Today:
1618: Sir Walter Raleigh, the English writer and explorer, was executed in London.
1787: Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni” premiered in Prague.
1863: Eighteen countries met in Geneva and agreed to form the International Red Cross.
1923: The Republic of Turkey was proclaimed, with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as its first president.
1929: The New York Stock Exchange crashed on “Black Tuesday,” a key event marking the start of the Great Depression.
1956: The Suez Crisis began when Israeli forces invaded the Sinai Peninsula.
1966: The National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded in the United States.
1969: The first computer-to-computer link was established on ARPANET, the precursor to the modern Internet.
1998: John Glenn, at age 77, returned to space aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, becoming the oldest person to do so.
2012: Hurricane Sandy made landfall on the east coast of the United States, causing widespread damage.