Today:
1520: Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sails into the strait between the mainland tip of South America and Tierra del Fuego, which would later be named the Strait of Magellan.
1600: Tokugawa Ieyasu defeats his rivals in the Battle of Sekigahara, a decisive victory that leads to the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan.
1797: The U.S. Navy frigate USS Constitution, famously nicknamed “Old Ironsides,” is launched in Boston.
1805: The British Royal Navy, commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, wins a decisive victory over the combined fleets of the French and Spanish navies at the Battle of Trafalgar. Nelson is fatally wounded during the battle.
1824: English cement manufacturer Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement, which would become one of the most widely used building materials in the world.
1854: Florence Nightingale, along with a staff of 38 volunteer nurses, is sent to the Crimean War to manage the Scutari hospital.
1879: Thomas Edison demonstrates his first commercially practical incandescent light bulb, which lasts for 13.5 hours at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
1944: During World War II, Aachen becomes the first major German city to be captured by Allied forces after three weeks of fighting.
1959: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, opens to the public in New York City.
1966: A colliery spoil tip collapses onto a school and houses in the village of Aberfan, Wales, resulting in the deaths of 144 people, 116 of whom were children.