On this date:

1621: The Dutch West India Co. received its charter for a trade monopoly in parts of the Americas and Africa.

1781: Capt. Jack Jouett began riding his horse some 40 miles from Louisa County, Virginia, to Charlottesville, where Gov. Thomas Jefferson and other politicians were located, to warn of approaching British troops who intended to take them prisoner.

1888: The poem “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer was first published in the San Francisco Daily Examiner.

1918: “His Family” by Ernest Poole became the first novel to win the Pulitzer Prize.

1937: Edward, The Duke of Windsor, who had abdicated the British throne, married Wallis Simpson in a private ceremony in Monts, France.

1943: The “Zoot Suit Riots” began in Los Angeles as white servicemen clashed with young Latinos wearing distinctivelooking zoot suits; the violence ended when military officials declared the city off limits to enlisted personnel.

1948: The 200-inch reflecting Hale Telescope at the Palomar Mountain Observatory in California was dedicated.

1955: Convicted murderer Barbara Graham, 31, was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison in California, as were Jack Santo and Emmett Perkins, for the 1953 slaying of Mabel Monahan.

1965: Astronaut Edward H. White became the first American to “walk” in space during the flight of Gemini 4.

1977: The United States and Cuba agreed to set up diplomatic interests sections in each other’s countries.