Today in history

In 1517, Martin Luther sent his 95 Theses denouncing what he saw as the abuses of the Catholic Church, especially the sale of indulgences, to the Archbishop of Mainz, Germany (by some accounts, Luther also posted the Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg), marking the start of the Protestant Reformation. In 1795, English poet John Keats was born in London.

In 1864, Nevada became the 36th state as President Abraham Lincoln signed a proclamation.

In 1926, magician Harry Houdini died in Detroit of peritonitis resulting from a ruptured appendix.

In 1941, the Navy destroyer USS Reuben James was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Iceland with the loss of some 100 lives, even though the United States had not yet entered World War II. Work was completed on the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, begun in 1927.

In 1956, Navy Rear Adm. George J. Dufek and six others became the first air travelers to set foot at the South Pole.

In 1967, Nguyen Van Thieu became the first president of South Vietnam’s second republic.

In 1975, the Queen single “Bohemian Rhapsody” was released in the United Kingdom by EMI Records.

In 1984, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh (seek) security guards. In 1992, Pope John Paul II formally proclaimed that the Roman Catholic Church had erred in condemning the astronomer Galileo for holding that the Earth was not the center of the universe.

In 1994, a Chicago-bound American Eagle ATR-72 crashed in northern Indiana, killing all 68 people aboard.

In 1996, a Brazilian Fokker-100 jetliner crashed in Sao Paulo, killing all 96 people on board and three on the ground.

In 1999, EgyptAir Flight 990, bound from New York to Cairo, crashed off the Massachusetts coast, killing all 217 people aboard.