Today:
1451: Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer and cartographer whose name was given to the Americas, was born in Florence.
1776: Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, a foundational work in classical economics.
1796: Napoleon Bonaparte married his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais, in Paris.
1841: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the United States v. The Amistad case that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship had been taken into slavery illegally.
1842: Giuseppe Verdi’s third opera, Nabucco, premiered in Milan, establishing him as a major figure in Italian opera.
1862: The first battle between ironclad warships, the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (formerly the Merrimack), took place during the American Civil War at Hampton Roads.
1933: The U.S. Congress began its “100 days” of enacting New Deal legislation under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1945: During World War II, the U.S. Army Air Forces began a massive firebombing raid on Tokyo, which became one of the most destructive air attacks in history.
1959: The Barbie doll made its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York City.
2011: The Space Shuttle Discovery completed its final mission, landing at the Kennedy Space Center after 39 flights into space.