Today:
1792: French Revolution: King Louis XVI of France went before the National Convention to face charges of treason.
1816: Indiana was admitted to the Union as the 19th U.S. state.
1844: Dr. Horace Wells first used nitrous oxide as an anesthetic for a tooth extraction.
1901: Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the first transatlantic radio signal from Cornwall, England, to St. John’s, Newfoundland.
1936: King Edward VIII’s abdication as King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions became effective, allowing him to marry American Wallis Warfield Simpson.
1941: Germany and Italy declared war on the United States; the U.S. Congress immediately issued a declaration of war in return.
1946: The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established.
1972: Apollo 17’s lunar lander, Challenger, touched down on the Moon’s surface, marking the sixth and final Apollo mission to land humans on the Moon.
1994: Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered Russian troops into Chechnya, beginning the First Chechen War.
2008: Bernard L. Madoff, founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, was arrested and charged with securities fraud for running a massive Ponzi scheme.