Today in History

1460 – James II of Scotland is killed by the English during siege of Roxburgh Castle.

1492 – Christopher Columbus embarks from Palos de la Frontera, Spain, aboard the Santa Maria, on his first voyage of westward exploration.

1610 – Captain Henry Hudson, seeking a new passage to the Pacific, discovers the bay that now bears his name.

1900 – Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is founded.

1904 – British troops enter Lhasa, Tibet, as the Dalai Lama flees. 1936 – American sprinter Jesse

Owens, left, wins the 100 metres in front of Adolf Hitler at the Berlin Olympics.

1940 – Lithuania is formally incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic.

1958 – Atomic-powered United States submarine Nautilus makes the first undersea crossing of the

North Pole.

1975 – A chartered Boeing jetliner 707 crashes in southern Morocco, killing 188 people. 1996 – The Macarena goes to the

top of US pop charts.

2000 – The European Union opens an anti-trust case against Microsoft.

2004 – The base of the Statue of Liberty reopens to visitors for the first time since the 9/11 attacks.

2014 – A strong earthquake in southern China’s Yunnan province kills at least 367 people and injures more than 1800.