Today in History

From wikipedia.org:

Events
1409 - The University of Leipzig opened.
1755 - The second Eddystone Lighthouse is destroyed by fire
1823 - US President James Monroe delivers a speech to the United States Congress, announcing a new policy of forbidding European interference in the Americas and establishing American neutrality in future European conflicts (this would later be called the Monroe Doctrine)
1845 - Manifest Destiny: US President James Polk announces to Congress that the Monroe Doctrine should be strictly enforced and that the United States should aggressively expand into the West
1859 - Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16th raid on Harper’s Ferry
1867 - In a New York City theater, British author Charles Dickens gives his first public reading in the United States
1915 - Albert Einstein publishes the general theory of relativity
1927 - Following 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Model A as its new automobile
1930 - Great Depression: US President Herbert Hoover goes before Congress and asks for a US$150 million public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy
1939 - La Guardia Airport opens for business in New York City
1942 - Manhattan Project: Below the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiate the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction (a coded message, “The Italian navigator has landed in the new world.” was then sent to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt).
1954 - Red Scare: The United States Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for “conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute”
1982 - At the University of Utah, 61-year-old retired dentist Barney Clark, becomes the first person to receive a permanent artificial heart (he lived for 112 days with the device)
1988 - Benazir Bhutto is sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, becoming the first woman to head the government of an Islam-dominated state
1990 - A coalition led by Chancellor Helmut Kohl wins the first free all-German elections since 1932
1993 - Space Shuttle program: STS-61 - NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair an optical flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope
1999 - The United Kingdom devolves political power in Northern Ireland to a the Northern Ireland Executive

Births
1578 - Agostino Agazzari, composer and music theorist (d. 1640)
1738 - Richard Montgomery, Irish-American soldier (d. 1775)
1863 - Charles Ringling, circus leader (d. 1926)
1885 - George Richards Minot, American physician, winner of 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1950)
1914 - Ray Walston, actor (d. 2001)
1923 - Maria Callas, opera singer (d. 1977)
1952 - Michael McDonald, musician

Deaths
1547 - Hernán Cortés, Spanish explorer and conqueror
1552 - Francis Xavier, Catholic missionary
1594 - Gerardus Mercator, cartographer
1774 - Johann Friedrich Agricola, composer and organist
1859 - John Brown, militant abolitionist (hanged)
1986 - Desi Arnaz, actor, musician, band leader, composer
1988 - Tata Giacobetti, Italian singer and lyricist (Quartetto Cetra)
1990 - Aaron Copland, composer

Holidays and observances
Feast day of St Bibiana