Today:
1607 – English settlers established the Jamestown Colony in Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America.
1643 – Louis XIV became King of France at age 4 upon the death of his father, Louis XIII.
1787 – Delegates began arriving in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention, which would begin later in the month.
1796 – Edward Jenner administered the first smallpox vaccination to a young boy in England.
1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially departed from Camp Dubois near St. Louis, Missouri.
1878 – The last witchcraft trial in the United States began in Salem, Massachusetts, when Lucretia Brown brought charges against Daniel Spofford.
1948 – Israel declared independence, prompting the first Arab-Israeli War as neighboring states invaded.
1955 – The Warsaw Pact was signed by eight communist bloc countries, forming a military alliance.
1973 – The United States launched Skylab, its first space station.
1998 – The final episode of the television show Seinfeld aired on NBC, drawing an audience of over 76 million viewers.