1492: Christopher Columbus sights Cuba and claims it for Spain under the name “Juana”

1538: The first university in the New World, the Universidad Santo Tomás de Aquino, is established on Hispaniola

1746: Peruvian cities of Lima and Callao demolished by earthquake, 18,000 die

1904: St Louis police try a new investigation method – fingerprints

1919: Volstead Act passed by US Congress, establishing prohibition, despite President Woodrow Wilson’s veto

1924: Miner M.de Bruin discovers the infant fossil skull, “Taung child” in a lime quarry in Taung, South Africa. Paleoanthropologist Raymond Dart identifies the fossil as a new hominin species, Australopithecus africanus.

Source: Onthisday.com