Today:
41 AD – Roman Emperor Caligula was assassinated by his Praetorian guards, leading to the accession of Claudius as emperor.
1438 – The Council of Basel suspended Pope Eugene IV.
1679 – King Charles II of England dissolved the Cavalier Parliament, which had been in session since 1661.
1742 – Charles VII was elected Holy Roman Emperor during the War of the Austrian Succession.
1848 – James W. Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California, sparking the California Gold Rush.
1857 – The University of Calcutta, the first modern university in South Asia, was officially established.
1908 – The first Boy Scout troop was organized in England by Robert Baden-Powell.
1924 – Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) was renamed Leningrad in honor of Vladimir Lenin, following his death.
1961 – A B-52 bomber carrying two nuclear bombs crashed near Goldsboro, North Carolina, narrowly avoiding a catastrophic detonation.
1972 – The Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi, who had been hiding in Guam since World War II, was discovered.