Today:
1697: St Paul’s Cathedral in London, rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666, was consecrated.
1766: The Swedish parliament passed the Swedish Freedom of the Press Act, making Sweden the first country in the world with freedom of speech.
1804: Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor of the French at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
1823: U.S. President James Monroe outlined the “Monroe Doctrine” in his annual message to Congress, declaring American neutrality in future European conflicts and warning European powers against interfering in the Western Hemisphere.
1859: Abolitionist leader John Brown was executed for treason at Charles Town, Virginia (now West Virginia), following his raid on Harpers Ferry.
1942: A team led by physicist Enrico Fermi achieved the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago, part of the Manhattan Project.
1954: The U.S. Senate voted 65 to 22 to censure Senator Joseph McCarthy for “conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute” over his anti-Communist investigations.
1970: The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began operations.
1971: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was formed as an independent, sovereign state by six emirates: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Fujairah, Sharjah, Dubai, and Umm al-Quwain. Ras al-Khaimah joined in 1972.
1982: Barney Clark, a retired dentist, became the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart (the Jarvik-7) at the University of Utah Medical Center in Salt Lake City.