TODAY IN HISTORY

• 1609 Galileo demonstrates his 1st telescope to Venetian lawmakers
• 1718 Hundreds of French colonists arrive in Louisiana; New Orleans founded
• 1768 Captain James Cook departs from Plymouth, England, on his first voyage on board the Endeavour, bound for the Pacific Ocean
• 1894 Japanese scientist Shibasaburo Kitasato discovers the infectious agent of the bubonic plague and publishes his findings in The Lancet
• 1944 Paris liberated from Nazi occupation (Freedom Tuesday)
• 1990 UN security council authorizes military action against Iraq