Today In History
1577: Sir Francis Drake of England set out with five ships on a nearly three-year journey that would take him around the world.
1642: Dutch navigator Abel Tasman arrived in present-day New Zealand. 1769: Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire, received its charter.
1862: Union forces suffered a major defeat to the Confederates at the Battle of Fredericksburg, in Virginia.
1918: President Woodrow Wilson arrived in France, becoming the first chief executive to visit Europe while in office.
1928: George Gershwin’s musical work “An American in Paris” had its premiere, at Carnegie Hall in New York.