1955 – The polio vaccine, developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, is declared safe and effective.

1961 – Space Race: The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform the first crewed orbital flight, Vostok 1.

1970 – Soviet submarine K-8, carrying four nuclear torpedoes, sinks in the Bay of Biscay four days after a fire on board.

1999 – United States President Bill Clinton is cited for contempt of court for giving "intentionally false statements" in a civil lawsuit; he is later fined and disbarred.

1968 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing.

 Red_Dragon wrote:

 kurtster wrote:

Oh this started years ago, when you sold your soul to a pedophilic moron.

 islander wrote:  

Good.

You seem to forget what started this.  It was your guy on your side what started this.

kurtster wrote:  

 kurtster wrote:

I was just wondering what you loved more - a good conspiracy, or a chance to be an asshole. Thanks.  We're not laughing with you.

1866 – The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is founded in New York City by Henry Bergh.

1970 – Paul McCartney announces that he is leaving The Beatles for personal and professional reasons.

1784 – The Treaty of Paris, ratified by the United States Congress on January 14, 1784, is ratified by King George III of the Kingdom of Great Britain, ending the American Revolutionary War. Copies of the ratified documents are exchanged on May 12, 1784.

1860 – On his phonautograph machine, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville makes the first known recording of an audible human voice.

1939 – African-American singer Marian Anderson gives a concert at the Lincoln Memorial after being denied the use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

1945 – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi dissident, is executed by the Nazi regime.

1947 – The Journey of Reconciliation, the first interracial Freedom Ride begins through the upper South in violation of Jim Crow laws. The riders wanted enforcement of the United States Supreme Court's 1946 Irene Morgan decision that banned racial segregation in interstate travel.

1959 – Project Mercury: NASA announces the selection of the United States' first seven astronauts, whom the news media quickly dub the "Mercury Seven".

Ding dong

1974 – Hank Aaron passes Babe Ruth as the all-time leader in career home runs by hitting his 715th home run off of Al Downing at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

2010 – U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sign the New START Treaty.

1805 – German composer Ludwig van Beethoven premieres his Third Symphony, at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna.

1922 – Teapot Dome scandal: United States Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leases federal petroleum reserves to private oil companies on excessively generous terms.

1927 – AT&T engineer Herbert Ives transmits the first long-distance public television broadcast (from Washington, D.C., to New York City, displaying the image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover).

1933 – Nazi Germany issues the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service banning Jews and political dissidents from civil service posts.

1948 – The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations.

1969 – The Internet's symbolic birth date: Publication of RFC 1.

2021 – COVID-19 pandemic: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announces that the SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant has become the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the United States.

2022 – Ketanji Brown Jackson is confirmed for the Supreme Court of the United States, becoming the first black female justice.

1973 – The American League of Major League Baseball begins using the designated hitter.

1974 – In Brighton, United Kingdom, ABBA wins the 1974 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest with "Waterloo", the first of a joint-record seven Swedish wins.

1974 – The first California Jam festival takes place at the Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, California. Co-headlined by Deep Purple and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. The festival set what were then records for the loudest amplification system ever installed, the highest paid attendance, and highest gross in history.

1998 – Nuclear weapons testing: Pakistan tests medium-range missiles capable of reaching India.

1792 – United States President George Washington exercises his authority to veto a bill, the first time this power is used in the United States.<

1922 – The American Birth Control League, forerunner of Planned Parenthood, is incorporated.

1922 – The American Birth Control League, forerunner of Planned Parenthood, is incorporated.

1925 – The Schutzstaffel (SS) is founded under Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party in Germany.

1949 – Cold War: Twelve nations sign the North Atlantic Treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

1964 – The Beatles occupy the top five positions on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart.

1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by James Earl Ray at a motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

1975 – Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech; he was assassinated the next day.

1973 – Martin Cooper of Motorola makes the first handheld mobile phone call to Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs.

1981 – The Osborne 1, the first successful portable computer, is unveiled at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco.

2010 – Apple Inc. released the first generation iPad, a tablet computer.

2016 – The Panama Papers, a leak of legal documents, reveals information on 214,488 offshore companies.

1800 – Ludwig van Beethoven leads the premiere of his First Symphony in Vienna.

1902 – "Electric Theatre", the first full-time movie theater in the United States, opens in Los Angeles.

2020 – COVID-19 pandemic: The total number of confirmed cases reach one million.

2025 – Liberation Day tariffs: U.S. President Donald Trump announces sweeping worldwide tariffs.

1924 – Adolf Hitler is sentenced to five years fortress confinement for his participation in the "Beer Hall Putsch" but spends only nine months in jail.

1960 – The TIROS-1 satellite transmits the first television picture from space.

1976 – Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak found Apple Computer, Inc.

1984 – Singer Marvin Gaye is shot to death by his father in his home in Arlington Heights, Los Angeles, California.

2001 – Same-sex marriage becomes legal in the Netherlands, the first contemporary country to allow it.

1918 – Daylight saving time goes into effect in the United States for the first time.

1933 – The Civilian Conservation Corps is established with the mission of relieving rampant unemployment in the United States.

1951 – Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.

1998 – Netscape releases Mozilla source code under an open source license.

2023 – Donald Trump becomes the first former United States president to be indicted by a grand jury.