On this day in 1952 on an atoll of the Marshall Islands, Edward Teller and other American scientists tested the first thermonuclear bomb, its power resulting from an uncontrolled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
| 1994: | | The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched its Wind spacecraft on a mission that would include a “halo orbit” between the Sun and Earth to explore the space environment there. |
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| 1981: | | Antigua and Barbuda achieved independence from the United Kingdom, with Vere Bird serving as the first prime minister. |
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| 1950: | | Puerto Rican nationalists, members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), attempted to assassinate U.S. President Harry S. Truman. |
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| 1922: | | The Grand National Assembly, at the behest of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), voted to abolish the sultanate of Turkey. |
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| 1765: | | The Stamp Act went into effect, marking the first British parliamentary attempt to raise revenue through direct taxation of all colonial commercial and legal papers. |
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| 1755: | | Lisbon was heavily damaged by an earthquake that demolished more than 9,000 buildings and killed as many as 30,000 people. |
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| 996: | | Holy Roman Emperor Otto III granted the Bavarian bishopric of Freising 30 “royal hides,” or about 8 square km (2,000 acres), of land in a deed that contained the first recorded use of the name Ostarrîchi, from which the name Austria is derived. |
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