On this day in history

1535: Having landed in Quebec a month ago, Jacques Cartier reaches a town, which he names Montreal.
1780: John André, a British Army officer, is hanged as a spy by the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War for assisting Benedict Arnold’s attempted surrender of the fort at West Point, New York, to the British.
1870: The papal states vote in favor of union with Italy. The capital is moved from Florence to Rome.
1871: Mormon leader Brigham Young, 70, is arrested for polygamy. He is later convicted, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the conviction.
1879: A dual alliance is formed between Austria and Germany, in which the two countries agree to come to the other’s aid in the event of aggression.
1909: Orville Wright sets an altitude record, flying at 1,600 feet. This exceeded Hubert Latham’s previous record of 508 feet.
1950: The comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schultz, makes its first appearance in newspapers.
1964: Scientists announce findings that smoking can cause cancer.
1967: Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court justice, is sworn in.
1980: Congressional Representative Mike Myers is expelled from the U.S. House for taking a bribe in the Abscam scandal, the first member to be expelled since 1861.
1990: Flight 8301 of China’s Xiamen Airlines is hijacked and crashed into Baiyun International Airport, hitting two other aircrafts and killing 128 people.
2001: NATO backs U.S. military strikes in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.