1609 – Shakespeare’s sonnets are first published in London.
1861 – North Carolina secedes from the Union.
1862 – President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law.
1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.
1902 – Cuba gains independence from the United States.
1927 – Charles Lindbergh took off from Long Island aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on his historic solo flight to France.
1932 – Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland to begin the world’s first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot, landing in Ireland the next day.
1983 – First publications of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS in the journal Science by Luc Montagnier.
1989 – Chinese authorities declare martial law in the face of pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.
