1520 – Ferdinand Magellan and his fleet reach Cape Virgenes and become the first Europeans to sail into the Pacific Ocean
1805 – Battle of Trafalgar: British Admiral Horatio Nelson defeats combined French and Spanish fleet. Nelson shot and killed during battle.
1854 – Florence Nightingale with a staff of 38 nurses is sent to the Crimean War
1944 – World War II: US troops capture Aachen, 1st large German city to fall
1948 – UN rejects Russian proposal to destroy atomic weapons
1950 – Chinese forces occupy Tibet
1993 – Military coup by Burundi President Ndadaye; 525,000 Hutus flee
1966 – 116 children and 28 adults died as a coal waste heap slid and engulfed a school in Aberfan, South Wales
2012 – Kateri Tekakwitha canonized as the 1st Native American saint by Pope Benedict XVI
2017 – Spanish government suspends Catalonia’s autonomy in the face of a deepening political crisis over the region’s push for independence
2019Â – Lebanon government approves economic reforms after 5 days of protests, largest in a decade
2020 – Pope Francis backs same-sex civil unions in interview in documentary film “Francesco”
Births & Deaths:
2012 – American politician and liberal activist George McGovern, who ran unsuccessfully as a reformist Democratic challenger in the 1972 presidential race against incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon, died in South Dakota.
Film & TV:
1964 – Film version of “My Fair Lady” directed by George Cukor and starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn premieres in New York (Academy Awards Best Picture 1965)
Music:
1858 -Jacques Offenbach’s operetta ” Orpheus in the Underworld” (Orphée aux Enfers) premieres in Paris, includes “Infernal Galop” (can-can tune)
2001 – “United We Stand” benefit concert for September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks victims, held at RFK Stadium Washington, D.C. organized and headlined by Michael Jackson and featuring Aerosmith, Mariah Carey and The Backstreet Boys
Sport:
1980 – Phillies win their 1st World Championship in their 98-year history
Via Britannica / On This Day
