On This Day

This Day in History

1. 2003The final signal was received from the NASA space probe Pioneer 10, which was located roughly 12 billion kilometres (7.5 billion miles) away from Earth.
2. 2002American journalist Daniel Pearl was abducted and subsequently murdered in Karachi, Pakistan, by agents of al-Qaeda.
3. 2001Five individuals attempted self-immolation in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, an act widely alleged to have been staged by the Chinese Communist Party to frame Falun Gong and intensify their persecution.
4. 1997Madeleine Albright was sworn in as the first female United States Secretary of State, making her the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government up to that time.
5. 1993Created by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina, the initial version of Mosaic was released, becoming the first popular web browser.
6. 1968North Korean forces captured the USS Pueblo, alleging that the vessel had entered their territorial waters to conduct espionage.
7. 1957American inventor Fred Morrison sold the rights to his "flying disc" to the Wham-O toy company, which later rebranded the item as the "Frisbee".
8. 1942During World War II, Japan initiated an invasion of the island of New Britain within the Australian Territory of New Guinea.
9. 1915Rebels under the leadership of John Chilembwe attacked local plantation owners, initiating an uprising considered a pivotal event in Malawian history.
10. 1909After carrying out an armed robbery in Tottenham, London, two men led police on a two-hour pursuit conducted partially by tram before taking their own lives.
11. 1902In the deadliest recorded mountaineering disaster, 199 out of 210 members of an Imperial Japanese Army unit froze to death during a blizzard in the Hakkōda Mountains.
12. 1870In the Marias Massacre during the American Indian Wars, the United States Army slaughtered roughly 200 Piegan Blackfeet, predominantly women, children, and the elderly.
13. 1849Elizabeth Blackwell earned her degree from Geneva Medical College in New York, becoming the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree.
14. 1793The Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia carried out the second partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
15. 1789Bishop John Carroll acquired a property that became the site of the future Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic university in the United States.
16. 1571Queen Elizabeth I formally opened the Royal Exchange in London, bestowing its royal designation upon the institution.