1497

John Cabot became the first European to set foot in North America since the Vikings.

1509

Henry VIII is crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey, London

1812

Napoleon’s Grande Armee invades Russia.

1821

South American patriots under Simón Bolívar defeated Spanish royalists on the plains near Caracas, Venezuela, in the Battle of Carabobo.

1853

US President Franklin Pierce signs the Gadsden Purchase, buying 29,670 square-miles (76,800 square km) from Mexico for $10 million (now southern Arizona and New Mexico).

1880

First performance of “O Canada,” the song that would become the national anthem of Canada, at the Congrès national des Canadiens-Français.

1901

1st exhibition by Pablo Picasso aged 19, opens in Paris.

1910

50th British Open Men’s Golf, St Andrews: James Braid wins Championship for a 5th time, 4 strokes ahead of fellow Scot Sandy Herd (1902 champion).

1916

Mary Pickford becomes the first female film star to get a million dollar contract.

1922

Charter NFL club Chicago Staleys renamed Chicago Bears by team founder, owner and head coach George Halas.

1932

The Promoters Revolution, a bloodless coup, overthrew Prajadhipok, the king of Thailand, ending the absolute monarchy in that country and initiating the so-called Constitutional Era.

1948

The Berlin blockade intensified when the Soviet Union announced that the Western Allied powers no longer had any rights in Berlin.

1953

Jacqueline Bouvier and Senator John F. Kennedy announce engagement.

1977

Crystal Gayle releases best-selling album “We Must Believe in Magic” featuring worldwide hit “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” (1st platinum album by a female country music artist).

1992

Billy Joel gets an honorary diploma from Hicksville High School (Nassau, Long Island, New York) at 43.

1997

U.S. Air Force officials release a 231-page report dismissing long-standing claims of an alien spacecraft crash in Roswell, New Mexico, almost exactly 50 years earlier.

2022

US Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, eliminating constitutional right to choose abortion, in a 6-3 vote