On this date in…

1507 America got its name from German cartographer Martin Waldseemueller, who first used the term on a world map to refer to the huge mass of land in the Western Hemisphere, in honor of Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci.

1859 Ground was broken for the Suez Canal.

1898 The United States declared war on Spain.

1901 New York became the first state to require automobile license plates.

1945 U.S. and Soviet forces linked up on the Elbe River, in central Europe, a meeting that dramatized the collapse of Nazi Germany.

1959 The St. Lawrence Seaway opened to shipping.

1990 The Hubble Space Telescope was deployed from the space shuttle Discovery.

2003 Georgia lawmakers voted to scrap the Dixie cross from the state's flag.

2007 Graceanne Michelle Foster was born, to the delight of her parents and two big brothers, and the world became a brighter place.

Graceanne shares her birthday with:
Edward R. Murrow, Meadowlark Lemon, Al Pacino, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Renee Zellweger, Talia Shire, Hank Azaria, Jane Clayson, Oliver Cromwell, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, Guglielmo Marconi, and Ella Fitzgerald

Happy 2nd birthday my sweet baby girl!!