Today In History

In 1619: the first Africans arrived in the United States. They were brought by the Dutch, who sold the Africans as indentured servants at Jamestown Colony in Virginia. The captain was sailing for the West Indies when he was blown off course. It was the beginning of slavery in North America.

Several years after their arrival, two of the slaves gave birth to the first African-American child, William Tucker.

In 1630: Lemonade was invented in Paris.

In 1833: Benjamin Harrison, who became the 23rd president, was born in North Bend, Ohio.

In 1882: The 1812 Overture was first performed in Moscow.

In 1910: The first gun was fired from an airplane.

In 1913: Adolphe Pegond bailed out from his Bieriot airplane 700 feet above France. His parachute brought him down safely, and he became the first person to fall out of an airplane.

In 1914: German forces occupied Brussels in World War I. In 1968: Russian troops invaded Czechoslovakia.