Discover What Happened Today in History
Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' was published in book form. It became a massive bestseller and profoundly galvanized anti-slavery sentiment in the North, intensifying sectional conflicts leading to the American Civil War.
Albert Einstein's groundbreaking paper on the general theory of relativity was published in the journal 'Annalen der Physik'. This work revolutionized our understanding of gravity, space, and time, describing gravity as a curvature of spacetime.
A U.S.-led coalition launched an invasion of Iraq, marking the start of the Iraq War. The military action, based on claims of weapons of mass destruction, led to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's government and years of subsequent conflict and instability.
Members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult released sarin nerve gas on several lines of the Tokyo subway system. The terrorist attack killed 13 people, injured thousands, and caused widespread panic, marking one of the most serious domestic disasters in postwar Japan.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug azidothymidine (AZT) for the treatment of AIDS. It was the first antiretroviral medication approved, offering the first hope of slowing the HIV virus and marking a turning point in the fight against the epidemic.