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Today:

1377 – More than 2,000 people in Cesena, Italy, are slaughtered by Papal troops under Cardinal Robert of Geneva (later Antipope Clement VII) in what is known as the Cesena Bloodbath.

1690 – The first paper money in the Americas is issued by the Massachusetts Bay Colony to pay soldiers fighting in a military campaign against Quebec.

1783 – Spain recognizes the independence of the United States following the American Revolutionary War.

1870 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

1913 – The Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, allowing Congress to levy an income tax.

1943 – The U.S. transport ship SS Dorchester is sunk by a German U-boat during World War II, leading to the famous story of the “Four Chaplains” who gave up their life jackets to save others.

1959 – A chartered plane crashes in Iowa, killing musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, later known as “The Day the Music Died.”

1966 – The Soviet Union’s Luna 9 probe becomes the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing on the Moon and transmit photographic data back to Earth.

1995 – Astronaut Eileen Collins becomes the first woman to pilot a Space Shuttle mission aboard Discovery.

2007 – A suicide bombing in Baghdad kills at least 130 people and injures more than 300, making it one of the deadliest attacks of the Iraq War.