Today:
1258 – The Siege of Baghdad ends as Mongol forces under Hulagu Khan capture the city, bringing an end to the Abbasid Caliphate and the Islamic Golden Age.
1763 – The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Seven Years’ War (known in America as the French and Indian War) and significantly altering the colonial map of North America.
1840 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, at the Chapel Royal in St. James’s Palace.
1861 – Jefferson Davis receives word by telegraph that he has been chosen as the provisional president of the Confederate States of America.
1863 – Alanson Crane is granted a patent for the first fire extinguisher in the United States.
1931 – New Delhi is officially inaugurated as the capital of India, moving the seat of government from Calcutta.
1947 – The Paris Peace Treaties are signed by the Allied powers and the former followers of the Axis (Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland), formally ending their roles in World War II.
1962 – American U-2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers is exchanged for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel on the Glienicke Bridge between West Berlin and East Germany.
1996 – IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue defeats world chess champion Garry Kasparov for the first time in a single game, though Kasparov went on to win the overall match.
2009 – The first major collision between two intact satellites in Earth’s orbit occurs when the American Iridium 33 and the Russian Kosmos 2251 crash over Siberia.