TODAY IN HISTORY
404 B.C.: The Peloponnesian War ended as Athens surrendered to Sparta.
1507: A world map produced by German cartographer Martin Waldseemueller contained the first recorded use of the term “America,” in honor of Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci (veh-SPOO’-chee).
1859: Ground was broken for the Suez Canal. 1862: During the Civil War, a Union fleet commanded by Flag Officer David G. Farragut captured the city of New Orleans.
1898: The United States Congress declared war on Spain; the 10-week conflict resulted in an American victory.
1901: New York Gov. Benjamin Barker Odell, Jr. signed an automobile registration bill which imposed a 15 mph speed limit on highways.
1915: During World War I, Allied soldiers invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula in an unsuccessful attempt to take the Ottoman Empire out of the war.
1945: Delegates from some 50 countries gathered in San Francisco to organize the United Nations.
1945: During World War II, U.S. and Soviet forces linked up on the Elbe (EL’-beh) River, a meeting that dramatized the collapse of Nazi Germany’s defenses.
1990: The Hubble Space Telescope was deployed in orbit from the space shuttle Discovery. (It was later discovered that the telescope’s primary mirror was flawed, requiring the installation of corrective components to achieve optimal focus.)
1992: Islamic forces in Afghanistan took control of most of the capital of Kabul following the collapse of the Communist government.
2002: Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes of the Grammy-winning trio TLC died in an SUV crash in Honduras; she was 30.
2013: President Barack Obama consoled a rural Texas community rocked by a deadly fertilizer plant explosion that killed 15 people, telling mourners during a memorial service at Baylor University they were not alone in their grief. Obama also joined his four living predecessors to dedicate the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas.
2019: Former Vice President Joe Biden entered the Democratic presidential race, declaring the fight against Donald Trump to be a “battle for the soul of this nation.”