1534 – Jacques Cartier begins his first voyage to what is today the east coast of Canada.
1775 – The Siege of Boston begins in the American Revolutionary War.
1789 – George Washington arrives at Grays Ferry, Philadelphia while en route to Manhattan for his inauguration.
1861 – Robert E. Lee resigns his commission in the United States Army in order to command the forces of the state of Virginia.
1871 – Congress passed the Third Force Act, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, authorizing President Ulysses S. Grant to declare martial law, impose heavy penalties against terrorist organizations and use military force to suppress the Klan.
1898 – President William McKinley signed a joint resolution to Congress for a declaration of War against Spain, beginning the Spanish-American War.
1918 – Manfred von Richthofen, a.k.a. The Red Baron, shoots down his 79th and 80t victims, his final victories before his death the following day.
1999 – Columbine High School massacre. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and injured 24 others before committing suicide.
2010 – The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and beginning of an oil spill that would last six months.
