Discover What Happened Today in History
The capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, fell to the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Mehmed II after a 53-day siege. This event marked the end of the Roman Empire and a major shift in power, opening the door for Ottoman expansion into Europe.
Observations of a solar eclipse by Sir Arthur Eddington provided the first empirical evidence for Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. The bending of starlight near the sun confirmed predictions that gravity warps spacetime.
Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa of Nepal, became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain. Their achievement was a landmark in exploration.
A wall collapsed at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels before the European Cup Final between Liverpool and Juventus, leading to the deaths of 39 spectators, mostly Italians. The tragedy was precipitated by crowd violence and poor stadium conditions.
The Space Shuttle Discovery successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time on mission STS-96. This was a crucial logistics and assembly mission, delivering supplies and performing spacewalks to prepare the station for its first crew.