Today:
1488: Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias lands in Mossel Bay after doubling the Cape of Good Hope, becoming the first known European to sail into the Indian Ocean.
1783: Spain officially recognizes the independence of the United States, following the preliminary peace articles signed between the U.S. and Great Britain.
1870: The 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, prohibiting the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
1913: The 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.
1917: The United States severs all diplomatic ties with Germany after the German government announces the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare.
1943: The troopship USAT Dorchester is torpedoed by a German U-boat in the North Atlantic, leading to the famous sacrifice of the Four Chaplains who gave their life jackets to others.
1959: Rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson die in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, an event later memorialized as The Day the Music Died.
1966: The Soviet Union’s Luna 9 spacecraft becomes the first man-made object to achieve a soft landing on the Moon and transmit photographic data back to Earth.
1984: Dr. John Buster and a research team at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center announce the first successful embryo transfer from one woman to another, resulting in a live birth.
1994: Space Shuttle Discovery launches on mission STS-60, carrying Sergei Krikalev, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard a U.S. Space Shuttle.