Today:
1230 – Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Asen II defeats Theodore of Epirus in the Battle of Klokotnitsa, expanding the Second Bulgarian Empire.
1500 – The fleet of Pedro Álvares Cabral leaves Lisbon for India; it will later discover Brazil by accident.
1566 – David Rizzio, the private secretary of Mary, Queen of Scots, is murdered in front of her at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh.
1765 – After a campaign by Benjamin Franklin, the British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act, which had provoked widespread protest in the American colonies.
1841 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in United States v. The Amistad that Africans who had seized control of a Spanish slave ship had been taken illegally and were thus free.
1916 – Pancho Villa leads about 500 Mexican revolutionaries in an attack on Columbus, New Mexico, prompting the U.S. to launch the Punitive Expedition.
1933 – The U.S. Congress passes the Emergency Banking Act as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
1959 – The Barbie doll debuts at the American International Toy Fair in New York.
1987 – U2 releases their album The Joshua Tree, which becomes one of their most iconic records.
1990 – Dr. Antonia Novello is appointed Surgeon General of the United States, becoming the first woman and first Hispanic to hold the position.