1782 Battle at Les Saintes: British fleet under Admiral George Rodney defeats the French fleet under Comte de Grasse off Dominica in the West Indies. Prevents a planned French and Spanish invasion of Jamaica.
1811 The first US colonists on the Pacific coast arrive at Cape Disappointment, Washington.
1861 Fort Sumter in South Carolina is attacked by the Confederacy, beginning the American Civil War.
1916 Irish nationalist activist and poet Roger Casement boards submarine U-19 at Wilmshaven, Germany, bound for a rendezvous with the Aud at Tralee.
1941 Vichy-France's head of government Admiral François Darlan consults with Adolf Hitler.
1945 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies in office and Vice President Harry Truman is sworn in as 33rd US President.
1945 British Royal Navy captures German U-boat U-1024 in the Irish Sea; it sinks while being towed the next day.
1961 Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into space and orbit Earth, aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft.
1975 Six Catholic civilians are killed in a Ulster Volunteer Force gun and grenade attack on Strand Bar in Belfast, North Ireland.
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