Today:
1746: The College of New Jersey received its charter, later becoming Princeton University.
1797: André-Jacques Garnerin made the first recorded parachute jump, descending from a balloon over Paris.
1836: Sam Houston was inaugurated as the first president of the Republic of Texas.
1879: Thomas Edison successfully tested his first practical incandescent light bulb, which burned for over 13 hours.
1883: The Metropolitan Opera House opened in New York City with a performance of Faust.
1884: The International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C., adopted the Greenwich Meridian as the world’s prime meridian.
1934: Notorious bank robber Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd was shot and killed by FBI agents in Ohio.
1962: President John F. Kennedy announced on television that Soviet nuclear missiles had been discovered in Cuba, beginning the Cuban Missile Crisis.
2008: India launched Chandrayaan-1, its first uncrewed lunar probe.
2009: Microsoft released the Windows 7 operating system to the public.