1558 – Elizabeth I aged 25 ascends the English throne upon the death of her half-sister Queen “Bloody” Mary.
1800 – Congress holds its 1st session in Washington D.C. in an incomplete Capitol Building.
1831 – Ecuador and Venezuela separated from Greater Colombia.
1855 – David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls, in what is now Zambia and Zimbabwe.
1869 – Suez Canal in Egypt opens, linking the Mediterranean and Red seas.
1922 – The last sultan of the Ottoman Empire Mehmed VI is expelled to Malta on a British warship.
1942 – American filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who was known for his harsh, often violent depictions of American culture, was born.
1970 – Douglas Engelbart receives the patent for the first computer mouse.
1989 – Massive anti-government demonstrations in Czechoslovakia were set off by police brutality at a demonstration commemorating the 50th anniversary of the suppression of a student demonstration in German-occupied Prague, and, under the leadership of Václav Havel, they continued until the communist government resigned.
2003 – Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, an Austrian-born American bodybuilder and film actor, was inaugurated on this day in 2003 as the governor of California following a recall election that ousted the sitting governor.
Music: 2003 – Britney Spears, at 21 years old, becomes the youngest singer to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Sport: 2013 – German Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel wins record 8th consecutive Formula 1 race with victory in United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas.
