Today:
1520: “La Noche Triste” (The Night of Sadness) occurred, during which Spanish forces led by Hernán Cortés were expelled from Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City) by the rebelling Aztecs.
1860: A famous debate on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection took place at the Oxford University Museum in England.
1905: Albert Einstein published his paper “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” outlining his theory of special relativity.
1908: The Tunguska Event, a massive explosion believed to be caused by a meteoroid or comet, occurred near the Tunguska River in Siberia, flattening over 80 million trees.
1934: The Night of the Long Knives began, a violent purge of the Nazi Party ordered by Adolf Hitler to eliminate political rivals.
1936: Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone with the Wind” was published.
1938: Superman made his first appearance in Action Comics #1, published by DC Comics.
1960: The Belgian Congo gained independence, becoming the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville).
1971: The three cosmonauts aboard the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft died when their air supply escaped through a faulty valve during reentry.
1997: Britain returned Hong Kong to China, ending over 150 years of British colonial rule.