1540: Pope Paul III issued a papal bull establishing the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, as a religious order.
1779: John Adams was named by Congress to negotiate the Revolutionary War's peace terms with Britain.
1854: The first great disaster involving an Atlantic Ocean passenger vessel occurred when the steamship SS Arctic sank off Newfoundland; of the more than 400 people on board, only 86 survived.
1939: Warsaw surrendered after weeks of resistance to invading forces from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II.
1962: Silent Spring, Rachel Carson's study on the effects of pesticides on the environment, was published in book form.
1964: The government publicly released the report of the Warren Commission, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy.
Associated Press