TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY IS MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2017 On this day in history:

1492 - The crew of the Pinta, one of Christopher Columbus’ ships, mistakenly thought that they had spotted land. 1493 - Christopher Columbus left Spain with 17 ships on his second voyage to the Western Hemisphere.

1513 - The Pacific Ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa when he crossed the Isthmus of Panama. He named the body of water the South Sea. He was truly just the first European to see the Pacific Ocean.

1775 - Ethan Allen was captured by the British during the American Revolutionary War. He was leading the attack on Montreal.

1876 - The current state flag of Tasmania is adopted. 1957 - The largest explosion in a second series of British atomic tests at Maralinga, South Australia, takes place. 1956 - A transatlantic telephone-cable system began operation between Newfoundland and Scotland. 1983 - A Soviet military officer, Stanislav Petrov, averted a potential worldwide nuclear war. He declared a false alarm after a US attack was detected by a Soviet early warning system. It was later discovered the alarms had been set off when the satellite warning system mistakenly interpreted sunlight reflections off clouds as the presence of enemy missiles.

1990 - The UN Security Council voted to impose an air embargo against Iraq. Cuba was the only dissenting vote.

1991 - The UN Security Council unanimously ordered a worldwide arms embargo against Yugoslavia and all of its warring factions. 2002 - US forces landed in Ivory Coast to aid in the rescue foreigners trapped in a school by fighting between government troops and rebel troops. Rebels had attempted to take over the government on September 19.

2012 - China launched its first aircraft carrier into service.