Today:
1519 – Ferdinand Magellan departed Spain with a fleet of five ships on the expedition that would become the first to circumnavigate the globe. Magellan died during the voyage, but one ship, Victoria, completed the journey in 1522.
1565 – Spanish forces captured the French Huguenot settlement of Fort Caroline in present-day Florida, strengthening Spain’s control of the region.
1797 – The U.S. frigate Constitution, later nicknamed “Old Ironsides,” was launched in Boston. The ship remains in commission today and is the world’s oldest commissioned naval warship still afloat.
1854 – British and French forces defeated the Russian army at the Battle of the Alma, the first major battle of the Crimean War.
1873 – The New York Stock Exchange closed temporarily during the Panic of 1873 after a wave of bank and investment-firm failures. It remained closed for 10 days.
1881 – Chester A. Arthur was sworn in as the 21st president of the United States following the death of President James A. Garfield the previous evening.
1946 – The first Cannes Film Festival opened in Cannes, France. The festival had originally been planned for 1939 but was postponed because of the outbreak of World War II.
1973 – Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match at the Houston Astrodome. An estimated 90 million people worldwide watched the event.
1977 – The television series Happy Days aired the episode in which Fonzie jumped over a shark while water-skiing. The scene later inspired the phrase “jumping the shark,” meaning a moment when a successful series resorts to increasingly implausible gimmicks.
1984 – A suicide bomber attacked the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 24 people and injuring more than 90.