Today:
1590: The Sultan of Morocco successfully captures the city of Timbuktu.
1644: The Chongzhen Emperor, the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, commits suicide during a peasant rebellion.
1719: Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe is published in London.
1792: Nicolas J. Pelletier becomes the first person to be executed by the guillotine in Paris, France.
1859: Ground is broken in Egypt for the construction of the Suez Canal.
1898: The United States Congress officially declares war against Spain, marking the start of the Spanish-American War.
1915: Allied troops, including the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, land at Gallipoli, Turkey, during World War I.
1945: United States and Soviet troops meet at the Elbe River in Germany, marking a major turning point in World War II.
1953: The scientific journal Nature publishes an article by Francis Crick and James Watson describing the double helix structure of DNA.
1990: The Hubble Space Telescope is deployed into orbit by the crew of the space shuttle Discovery.