Today:
1787: At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, delegates began debating the first draft of the U.S. Constitution.
1806: The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved when Francis II abdicated his title as Holy Roman Emperor.
1890: William Kemmler became the first person to be executed by electric chair in the United States at Auburn Prison in New York.
1914: During the early days of World War I, Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia, and Serbia declared war on Germany.
1926: Gertrude Ederle became the first woman to swim across the English Channel, completing the journey in 14 hours and 34 minutes.
1945: The United States dropped an atomic bomb, nicknamed “Little Boy,” on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II.
1962: Jamaica gained its independence from the United Kingdom.
1965: U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, which aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote.
1991: British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee posted a summary of the World Wide Web project, making it publicly available on the internet for the first time.
2012: The NASA Mars rover Curiosity successfully landed on the surface of Mars.