On this day (or two days later) in 1513, Spanish conquistador and explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa, standing “silent, upon a peak in Darién,” on the Isthmus of Panama, became the first European to sight the Pacific Ocean.

More Events on this day:

1970: Hostilities came to an end during Black September, the brief but violent civil war between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Jordan.

1962: Sonny Liston became world heavyweight boxing champion with a first-round knockout of Floyd Patterson in Chicago.

1799: André Masséna, French nobleman and general under Napoleon, defeated Russian forces in the Second Battle of Zürich.

1066: Tostig, earl of Northumbria, and Harald III, king of Norway, were killed in an attempt to depose Tostig's brother, King Harold II of England.