Today:
1275 – The city of Amsterdam was officially founded as a small fishing village.
1553 – Spanish theologian Michael Servetus was executed in Geneva, Switzerland, for heresy.
1682 – The city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was founded by William Penn.
1795 – The United States and Spain signed the Treaty of San Lorenzo, establishing the boundary between the U.S. and Spanish colonies.
1806 – Napoleon Bonaparte entered Berlin after defeating the Prussian army at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt.
1904 – The first section of the New York City Subway opened, marking the beginning of its extensive system.
1914 – British battleship HMS Audacious was sunk by a German mine off the coast of Ireland during World War I.
1936 – Wallis Simpson filed for divorce from her second husband, leading to her relationship with Edward VIII and the abdication crisis.
1961 – NASA tested the first Saturn I rocket in its space program, a precursor to the Saturn V that would take humans to the moon.
1997 – Stock markets around the world plummeted due to the Asian Financial Crisis in an event known as “Black Monday.”