This Day in History

1502
Vasco da Gama sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal, on his second voyage to India.
1934
In Spain the national council of Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista decides to merge the movement with the Falange Española.
1974
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1970, is exiled from the Soviet Union.
2002
The trial of Slobodan Miloševiæ, the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, begins at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. He dies four years later before its conclusion.
2012
A primary election is held in Venezuela to choose the contender against incumbent President Hugo Chávez.