On this day in 1551, National University of San Marcos, the oldest university in the Americas, was founded in Lima, Peru.
On this day in 1820, Florence Nightingale, the British nursing pioneer, was born in Florence, Italy. The nurse's experiences in the Crimean War led her to become a hospital reformer and founder of the modern nursing profession.
On this day in 2008, an earthquake (measuring around magnitude 8.0) occurred in Sichuan, China, killing over 69,000 people. The Wenchuan earthquake left another 18,000 people missing.