Today in History

• 1987 193 people die when a ferry capsizes in the North Sea

  The Herald of Free Enterprise sank just minutes after leaving the Belgian port of Zeebrugge.

• 1967 Stalin’s daughter defects to the West

  The Soviet dictator’s daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, caused an international uproar when she approached the United States embassy in New Delhi and later became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

• 1957 Ghana becomes the first African country to gain independence from colonial rule

  Ghana emerged as a sovereign state from the former British colonies Gold Coast and Togoland. Kwame Nkrumah was the country’s first leader.

• 1899 The painkiller Asprin is registered as a trademark

  Acetylsalicylic acid was first isolated in 1897 by German chemist Felix Hoffmann. Today, the medication is sold by Bayer and is on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines.

• 1869 The first periodic table of chemical elements is presented

  Dmitri Mendeleev presented the system to the Russian Chemical Society on that day.