On this day in history

Source: HistoryNet.com

0097: To placate the Praetorians of Germany, Nerva of Rome adopts Trajan, the Spanish-born governor of lower Germany.
1553: Michael Servetus, who discovered the pulmonary circulation of the blood, is burned for heresy in Switzerland.
1612: A Polish army that invaded Russia capitulates to Prince Dimitri Pojarski and his Cossacks.
1791: President George Washington transmits to Congress the results of the first U.S. census, exclusive of South Carolina which had not yet submitted its findings.
1806: Emperor Napoleon enters Berlin.
1809: President James Madison orders the annexation of the western part of West Florida. Settlers there had rebelled against Spanish authority.
1873: Farmer Joseph F. Glidden applies for a patent on barbed wire. Glidden eventually received five patents and is generally considered the inventor of barbed wire.
1891: D. B. Downing, inventor, is awarded a patent for the street letter (mail) box.
1904: The New York subway officially opens running from the Brooklyn Bridge uptown to Broadway at 145th Street.
1962: Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev offers to remove Soviet missile bases in Cuba if the U.S. removes its missile bases in Turkey.
1962: American U-2 reconnaissance plane shot down by a surface-to-air missile over Cuba, killing the pilot, Maj. Rudolf Anderson, the only direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
1964: The political career of future U.S. president Ronald Reagan is launched when he delivers a speech on behalf of Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.
1971: The Democratic Republic of the Congo renamed Zaire.
1986: London Stock Exchange rules change as Britain suddenly deregulates financial markets, an event called the Big Bang.
1988: U.S. President Ronald Reagan decides to tear down a new U.S. Embassy in Moscow because Soviet listening devices were built into the structure.
1997: Stock markets crash around the world over fears of a global economic meltdown.