Today:
1782: George Washington creates the Badge of Military Merit, which is the precursor to the Purple Heart, an award for U.S. service members wounded or killed in combat.
1789: The U.S. Congress establishes the War Department, the first agency created for the defense of the nation.
1888: Theophilus Van Kannel receives a patent for the revolving door, an invention that would become a fixture in public buildings.
1942: American forces begin the Battle of Guadalcanal, their first major offensive in the Pacific Theater during World War II, by landing on the island.
1947: The Kon-Tiki, a balsa wood raft captained by Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl, completes its 4,300-mile journey from Peru, crashing into a reef in the Tuamotu Archipelago to prove that ancient South Americans could have sailed to Polynesia.
1959: The U.S. launches Explorer 6, a satellite that sends back the first image of the Earth from space.
1960: Ivory Coast gains its independence from France, with Félix Houphouët-Boigny becoming the country’s first president.
1964: The U.S. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Lyndon B. Johnson broad authority to use military force in Vietnam.
1974: Philippe Petit, a French high-wire artist, performs an unauthorized walk on a tightrope stretched between the newly built Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.
1998: Terrorist bombs detonate at U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, killing more than 200 people.