Today:
1770: The Boston Massacre occurred when British troops fired into a crowd of colonists, killing five people and fueling the fire of the American Revolution.
1836: Samuel Colt was granted a charter for his Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, leading to the mass production of the revolver.
1872: George Westinghouse received a patent for the air brake, a critical safety invention that revolutionized the railroad industry.
1933: In the midst of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared a four-day bank holiday to stop a run on the nation’s banks.
1946: Winston Churchill delivered his famous “Iron Curtain” speech in Fulton, Missouri, signaling the beginning of the Cold War.
1953: Joseph Stalin, the long-time leader of the Soviet Union, died at the age of 74 after suffering a stroke.
1963: Country music legend Patsy Cline was killed in a plane crash in Tennessee at the age of 30.
1970: The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) officially entered into force after being ratified by 43 nations.
1979: NASA’s Voyager 1 probe flew past Jupiter, discovering the first active volcanoes ever seen outside of Earth on the moon Io.
1982: The Soviet spacecraft Venera 14 successfully landed on the surface of Venus, transmitting data and images from the planet’s harsh environment.