Today:
1608 – English explorer John Smith was elected president of the governing council at Jamestown, Virginia. His leadership helped the struggling English colony survive its difficult early years.
1813 – U.S. naval forces commanded by Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. Perry later reported his victory with the famous message, “We have met the enemy and they are ours.”
1846 – Elias Howe received a U.S. patent for his lockstitch sewing machine. His design became an important part of the development of the modern sewing machine.
1897 – London’s first conviction for drunk driving occurred when taxi driver George Smith crashed his cab into a building. He pleaded guilty and was fined 25 shillings.
1939 – Canada declared war on Germany, formally entering World War II one week after Britain and France had declared war following Germany’s invasion of Poland.
1960 – Ethiopian runner Abebe Bikila won the Olympic marathon in Rome while running barefoot. He became the first Black African to win an Olympic gold medal and set a world record in the process.
1963 – Twenty Black students entered previously segregated public schools in Birmingham, Mobile and Tuskegee, Alabama, following federal court orders requiring integration.
1977 – Hamida Djandoubi was executed by guillotine in Marseille, France. His execution was the last use of the guillotine in France and the last judicial execution carried out in Western Europe.
1990 – The first successful test of the Ellis Island immigration database was conducted as preparations continued for the restored immigration station to open as a museum later that year.
2008 – CERN successfully circulated a beam of protons around the Large Hadron Collider for the first time. The 17-mile underground accelerator near Geneva would later play a crucial role in the discovery of the Higgs boson.