Today:
1381: During the Peasants’ Revolt, a large mob of English peasants led by Wat Tyler marches into London and begins burning and looting the city.
1777: Marie-Joseph Paul Roch Yves Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, a 19-year-old French aristocrat, arrives in South Carolina with the intent to serve as General George Washington’s second-in-command during the American Revolution.
1805: Meriwether Lewis and four men arrive at the Great Falls of the Missouri River, confirming the explorers are headed in the right direction on their expedition.
1917: During World War I, Germany carries out its deadliest air raid on London, using Gotha G.IV bombers, resulting in 162 deaths.
1940: The first transport of Polish political prisoners arrives at Auschwitz, which became Nazi Germany’s largest concentration and extermination camp.
1966: The United States Supreme Court rules in the case of Miranda v. Arizona that police must inform suspects of their Fifth Amendment rights before questioning them.
1967: President Lyndon B. Johnson nominates U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Thurgood Marshall to fill a seat on the Supreme Court, making him the first African American nominated to the high court.
1971: The New York Times begins publishing portions of the 47-volume Pentagon Papers, a secret analysis of how the U.S. commitment in Southeast Asia grew over three decades.
1983: Pioneer 10, the world’s first outer-planetary probe, leaves the outer limits of the known solar system by crossing the orbit of Neptune.
2000: South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in a historic summit, marking the first meeting between the heads of the two countries.