Today in History in 1931 the George Washington Bridge linking New Jersey to New York opens; and in 1971 – Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida.

The On This Day In History archives at “Simple English Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia” contains over 200,000 events, birthdays and deaths from 6,000 years of history. Here is a roundup of a few of them:

EVENTS

331 BC – Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of Gaugamela.

959 – Edgar the Peaceable becomes King of all England.

1553 – Coronation of Queen Mary I of England.

1787 – Russians under Alexander Suvorov defeat the Turks at Kinburn.

1791 – First session of the French Legislative Assembly.

1795 – Belgium is conquered by France.

1800 – Spain cedes Louisiana to France.

1811 – The first steamboat to sail the Mississippi River arrives in New Orleans.

1814 – Opening of the Congress of Vienna, intended to re-draw Europe's political map after the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte the previous spring.

1827 – Russo-Persian War: The Russian Army under Ivan Paskevich storms Yerevan, ending a millennium of Muslim domination in Armenia.

1829 – The South African College is founded in Cape Town. It will later split into the University of Cape Town and the South African Colleges.

1843 – British tabloid newspaper, the News of the World, begins publication. It ends publication in 2011 due to a major scandal.

1847 – German inventor and industrialist Werner von Siemens founds the Siemens AG and Halske.

1869 – The world's first postcards are issued in Austria.

1880 – John Philip Sousa becomes leader of the US Marine Band.

1880 – The first electric lamp factory is opened by Thomas Edison.

1884 – Denmark's Politiken newspaper is founded.

1887 – Balochistan, in present-day Pakistan, is conquered by the British Empire.

1889 – The Japanese city of Nagoya is founded.

1890 – The Yosemite National Park is established by the United States Congress.

1891 – Stanford University opens in California.

1903 – Baseball: The Boston Americans play the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the modern World Series.

1908 – Ford puts a Model-T car on the market for the first time.

1910 – A bomb destroys The Los Angeles Times building in downtown Los Angeles, California, killing 21 people.

1928 – The Soviet Union introduces its first Five-Year Plan.

1931 – The George Washington Bridge linking New Jersey to New York opens.

1931 – Spain gives women the right to vote.

1936 – Francisco Franco becomes head of the Nationalist Government of Spain.

1937 – The Japanese city of Handa is founded in Aichi prefecture.

1938 – Germany takes control of the Sudetenland in the present-day Czech Republic.

1939 – World War II: Nazi forces enter Warsaw, Poland, after a one-month siege.

1943 – World War II: Naples, Italy falls to the Allies.

1946 – The Nuremberg Trials of leading Nazis conclude.

1946 – Mensa International is founded in the UK.

1949 – Mao Zedong and 300,000 others come to Tiananmen Square to celebrate the Sept. 21 creation of the People's Republic of China; within a few months, this celebration becomes the basis for a new National Day.

1957 – First appearance of In God We Trust on US paper currency.

1958 – NASA is created to replace NACA.

1960 – Nigeria becomes independent from the United Kingdom.

1961 – British and French Cameroon (independent since 1960) merge.

1962 – First transmission of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

1964 – Tōkaidō Shinkansen is opened (Tokyo – Shin-Osaka).

1965 – General Suharto rises to power in a coup in Indonesia. Seven military officers are executed in the early hours of the morning.

1966 – West Coast Airlines Flight 956 crashes with 18 fatalities and no survivors near Wemme, Oregon.

1968 – Guyana moves towards independent broadcasting, when its government takes over the British Guiana Broadcasting Service.

1969 – After Tupolev Tu-144, Concorde becomes the second aircraft type to break the sound barrier.

1971 – Walt Disney World opens near Orlando, Florida.

1975 – In the Thrilla in Manila, Muhammad Ali defends his world heavyweight boxing title against Joe Frazier.

1975 – The Seychelles gain self government; The islands become independent on June 29, 1976.

1975 – The Ellice Islands split from the Gilbert Islands (present-day Kiribati) and change their name to Tuvalu.

1977 – Brazilian footballer Pele ends his playing career.

1978 – Tuvalu becomes independent from the United Kingdom.

1979 – Pope John Paul II visits the United States.

1979 – The United States hands over control of the Panama Canal to Panama, though the full transfer of control occurs at the end of 1999.

1982 – Helmut Kohl replaces Helmut Schmidt as Chancellor of Germany.

1985 – Israel's Air Force bombs Palestinian Liberation Organization headquarters in Tunis, Tunisia.

1988 – Singles' Tennis: Steffi Graf wins the gold medal at the 1988 Summer Olympics, having already won all Grand Slam tournaments of the year, becoming the first, and so far only, winner of a 'Golden Slam' in tennis.

1989 – Denmark introduces the world's first same-sex civil union, or Registered Partnership.

1991 – Balkan War: The Siege of Dubrovnik begins.

1992 – The children's television channel Cartoon Network begins transmission.

1994 – Palau becomes independent from a UN trusteeship administered by the US.

1995 – An earthquake strikes Dinar, Turkey, killing 100 people.

2000 – The 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, end.

2001 – Militants attack the state legislature building in Srinagar, Kashmir, killing 38 people.

2005 – Bali is devastated by a terrorist attack, in which 26 people are killed after bombs explode.

2009 – The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom takes over the judicial functions of the House of Lords.

2012 – A ferry collision in Hong Kong kills 38 people and injures over 100.

2013 – The United States Government temporarily shuts down after failing to agree on a budget.

2014 – Jens Stoltenberg becomes Secretary-General of NATO.

2017 – Same-sex marriages take place in Germany for the first time.

2017 – A ban on face covering in public places enters into force in Austria.

2017 – Catalonia holds a disputed referendum on whether or not to become independent from Spain.

2017 – Las Vegas Strip shooting: Stephen Paddock carries out the deadliest shooting by a single gunman in recent US history in Las Vegas when he fires shots from two windows of his 32nd floor room on the Mandalay Bay Hotel onto a crowd in a country music festival, killing 59 people and wounding more than 500.