Today:
1609 – Galileo Galilei demonstrated an improved telescope to Venetian lawmakers. His observations with increasingly powerful telescopes would soon transform astronomy, including discoveries involving Jupiter’s moons and the phases of Venus.
1718 – Hundreds of French colonists arrived in Louisiana as part of the effort to establish New Orleans. Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville had selected the site earlier that year.
1825 – Uruguay declared its independence from Brazil. The struggle eventually resulted in international recognition of Uruguay as an independent nation in 1828.
1835 – The New York Sun began publishing a series of sensational articles known as the “Great Moon Hoax,” claiming that astronomers had discovered fantastic creatures and civilizations on the Moon.
1916 – The National Park Service was created when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Organic Act. The new federal agency was charged with protecting and managing America’s growing system of national parks and monuments.
1944 – Paris was liberated from German occupation during World War II. French General Charles de Gaulle entered the city as German forces surrendered after more than four years of occupation.
1950 – President Harry S. Truman ordered the U.S. Army to take control of the nation’s railroads to prevent a threatened strike during the Korean War.
1981 – NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft made its closest approach to Saturn, returning detailed images and scientific observations of the planet, its rings and moons.
1989 – Voyager 2 made its closest approach to Neptune, becoming the first—and still the only—spacecraft to visit the planet. It discovered new moons, studied Neptune’s rings and observed the enormous storm known as the Great Dark Spot.
2012 – Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause and entered interstellar space, becoming the first human-made object to leave the Sun’s heliosphere and reach interstellar space.