To improve the then-unsatisfactory methods of instructing midshipmen, George Bancroft—historian, educator, and secretary of the navy—founded the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, on this day in 1845.
| 1985: | | American motion-picture actor, director, producer, and writer Orson Welles died. |
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| 1973: | | Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned from office and pleaded no contest to the charge of failing to report $29,500 in income while governor of Maryland. |
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| 1970: | | | Fiji gained independence from Great Britain. |
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| 1935: | | George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess opened on Broadway. |
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| 1917: | | American pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, among the first creators of modern jazz, was born. |
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| 1846: | | English astronomer William Lassell discovered Triton, the largest satellite of the planet Neptune. |
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