Today:
1472: King James III of Scotland annexed the Orkney and Shetland islands from Norway after they were pledged as security for a dowry that was never paid.
1792: President George Washington signed the Postal Service Act, which officially established the United States Post Office Department.
1816: Gioachino Rossini’s famous opera The Barber of Seville premiered at the Teatro Argentina in Rome, though the first performance was reportedly met with jeers and technical mishaps.
1872: The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its doors to the public for the first time in New York City.
1877: Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake received its world premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
1895: Frederick Douglass, the renowned American social reformer, abolitionist, and statesman, passed away in Washington, D.C.
1939: A massive pro-Nazi rally organized by the German American Bund took place at Madison Square Garden in New York City, attended by approximately 20,000 people.
1962: John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, completing three orbits aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft.
1986: The Soviet Union launched the core module of the Mir space station, which served as a research laboratory in low Earth orbit for 15 years.
1998: At age 15, American figure skater Tara Lipinski became the youngest individual gold medalist in Winter Olympics history during the games in Nagano, Japan.