1576-Eighty Years' War: In Flanders, the Spanish defeat the Walloons and capture Antwerp 1841-The first wagon train arrives in California after a five-and-a-half-month, 1,730-mile journey over the Sierra Nevada from Missouri 1845-First nationally observed uniform election day in the United States, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November 1862-American inventor Richard Jordan Gatling patents the hand-cranked Gatling machine gun in Indianapolis 1879-African American inventor Thomas Elkins patents the Refrigerating Apparatus 1922-Howard Carter discovers the intact tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in Egypt 2008-Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to be elected President of the United States, defeating Republican candidate John ã„·recCain