Today:
1789: New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution).
1820: The American whaling ship Essex was attacked and sunk by a large sperm whale in the Pacific Ocean, an event that later inspired Herman Melville’s novel, Moby-Dick.
1866: Pierre Lallement was granted a U.S. patent for the first pedal-powered bicycle.
1910: The Mexican Revolution began as Francisco I. Madero issued the Plan of San Luis Potosí, calling for a revolt against the regime of President Porfirio Díaz.
1917: During World War I, the Battle of Cambrai began; it was the first battle to involve the large-scale use of tanks by the British.
1923: American inventor Garrett Morgan received a patent for a three-position traffic signal, which included a caution signal, a precursor to the modern yellow light.
1945: The Nuremberg Trials began, with 24 prominent surviving leaders of Nazi Germany going before an International Military Tribunal to face charges of war crimes.
1947: Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten (later Duke of Edinburgh) at Westminster Abbey in London.
1959: The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, setting forth children’s rights to protection, education, health care, and shelter.
1985: Microsoft released Windows 1.0, its first attempt at a graphical user interface-based operating environment for personal computers.