1793, Eli Whitney applied for a patent on his cotton gin.
1837, Queen Victoria ascended the British throne at age 18 following the death of her uncle, King William IV. She ruled for 63 years.
1893, a jury in New Bedford, Massachusetts, found Lizzie Borden innocent of the ax murders of her father and stepmother.
1948, The Ed Sullivan Show premiered as Toast of the Town on CBS-TV with its first guests, comediansJerry Lewis and Dean Martin.
1963, the United States and the Soviet Union signed an agreement to set up a “hot line” communications link between them. The system, a way to establish emergency communications between the two superpowers during the Cold War, was tested, but never used.
1967, boxer Muhammad Ali was convicted of violating Selective Service laws by refusing to be drafted, and fined $10,000. His conviction was ultimately overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
1975 The movie Jaws, starring Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss, and directed bySteven Spielberg, opens.
1990, South African black nationalist Nelson Mandela and his wife, Winnie, arrived in New York City for a ticker-tape parade in their honor as they began an 11-day, eight-city U.S. tour.
1993, the Chicago Bulls won their third straight NBA championship, the first team to “Three-Peat” since the 1966 Boston Celtics.
1997, the tobacco industry agreed to a massive settlement in exchange for major relief from mounting state lawsuits and legal bills.
1999, as the last Yugoslav troops left Kosovo, NATO declared a formal end to its bombing campaign.