1773 - The British Parliament passed the Tea Act, a bill designed to save the East India Company, undermining colonial American merchants by essentially granting the company a monopoly in the American tea trade on May 10. A special party ensued the following December, courtesy of Boston, Royal Colony of Massachusetts.

1791 - Birth of Samuel F.B. Morse, American telegraph inventor.

1805 - "...to the shores of Tripoli." After a 500 mile march from Egypt, a contingent of U.S. Marines and Berber mercenaries captured Derna, Tripoli, deposing pasha Yusuf Karamanli.

1822 - Birth of Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union forces and 18th U.S. President.

1861 - Virginia seceded from the Union, now West Virginia secedes from Virginia.

1896 - Birth of Wallace Hume Carothers, American chemist who developed nylon.

1900 - Birth of Walter Lantz, American cartoonist who created Woody Woodpecker.

1981 - Xerox introduces the computer mouse -- and computers have been infested ever since.

2006 - Construction begins on the Freedom Tower, New York City's new World Trade Center.

I'm not going to present a treatise here; don't think that the U.S.  -- nor much of Europe -- was only recently introduced to jihad in 2001, nor that the name Barbarrosa was first made infamous in WW2, etc. Type 'Pirates of the Barbary Coast' into your web search engine.