Today:
1645: The Parliamentarian New Model Army, led by Oliver Cromwell, decisively defeated the Royalist forces at the Battle of Naseby during the English Civil War.
1775: The Continental Congress established the Continental Army, which is considered the birth of the United States Army.
1777: The Continental Congress adopted the “Stars and Stripes” as the official flag of the United States.
1789: Captain William Bligh and 18 others, cast adrift from the HMS Bounty, reached Timor after traveling nearly 4,000 miles in a small boat.
1846: American settlers in Sonoma, California, rebelled against Mexican rule and proclaimed the short-lived California Republic in what became known as the Bear Flag Revolt.
1919: John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown began the first non-stop transatlantic flight, taking off from Newfoundland and landing in Ireland less than 16 hours later.
1922: Warren G. Harding became the first U.S. President to broadcast a message over the radio.
1940: German troops entered and occupied Paris during World War II.
1949: Albert II, a rhesus monkey, became the first mammal and monkey in space, reaching an altitude of 83 miles aboard a V-2 rocket.
1951: UNIVAC I, the world’s first commercial electronic computer, was unveiled in Philadelphia.