Today:
1040 – Lady Godiva is traditionally said to have ridden on horseback through Coventry, England, in protest of oppressive taxation, according to later historical accounts.
1553 – Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen of England following the death of Edward VI.
1778 – Louis XVI of France declared war on Great Britain, expanding the American Revolutionary War into a global conflict.
1890 – Wyoming was admitted as the 44th state of the United States and became the first U.S. state with women having full voting rights.
1925 – Jury selection began in the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, over the teaching of evolution in public schools.
1940 – The Battle of Britain officially began as German air attacks intensified against Britain during World War II.
1962 – AT&T launched Telstar 1, the world’s first active communications satellite, enabling live transatlantic television broadcasts.
1973 – The Bahamas gained independence from the United Kingdom.
1985 – The Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was bombed and sunk in Auckland, New Zealand, by agents of the French intelligence service.
2019 – Scientists released the largest-ever color image from the Hubble Space Telescope, capturing thousands of galaxies in unprecedented detail as part of the Legacy Field project.