Today:
1542 – Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of King Henry VIII of England, was executed for adultery at the Tower of London.
1633 – Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition for advocating the heliocentric model of the solar system.
1668 – Spain formally recognized Portugal’s independence with the signing of the Treaty of Lisbon, ending the Portuguese Restoration War.
1861 – The earliest military action of the American Civil War took place as Union forces seized a supply ship off Pensacola, Florida.
1880 – Thomas Edison observed the Edison effect, which later led to the development of vacuum tubes, a key component in early electronics.
1920 – The League of Nations recognized Switzerland’s neutrality and granted it exemption from future conflicts.
1945 – Allied forces, including British and American bombers, launched the first wave of air raids on Dresden, Germany, during World War II, causing massive destruction.
1960 – France successfully tested its first atomic bomb in the Algerian Sahara, becoming the fourth nuclear power.
1991 – Two laser-guided bombs destroyed a bunker in Baghdad, Iraq, killing hundreds of civilians during the Gulf War.
2011 – For the first time, the Egyptian military took control of the country following the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak after weeks of protests.