Significant events that happened on this day.
The hurricane caused catastrophic flooding when New Orleans' levee system failed, submerging 80% of the city. Over 1,800 people died and it became the...
The Red Planet came within 34.6 million miles of Earth, appearing bigger and brighter in the night sky than it had since Neanderthals walked the Earth...
After 15 years of marriage and years of public scandal, the Prince and Princess of Wales officially divorced. Diana received a settlement of £17 milli...
Captain Zuhair Dawood landed at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey during the Gulf War buildup and immediately surrendered his aircraft. He cited his opposit...
In what was later termed a 'police riot' by the Walker Report, Chicago police brutally beat demonstrators protesting the Vietnam War. The violence was...
Standing before 250,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial, King delivered one of the most iconic speeches in American history. His vision of racial equal...
Station WEAF in New York broadcast a 10-minute advertisement for the Queensboro Corporation's Jackson Heights apartment complex. The commercial cost $...
Originally called 'Brad's Drink,' the pharmacist created the beverage to aid digestion and boost energy. He renamed it Pepsi-Cola after the digestive...
Captain William Reynolds of the USS Lackawanna claimed the uninhabited coral atoll for the U.S. under the Guano Islands Act. The tiny islands would be...
The Tom Thumb, built by Peter Cooper, was racing a horse-drawn railcar to prove steam power's superiority when a belt slipped off a pulley. The horse...
The British astronomer spotted the sixth-largest moon of Saturn using his homemade 40-foot telescope. Enceladus would later become one of the most fas...
The author of Faust lived to age 82 and became the last great universal genius of the German Enlightenment. Beyond writing, he made contributions to o...
The English explorer, working for the Dutch East India Company, sailed into the bay in his ship the Half Moon. He was looking for a shortcut to Asian...