1513 – Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon sighted Florida. The next day he went ashore.
1792 – The U.S. Congress passed the Coinage Act to regulate the coins of the United States. The act authorized $10 Eagles, $5 Half Eagles, $2.50 Quarter Eagle gold coins, silver dollars, dollars, quarters, dimes and half-dimes to be minted.
1801 – During the Napoleonic Wars, the Danish fleet was destroyed by the British at the Battle of Copenhagen.
1860 – The first Italian Parliament met in Turin.
1889 – Charles Hall patented aluminum.
1902 – The first motion picture theatre opened in Los Angeles with the name Electric Theatre.
1935 – Sir Watson-Watt was granted a patent for RADAR.
1958 – The National Advisory Council on Aeronautics was renamed NASA.
1960 – France signed an agreement with Madagascar that proclaimed the country an independent state within the French community.
1967 – In Peking, hundreds of thousands demonstrated against Mao foe Liu Shao-chi.
1981 – In Lebanon, thirty-seven people were reported killed during fighting in the cities of Beirut and Zahle. It was the worst violence since the 1976 cease fire.
1982 – Argentina invaded the British-owned Falkland Islands. The following June Britain took the islands back.
1986 – On a TWA airliner flying from Rome to Athens a bomb exploded under a seat killing four Americans.
1989 – An editorial in the “New York Times” declared that the Cold War was over.
1990 – Iraqi President Saddam Hussein threatened to incinerate half of Israel with chemical weapons if Israel joined a conspiracy against Iraq.
1996 – Lech Walesa resumed his old job as an electrician at the Gdansk shipyard. He was the former Solidarity union leader who became Poland’s first post-war democratic president.
2002 – Israeli troops surrounded the Church of the Nativity. More than 200 Palestinians had taken refuge at the church when Israel invaded Bethlehem.
2013 – The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Arms Trade Treaty to regulate the international trade of conventional weapons.
