1415 – Henry the Navigator, the prince of Portugal, embarked on an expedition to Africa.

1777 – The Marquis de Lafayette arrived in the American colonies to help with their rebellion against the British.

1866 – The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed by the U.S. Congress. It was ratified on July 9,

1868. The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. It did this by prohibiting states from denying or abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, depriving any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

1888 – The U.S. Congress created the Department of Labor.

1912 – Captain Albert Berry made the first successful parachute jump from an airplane in Jefferson, Mississippi.

1920 – The U.S. Post Office Department ruled that children may not be sent by parcel post.

1922 – Charlie Osborne started the longest attack on hiccups. He hiccuped over 435 million times before stopping. He died in 1991, 11 months after his hiccups ended.

1923 – The French set a trade barrier between the occupied Ruhr and the rest of Germany.

1927 – Charles Lindbergh was honored with a ticker-tape parade in New York City.

1927 – For the first time, an American Flag was displayed from the right hand of the Statue of Liberty.

1940 – Paris was evacuated before the German advance on the city.

1943 – German spies landed on Long Island, New York. They were soon captured.

1944 – Germany launched 10 of its new V1 rockets against Britain from a position near the Channel coast. Of the 10 rockets only 5 landed in Britain and only one managed to kill (6 people in London).

1944 – Marvin Camras patented the wire recorder.

1949 – Bao Dai entered Saigon to rule Vietnam. He had been installed by the French.

1951 – U.N. troops seized Pyongyang, North Korea. 1978 – Israelis withdrew the last of their invading forces from Lebanon.

1971 – The New York Times began publishing the “Pentagon Papers”. The articles were a secret study of America’s involvement in Vietnam.

1983 – The unmanned U.S. space probe Pioneer 10 became the first spacecraft to leave the solar system. It was launched in March 1972. The first up-close images of the planet Jupiter were provided by Pioneer 10.

1995 – France announced that they would conduct eight more nuclear tests in the South Pacific.

2000 – In Pyongyang, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Il welcomed South Korea’s President Kim Dae for a three-day summit. It was the first such meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea.