Today:
1588: The English navy defeats the Spanish Armada off the coast of Gravelines, France, marking a significant turning point in naval power in Europe.
1876: Inventor Thomas Edison is granted a patent for his mimeograph, a machine that can make copies of documents, a precursor to modern copy machines.
1908: Five years after their first successful flight, Wilbur Wright conducts the Wright brothers’ first public flight demonstration at a racecourse in Le Mans, France.
1945: The Soviet Union declares war on Japan, invading Japanese-held Manchuria the following day, a major factor in Japan’s eventual surrender at the end of World War II.
1963: A gang of robbers steals over £2.6 million in banknotes from a Royal Mail train in England in what becomes known as the Great Train Robbery.
1967: The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is founded in Bangkok, Thailand, by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand to promote economic development and regional stability.
1969: Photographer Iain Macmillan takes the iconic photo of the Beatles walking across a zebra crossing for the cover of their album “Abbey Road.”
1974: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces his resignation from office in a televised address due to the Watergate scandal, making him the first U.S. president to resign.
1988: The pro-democracy uprising known as the 8888 Uprising begins in Myanmar (then Burma) with student protests against the country’s one-party rule.
2000: The wreckage of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, which sank in 1864, is raised from the ocean floor off the coast of South Carolina.