EVENTS:
- 1494 – Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Jamaica and claims it for Spain.
- 1809 – Mary Kies becomes the first woman awarded a U.S. patent, for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread.
- 1835 – The first railway in continental Europe opens between Brussels and Mechelen.
- 1905 – The trial in the Stratton Brothers case begins in London, England; it marks the first time that fingerprint evidence is used to gain a conviction for murder.
- 1961 – The Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 3: Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into outer space, on a sub-orbital flight.
- 1972 – Alitalia Flight 112 crashes into Mount Longa near Palermo, Sicily, killing all 115 aboard, making it the deadliest single-aircraft disaster in Italy.
- 1994 – The signing of the Bishkek Protocol between Armenia and Azerbaijan effectively freezes the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
- 2014 – 11 people are missing after a Chinese cargo ship collides with a Marshall Islands registered container ship off the coast of Hong Kong.
- 2014 – 22 people die after two boats carrying illegal immigrants collide in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Greece.
- 2019 – A Russian plane jet burst into flames while attempting an emergency landing at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow killing at least 41 people.
- 2023 – The World Health Organization declares the end of the COVID-19 pandemic as a global health emergency.
BIRTHS:
- 1479 – Guru Amar Das, Indian 3rd Sikh Guru (d. 1574)
- 1893 – S. Mahadeva, Ceylon Tamil civil engineer
- 1911 – Pritilata Waddedar, Indian educator and activist (d. 1932)
- 1916 – Zail Singh, Indian politician, 7th President of India (d. 1987)
- 1921 – Arthur Leonard Schawlow, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1999)
- 1982 – Ferrie Bodde, Dutch footballer
- 1982 – Jay Bothroyd, English footballer
- 1982 – Wouter D’Haene, Belgian sprinter
- 1991 – Shubha Phutela, Indian model and actress (d. 2012)
- 1992 – Loïck Landre, French footballer
- 2004 – Kirsty Muir, Scottish freestyle skier
