Today:
1307 – William Tell reputedly shot an apple off his son’s head, as part of his defiance against Austrian rule, according to Swiss legend.
1421 – A dike in the Netherlands broke, flooding 72 villages and killing an estimated 10,000 people in the St. Elizabeth’s flood.
1477 – William Caxton published *Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres*, the first printed book in England.
1626 – St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City was consecrated by Pope Urban VIII.
1820 – Captain Nathaniel Palmer, an American sealer, sighted the Antarctic Peninsula, becoming one of the first to discover Antarctica.
1865 – Mark Twain’s short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” was published in the *New York Saturday Press*, bringing him national attention.
1883 – Standard time zones were established in the United States and Canada by the General Time Convention.
1918 – Latvia declared its independence from Russia.
1928 – Mickey Mouse made his debut in the animated cartoon *Steamboat Willie*, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks.
1978 – Over 900 members of the People’s Temple, led by Jim Jones, died in a mass suicide-murder in Jonestown, Guyana.
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