On this date in history:

(2009) US Airways flight 1549, piloted by Captain Chesley (“Sully”) Sullenberger III, landed in the Hudson River after the plane flew into a flock of Canada geese shortly after takeoff, resulting in severe damage to the plane’s engines; there were no fatalities. (2001) Wikipedia, a free  Internet-based encyclopaedia that operates under an open-source management style, debuted; it was founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. (1974) The American television series Happy Days, a nostalgic comedy set during the 1950s and ’60s, premiered on ABC.  (1919) A storage tank collapsed in Boston, sending more than two million gallons (eight million litres) of  molasses flowing through the city’s North End; the Great Molasses Flood, as it became known, caused extensive damage and killed 21 people. (1919) Polish-born German revolutionary and agitator Rosa Luxemburg, cofounder of the German Communist Party, was arrested and murdered in Berlin for fomenting a communist uprising known as the Spartacus Revolt. (1896) American photographer Mathew Brady, known for his portraits of politicians and images of the American Civil War, died alone and virtually forgotten in a hospital charity ward in New York City. (1870) The donkey appeared as a symbol of the U.S. Democratic Party in a Thomas Nast cartoon. (1844) The University of Notre Dame, founded in Indiana by the Congregation of the Holy Cross, was officially chartered. (1759)  Established by an act of Parliament in 1753, the British Museum—which counts among its world-renowned antiquities and archaeological holdings the Elgin Marbles and the Rosetta Stone—opened to the public this day in 1759.