History Today

Hello and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on September 6th. Have you ever wanted to travel the world? That’s just what Ferdinand Magellan set out to do when he left Spain to find a western sea route to the Spice Islands of Indonesia. Although Magellan himself never made it, one of his ships—the Vittoria—completed the first circumnavigation of the world on this day in 1522.

Hello and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on September 5th. The U.S. Congress is due back in session next week after breaking for most of August. And as our senators and congressmen and women prepare to take action on the most pressing issues of the nation, we look back to this day in 1774, when the very first session of the America’s Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia.

Hello and welcome to This Day in History brought to you by AARP. Take on today and every day with AARP. Here’s what happened on September 4th. It’s the day that set an obscure mathematical term on its way to becoming a household world: On this day in 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin filed for incorporation for their new company, Google.

Hello and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on September 3rd. You may never have heard of it, but it’s thought to be the world’s oldest surviving republic: Say happy birthday to San Marino, which today commemorates its founding in the year 301. With a population of less than 35,000 and an area of about 25 square miles, San Marino is one of the world’s smallest countries.

Hello and welcome to This Day in History brought to you by AARP. Take on today and every day with AARP. Here’s what happened on September 2nd. Today it’s rarely necessary to step into a bank to control your finances, and that freedom is in large part thanks to a banking revolution that kicked off with the opening of the first ATM machine on this day in 1969.

Hello and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on September 1st. In the early 1900s the passenger pigeon became a sad symbol of the threat of species extinction. On this day in 1914, the very last surviving passenger pigeon, called Martha, died at Ohio’s Cincinnati Zoo.

Hello and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on August 31st. As the race to Major League Baseball’s playoffs heats up, we look back to this day in 1959, when Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Sandy Koufax struck out 18 batters, setting a then- National League record for most strikeouts in a single game. The Dodgers went on to win that year’s World Series.

Hello and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on August 30th. The job of supreme court justice remains one of the most important--and hotly debated--in American society. It wasn’t any different 52 years ago today when Thurgood Marshall became the first African American ever to be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. Prior to his appointment, Marshall served as chief counsel for the NAACP and won renown for his victory in the landmark 1954 case Brown v.

Hello and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on August 29th. As the southeastern U.S. braces for Dorian, we look back to this day in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina made landfall near New Orleans, Louisiana. The storm flooded 80 percent of New Orleans and caused damage across coastal Louisiana and Mississippi. All told, the storm killed 1,300 people, displaced tens of thousands more and caused some $150 billion in damage, much of it not covered by insurance.

Hello and welcome to This Day in History. Here’s what happened on August 28th. “I have a dream.” They are four of the most stirring words in American history and, 56 years ago today, they were spoken by civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. as he addressed 250,000 people attending the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in Washington, D.C. The peaceful rally was the largest protest gathering that the capital had seen to that time.