Today:
217 BC: The Battle of Lake Trasimene occurred, a major engagement of the Second Punic War, where Hannibal’s Carthaginian forces ambushed and decisively defeated the Roman army.
527: Justinian I became the sole ruler of the Byzantine Empire upon the death of his uncle, Justin I.
1291: The three founding cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden formed an “eternal alliance” in what is now considered the founding act of the Swiss Confederation.
1498: Christopher Columbus sighted the South American mainland for the first time during his third voyage to the New World.
1774: Joseph Priestley, an English chemist, isolated oxygen, though he did not immediately recognize it as a new element. Carl Wilhelm Scheele had independently discovered it earlier but published his findings later.
1834: The Slavery Abolition Act came into effect throughout the British Empire, freeing over 800,000 enslaved people in the Caribbean, South Africa, and Canada.
1876: Colorado was admitted as the 38th state of the United States.
1914: Germany declared war on Russia, marking the beginning of World War I.
1944: The Warsaw Uprising began as the Polish Home Army launched a major operation to liberate Warsaw from Nazi German occupation during World War II.
1981: MTV (Music Television) launched with the words “Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll.”