Today:
1498: Christopher Columbus, on his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, arrived at the island of Trinidad.
1588: The Spanish Armada was spotted off the coast of England.
1776: During the American Revolution, Francis Salvador became the first Jew to die in the conflict.
1790: The U.S. Patent Office first opened its doors and issued its first patent to Samuel Hopkins for a method of making potash.
1917: The Third Battle of Ypres (also known as the Battle of Passchendaele) began in Belgium.
1941: Hermann Göring, under instructions from Hitler, ordered Reinhard Heydrich to prepare a plan for the “final solution of the Jewish question.”
1964: The American space probe Ranger 7 transmitted the first close-up images of the Moon’s surface before impacting it.
1971: Apollo 15 astronauts James B. Irwin and David Scott became the first to ride in a Lunar Roving Vehicle on the Moon.
1991: The United States and the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), the first treaty to reduce both countries’ nuclear weapon stockpiles with verification.
2006: Fidel Castro temporarily handed over power to his brother Raúl Castro due to health issues.