1493 – Christopher Columbus starts the return home from his journey to the “New World”

1643 – Sir Isaac Newton, English mathematician and philosopher, is born

1809 – Louis Braille, inventor of the Braille reading system for the blind, is born

1847 – Samuel Colt sells his very first revolver to the United States government

1865 – The New York Stock Exchange opens in its now-permanent home near Wall Street

1896 – Utah is admitted as the 45th state in the U.S.

1944 – Operation Carpetbagger, a mission to deliver supplies to resistance fighters in Europe during WWII, begins

1994 – Sam Ervin is born