On July 8, 1497, Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama set sail from Lisbon on a voyage that would lead to discovery of a sea route to India around the southern tip of Africa.
In 1663 King Charles II of England granted clergyman Roger Williams a charter to Rhode Island.
In 1776 Col. John Nixon gave the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, in Philadelphia.
In 1822 English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned when his boat capsized off Livorno, Italy; he was 29.
In 1839 American oilman John D. Rockefeller was born in Richford, N.Y.
In 1853 a U.S. Navy expedition led by Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Yedo (now Tokyo) Bay on a mission to seek diplomatic and trade relations with Japan.
In 1889 The Wall Street Journal published its first editions.
In 1907 Florenz Ziegfeld staged his first “Follies” show on the roof of the New York Theater.
In 1908 rhythm and blues singer, saxophonist and bandleader Louis Jordan was born in Brinkley, Ark.
In 1914 singer and bandleader Billy Eckstine was born William Clarence Eckstein in Pittsburgh.
In 1919 President Woodrow Wilson received a tumultuous welcome in New York after his return from the Versailles Peace Conference.
In 1947 demolition work began in New York to make way for the permanent headquarters of the United Nations.
In 1950 Gen. Douglas MacArthur was named commander in chief of UN forces in Korea.
In 1991, reversing earlier denials, Iraq disclosed for the first time that it was carrying out a nuclear weapons program, including the production of enriched uranium.
In 1994 Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s communist leader since 1948, died in Pyongyang; he was 82. Also in 1994 O.J. Simpson was ordered to stand trial on charges of murdering his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman.
In 1995 a deadly heat wave began in the nation’s midsection; it claimed more than 800 lives, more than half of them in Illinois.
In 1997 the Mayo Clinic and the government warned that the drug combination used for dieting known as “fen-phen” could cause serious heart and lung damage.
In 2001 Venus Williams won her second consecutive Wimbledon title by beating Belgian Justine Henin 6-1, 3-6, 6-0.
In 2004 Enron founder and former chairman Kenneth Lay pleaded not guilty in Houston to charges related to the company’s collapse.
