Today:
1825 – The U.S. House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams as the 6th President of the United States after no candidate secured a majority in the Electoral College.
1861 – Jefferson Davis was elected the provisional president of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War.
1870 – The U.S. Weather Bureau (now the National Weather Service) was established.
1895 – William G. Morgan invented the game of volleyball in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
1943 – During World War II, the Allies secured victory in the Guadalcanal Campaign, marking a major turning point in the Pacific War.
1950 – Senator Joseph McCarthy made his infamous speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, claiming he had a list of communists working in the U.S. government, fueling the Red Scare.
1964 – The Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, drawing a record-breaking television audience of over 73 million viewers.
1971 – The Apollo 14 mission, commanded by Alan Shepard, returned to Earth after successfully landing on the Moon.
1996 – The Irish Republican Army (IRA) declared the end of its ceasefire with a bombing in London’s Docklands, killing two people.
2001 – The USS Greenville, a U.S. Navy submarine, accidentally collided with the Japanese fishing vessel Ehime Maru, sinking it and killing nine people.