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On this day in 1683, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek writes a letter to the Royal Society describing "animalcules": the first known description of protozoa. Little animals. Cute, no?
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On this day in 1776, the Presidio of San Francisco is founded in New Spain. Some dark stuff goes down there over the years.
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On this day in 1787, the United States Constitution is signed in Philadelphia.
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On this day in 1859, Joshua A. Norton declares himself Emperor Norton I of the United States. A great many people go along with his gag, up until the day he dies.
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On this day in 1862, America suffered the single bloodiest day in her history. It was during the Civil War, at Antietam. When the fighting was over, three thousand, six hundred and fifty four men lay dead on the battlefield. And adding insult to injury... the damn thing was a DRAW! All that death and gore, and there wasn't even a winner. Can you imagine how let down they all must have felt?
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On this day in 1908, the Wright Flyer flown by Orville Wright, with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as passenger, crashes killing Selfridge. He becomes the first airplane fatality.
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On this day in 1916, Manfred von Richthofen - "The Red Baron" - a flying ace of the German Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France.
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On this day in 1928, the Okeechobee hurricane strikes southeastern Florida, killing upwards of 2,500 people. It is the third deadliest natural disaster in United States history, behind the Galveston hurricane of 1900 and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
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On this day in the year 1953, for the first time ever in medical history, Siamese twins are successfully separated by surgeons. Sure, they were joined at the ankle, but a first is a first!
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On this day in 1976 the first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, is unveiled by NASA.
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On this day in 1983, Vanessa Williams becomes the first black Miss America. It doesn't last long before scandal strikes and she loses her crown.
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On this day in 1987, Pope John Paul II embraces an AIDS-infected boy while visiting San Francisco.
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On this day in 1991, both Koreas - North and South - are admitted into the United Nations on a date chosen to coincide with the 19th anniversary of the Korean war-based television series M*A*S*H, which premiered on this day in 1972.
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On this day in 2001, the New York Stock Exchange reopens for trading after the September 11 attacks, the longest closure since the Great Depression.
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On this day in 2007, AOL, once the largest ISP in the U.S., officially announces plans to refocus the company as an advertising business and to relocate its corporate headquarters from Dulles, Virginia to New York City
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On this day in 2011, Occupy Wall Street movement begins in Zuccotti Park, New York City, accomplishing not a whole hell of a lot.
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