On this day in 1963, James Meredith became the first African-American to graduate from the University of Mississippi.
On this day in 1965, Operation Starlite began in the Vietnam War: United States Marines destroyed a Viet Cong stronghold on the Van Tuong peninsula in the first major American ground battle of the war.
On this day in 1977, Steve Biko was arrested at a police roadblock under the Terrorism Act No. 83 of 1967 in King William's Town, South Africa. He later died from injuries sustained during this arrest bringing attention to South Africa's apartheid policies.
On this day in 2005, a massive power blackout hit the Indonesian island of Java, affecting almost 100 million people, one of the largest and most widespread power outages in history.