This Day in History
1241: Death of Ogadai, Mongol KaKhan
1415: Henry V's fleet sets sail for France, at 3:00 pm, on a Sunday
1456: Death of John Hunyadi, Regent of Hungary
1480: Turks capture the castle of Otranto, in southern Italy (Naples)
1492: Election of Alexander VI as Pope. He served until 1503. He initiated censorship of books and excommunicated Savonarola for heresy. He set the line of demarcation, seperating Spainsh from Portuguese lands in the New World.
1519: Johann Tetzel dies at the age of 54. He was the first public antagonist of Martin Luther because of his preaching of indulgences. This let to Luther's publishing of the 95 themes.
1587: Arrival in Virginia of Raleigh's second expedition of colonists.
1834: The Ursuline convent in Charlestown, Mass., was destroyed by the fire as part of an anti-Catholic campaign.
1860: The nation's first successful silver mill began operation near Virginia City, Nevada
1866: The world's first roller rink opens its doors, in Newport, R.I.
1877: American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered the two moons of Mars, which he named Phobos and Deimos.
1884: The national religion of Japan was disestablished and freedom was given to all other religions.
1909: The S.O.S. distress signal was first used by an American ship the "Arapahoe," off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
1930: The American Lutheran Church was formed in Toledo, Ohio by the merger of the synods of Buffalo, Iowa and Ohio.
1934: The first federal prisoners arrived at the island prison Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay.
1941: President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter on a warship in the western Atlantic.
1951: WCBS-TV in New York City televised the first baseball doubleheader (in color) The Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Braves were featured.
1958: Elvis Presley received a gold record for the hit "Hard Headed Woman"
1965: Twelve-year-old Karen Yvette Muir became the youngest person to break a world record when she swam the 100-yard backstroke in 8.7 seconds at Blackpool, England.