1897 Irish writer Bram Stoker published the Gothic horror classic Dracula, which became the basis for an entire genre of literature and films about vampires.

1941 In World War II the British navy sank the German battleship Bismarck.

1959: Monkeys survive space mission
Two monkeys become the first living creatures to survive a space flight.

1999 Discovery became the first space shuttle to dock with the International Space Station.

1911 The first Indianapolis 500 automobile race was run in Indianapolis, Indiana.

1985: English teams banned after Heysel
The Football Association, supported by Margaret Thatcher, bans English clubs from playing in Europe following the Heysel stadium tragedy.

1907 English aviation engineer and pilot Frank Whittle, who invented the jet engine, was born.

Elizabeth II crowned queen
On this day in 1953, 27-year-old Elizabeth II, the elder daughter of King George VI, was crowned queen of the United Kingdom at Westminster Abbey, having taken the throne upon her father's death in February 1952.

1965 Ed White emerged from the orbital spacecraft Gemini 4 and became the first American astronaut to walk in space.

1989: Massacre in Tiananmen Square
The Chinese army storms a mass demonstration in Tiananmen Square, killing several hundred people.

1981 AIDS was reported for the first time, following the detection of a rare form of pneumonia in five homosexual men in Los Angeles.

1975: UK embraces Europe in referendum
British voters back the UK's continued membership of the EEC by two-to-one in a nationwide referendum.

Lateran Treaty ratified
Through the Lateran Treaty—signed February 11, 1929, by Benito Mussolini for Italy and by Pietro Gasparri, cardinal secretary of state, for the papacy and ratified this day in 1929—Vatican City became a sovereign state.

1949 British author George Orwell published his dystopian classic Nineteen Eighty-four, a warning against totalitarianism that introduced such concepts as Big Brother and the Thought Police.

Landslide reelection victory for Margaret Thatcher
British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, buoyed by victory in the Falkland Islands War and by deep divisions within the opposition Labour Party, was easily reelected to a second term in office this day in 1983.