Today:
1492: Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, on his first voyage across the Atlantic, seeking a western route to the Far East.
1795: The Treaty of Greenville was signed, ending the Northwest Indian War and leading to Native American nations ceding large amounts of land in what is now Ohio.
1900: The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company was founded by Harvey S. Firestone in Akron, Ohio.
1914: Germany declared war on France, a significant escalation in the events leading to World War I.
1923: Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as the 30th President of the United States, hours after the death of President Warren G. Harding.
1936: Jesse Owens won the first of his four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics, taking the 100-meter sprint.
1949: The Basketball Association of America (BAA) and the National Basketball League (NBL) merged to form the National Basketball Association (NBA).
1958: The USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear submarine, became the first vessel to complete a submerged transit of the geographic North Pole.
1977: “The Spy Who Loved Me,” starring Roger Moore as James Bond, was released in U.S. theaters.
2004: The pedestal of the Statue of Liberty reopened to visitors for the first time since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.