In 1770, James Cook arrived at and named Botany Bay, Australia.
In 1864, Ashmun Institute in Pennsylvania, the first college founded solely for African-American students, was officially chartered.
In 1885, women were admitted for the first time to examinations at England’s Oxford University.
In 1913, Gideon Sundbach of Hoboken, N.J., was issued a patent for the zipper.
In 1945, U.S. troops liberated 32,000 prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp near Munich, Germany.
In 1985, four gunmen escaped with nearly $8 million in cash stolen from the Wells Fargo armored car company in New York.
In 1986, an arson fire destroyed more than 1 million books in the Los Angeles Central Library.
In 1988, the first condor conceived in captivity was born at San Diego Wild Animal Park.
In 1991, more than 100 people were killed when a magnitude-7 earthquake rocked Soviet Georgia, destroying hospitals, schools, factories and 17,000 homes.
In 1992, rioting erupted in Los Angeles after a jury in Simi Valley, Calif., acquitted four white police officers of nearly all charges in the videotaped
beating of black motorist Rodney King. Fifty-three people died in three days of protest and violence.
Also in 1992, a Sarasota, Fla., judge denied custody rights to the biological parents of a 13-year-old girl, ruling she should remain with the man who
raised her since the 1978 hospital mix-up of infants.
In 1994, an estimated 250,000 Rwandans fleeing the fighting crossed the border into neighboring Tanzania in one day.
In 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney underwent more than three hours of questioning about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Also in 2004, the final Oldsmobile was manufactured. The brand had been in existence for 107 years.
In 2005, at least 27 people were killed and 100 wounded as insurgents targeted Iraqi forces with bombs in a horrific three-hour melee in and near Baghdad.
In 2006, the U.S. National Counter-terrorism Center said international terror attacks numbered 11,111 attacks in 2005, nearly four times more than the
previous year.
In 2007, worldwide protests were staged on behalf of the fourth anniversary of the Darfur conflict in Sudan where death estimates have ranged as high as
400,000.
In 2008, U.S. President George W. Bush sought the resignation of General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan for alleged violation of the Hatch Act
dealing with candidate support and a no-bid federal contract.
In 2009, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, winding up his fifth term as a Republican stalwart, announced he would seek re-election in 2010 — as a Democrat,
switching parties because he found himself “increasingly at odds” with the Republican Party.
Also in 2009, Congress passed U.S. President Barack Obama’s $3.4 trillion budget resolution for fiscal 2010 on his 100th day in office. Obama got most
of his spending priorities in the document but received no Republican support.
