – The Liberty Bell rang in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, summoning citizens to the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence.
1853 – Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Edo Bay, Japan, with a squadron of U.S. Navy warships, leading to the opening of Japan to trade with the West.
1889 – The first issue of The Wall Street Journal was published.
1947 – Reports of a UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico, were broadcast, leading to widespread speculation about alien life.
1960 – Francis Gary Powers was charged with espionage by the Soviet Union after being shot down in a U-2 spy plane.
1994 – North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Il-sung died, leading to his son Kim Jong-il’s rise to power.
2000 – Venus Williams won her first Wimbledon singles title, defeating Lindsay Davenport.
2011 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis was launched on the final mission of the U.S. Space Shuttle program.
30 American Heritage Events: #8
Monroe Doctrine (1823)
A policy declaring opposition to European colonialism in the Americas.