2015
Kathmandu, Nepal, was devastated by a major earthquake.
The 7.8 magnitude quake broke out at 11:56 am. Nearly 9,000 people lost their lives, while 30,000 were injured. 3.5 million homes were destroyed, and the total damage was a staggering $10 billion.
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2005
Romania and Bulgaria signed the European Union’s Treaty of Accession, the last step to joining the Union.
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1990
Nicaragua elected its first-ever female President, Violeta Chamorro.
Violeta Chamorro was also the first female head of state to be elected in the Americas! Chamorro was elected as the head of a fourteen-party coalition whose goals misaligned so much that she was unable to get very much done during her seven-year term.
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1990
The Discovery Space Shuttle deployed the Hubble Space Telescope into low-Earth orbit.
The Hubble mission was a joint operation between NASA and the European Space Agency. Discovery ferried the telescope under mission STS-31, with the deployment of the telescope as its primary objective. During deployment, one of the telescope’s solar arrays got stuck while unfurling, but fortunately, the mission’s ground team found a solution in time.
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1985
Germany banned the denial of Nazi genocide against Jewish people during the Holocaust.
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1954
Bell Labs demonstrated the first practical silicon solar cell in New Jersey, US.
Although the efficiency in converting sunlight into electricity was only 6%, this was a notable improvement on any other demonstrations.
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1953
Francis Crick & James Watson’s discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA was formally announced.
It was published in Nature Magazine on this day, and the article revolutionized the study of biology and medicine.
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1947
President Harry Truman opened the two-lane White House bowling alley.
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1931
Porsche was officially added to the commercial register in Germany.
They would grow to be one of the most famous car manufacturers in the world.
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1901
New York state became the first to require license plates on automobiles.
These early-day plates displayed the driver’s initials.
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1846
The Thornton Affair, a skirmish between American and Mexican soldiers in Texas, started a chain of events that led to the Mexican-American War.
The battle happened 20 miles (32 km) west upriver from Zachary Taylor’s camp in Corpus Christi, along the Rio Grande. Mexican and American forces occupied disputed land between Texas and Mexico, and Taylor’s Occupational Force was attacked by Mexican soldiers who discovered them in those disputed territories.
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1792
A highwayman, Nicolas Pelletier, was the first man to be executed by the guillotine in Paris, France.
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1644
The Chongzhen Emperor died by suicide during a peasant rebellion.
Zhu Youjian, the Chongzhen Emperor, was the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
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404 BC
The Peloponnesian war came to an end when Admiral Lysander and his Spartan armies defeated their Athenian foes.
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