Today in 1660, Charles II, the King of England, ordered the Council of Foreign Plantations to convert slaves and indentured servants to Christianity.
Today in 1912, the Girl Guides (aka the Girl Scouts) was formed in Savannah, Georgia by Juliette Gordon Low.
Today in 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt conducted his first "fireside chat."
Today in 1969, the Apollo Nine astronauts splashed down, ending a mission that included the successful testing of the Lunar Module.
Today in 1980, a jury found John Wayne Gacy guilty of murdering 33 in Chicago. It took them less then two-hours to come to the decision, which resulted in his receiving the death penalty.
Today in 1989, the World Wide Web was first proposed by Tim Berners-Lee. While we use the terms “Internet” and “web” interchangeably, they actually refer to different things. The Internet is the global network of computers that are able to communicate with one another (and it actually dates back to the military’s ARPANET, which was first developed in the 60s). The web? That’s the public’s main way of accessing the network.
Today in 1991, the Exxon Corporation agreed to pay a $100-million criminal fine and more than $900-million in civil damages in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. However, the deal fell apart when the Alaska House rejected it.
Today in 2003, a report in the journal "Nature" reported that scientists had found 350,000-year-old human footprints in Italy. The 56 prints were made by three early, upright-walking humans who were descending the side of a volcano.
Today in 2003, Elizabeth Smart was found after having been missing for nine-months.
Today in 2006, construction began on the memorial and museum to commemorate the victims of the 9/11 attacks. The site now features two reflecting pools surrounded by trees where the towers once stood with 2,900 names of people who died there.
Today in 2009, the Obama administration announced it would abandon the Bush administration’s term of ‘enemy combatant’ for the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.
Today in 2011, a reactor at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant melted down and exploded, releasing radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after Japan's 9.0-magnitude earthquake.
Today in 2014, eight people were killed, 70 were injured, and two buildings were leveled by a gas explosion in East Harlem, New York.