Today:
1227: Genghis Khan, the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, died. At the time of his death, his empire was the largest in history.
1590: John White returned to the Roanoke Colony after a three-year absence to find it completely deserted, with the only clue being the word “CROATOAN” carved into a tree. The fate of the “Lost Colony” remains a mystery.
1868: French astronomer Pierre Janssen discovered helium, an element that would later be found to exist on Earth as well.
1877: Asaph Hall, an American astronomer, discovered Phobos, one of the two moons of Mars. He also discovered the other moon, Deimos, shortly after.
1920: The 19th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified, giving women the right to vote. The ratification was secured after a tie-breaking vote in the Tennessee legislature.
1958: The controversial novel Lolita, written by Vladimir Nabokov, was published for the first time in the United States.
1963: James Meredith became the first African American to graduate from the University of Mississippi. His enrollment the previous year had sparked riots.
1969: The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, a pivotal counterculture event, ended after three days of music and peace near Bethel, New York.
1991: A group of Soviet hardliners attempted a coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. The coup failed, but it accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union.
2005: A massive power outage in Indonesia affected approximately 100 million people on the islands of Java and Bali, making it one of the largest blackouts in history.