Source: HistoryNet.com
1503: Christopher Columbus discovers the Cayman Islands.
1773: To keep the troubled East India Company afloat, Parliament passes the Tea Act, taxing all tea in the American colonies.
1796: Napoleon Bonaparte wins a brilliant victory against the Austrians at Lodi bridge in Italy.
1859: French emperor Napoleon III leaves Paris to join his troops preparing to battle the Austrian army in Northern Italy.
1872: Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated for U.S. president.
1924: J. Edgar Hoover is appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
1940: German forces begin a blitzkrieg of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, skirting France’s "impenetrable” Maginot Line.
1941: England’s House of Commons is destroyed during the worst of the London Blitz: 550 German bombers drop 100 thousand incendiary bombs.
1960: The USS Nautilus completes the first circumnavigation of the globe underwater.
1994: Nelson Mandela is sworn in as South Africa’s first Black president.