• 1492 Pinta under Martín Alonso Pinzón separates from Christopher Columbus’s fleet.
• 1497 Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounds Cape of Good Hope on way to first voyage from Europe to reach India
• 1542 Spain delegates “New Laws” against slavery in America.
• 1574 Discovery of the Juan Fernández Islands off Chile.
• 1842 Mount St Helens in Washington erupts.
• 1899 Battle at Willow Grange, Natal (British vs Boer army).
• 1900 Paul Kruger, exiled President of the Boer Republic of South Africa, is given a popular welcome when he lands at Marseilles, France.
• 1910 Arthur Knight patents steel shaft golf clubs.
• 1927 1st snowmobile patent granted to Carl Eliason (Sayner Wisc).
• 1955 RCA Records make its best investment paying $35 000 to Sun Records for Elvis Presley’s contract.
• 1957 Miles Davis Quintet debuts a jazz concert at Carnegie Hall in NY.
• 1962 7th British Empire Games and Commonwealth Games open in Perth, Australia.
• 1963 The Beatles release their second album “With the Beatles” in UK.
• 1963 American President John F. Kennedy assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas.
• 1967 BBC unofficially bans “I Am the Walrus” by Beatles
• 1968 Beatles release “Beatles” (White Album), their only double album.
• 1969 Isolation of a single gene announced by scientists at Harvard University.
• 1995 Rosemary West found guilty in England of killing 10 women
• 1995 “Toy Story”, the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery, directed by John Lasseter and starring Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, is released.
• 1996 O.J. Simpson takes stand as hostile witness in the wrongful death lawsuit filed against him, saying it is “absolutely not true”.
• 2002 In Nigeria, more than 100 people are killed at an attack aimed at the contestants of the Miss World contest
• 2004 The Orange Revolution begins in Ukraine, resulting from the presidential elections.
• 2005 Angela Merkel becomes the first female Chancellor of Germany
• 2008 YouTube hosts the largest ever live broadcast, YouTube Live.
• 2012 Six attacks across Pakistan kill 37 people and injure 92
• 2012 Two people are killed and 120 injured after a 100-vehicle pile-up in dense fog in Texas.
Source: www.onthisday.com