Source: HistoryNet.com
1492: Christopher Columbus and his crew land in the Bahamas.
1609: The song "Three Blind Mice" is published in London, believed to be the earliest printed secular song.
1899: The Anglo-Boer War begins.
1933: Alcatraz Island is made a federal maximum-security prison.
1960: Inejiro Asanuma, leader of the Japan Socialist Party, is assassinated during a live TV broadcast.
1994: NASA loses contact with the Magellan probe spacecraft in the thick atmosphere of Venus.
2000: Suicide bombers at Aden, Yemen, damage USS Cole; 17 crew members killed and over 35 wounded.