This Week in History

Monday 21
1789 - John Adams sworn in as 1st US VP (9 days before Washington)
1794 - NYC formally declares coast of Ellis Island publically owned, so they can build forts to protect NYC from British
1878 - NY installs 1st firehouse pole
1904 - Ty Cobb makes his pro debut for Augusta (South Atlantic League)
1941 - Greece surrenders to nazi-Germany
1954 - USAF flies French battalion to Vietnam
1956 - Elvis Presley’s 1st hit record, “Heartbreak Hotel,” becomes #1
1965 - New York World’s Fair reopens for 2nd & final season
1975 - Last South Vietnam president Nguyen Van Thieu resigns after 10 years
1987 - Dow Jones Avg soared 664.7; 2nd biggest one-day gain in history
1995 - FBI arrested Timothy McVeigh & charge him with Okla City bombing

Tuesday 22
1861 - Robert E Lee named commander of Virginia Confederate forces
1898 - US President McKinley orders blockade of Cuban harbors
1914 - Mexico ends diplomatic relations with US
1944 - Hitler & Mussolini meet at Salzburg
1955 - Congress orders all US coins bear motto “In God We Trust”
1970 - 1st Earth Day held internationally to conserve natural resources
1991 - Johnny Carson announces he will retire next year from Tonight Show
1994 - Ice skater Tonya Harding sues ex-husband Jeff Gillooly for $42,500

Wednesday 23
1789 - President-elect George Washington moves into Franklin House, NY
1864 - Battle of Cane River, LA (Red River Expedition, Monett’s Ferry)
1896 - Premier of motion pictures (Koster & Bial’s Music Hall, NYC)
1945 - US troops in Italy cross river Po
1956 - US Supreme court ends race segregation on buses
1962 - 1st US satellite to reach the moon launched
1984 - AIDS-virus identified (acquired immune deficiency syndrome)
1991 - USSR grants republics right to secede under certain conditions
1995 - Pres Clinton declares a national day of mourning for Okla City

Thursday 24
1800 - Library of Congress establishes with $5,000 allocation
1865 - Fire alarm & police telegraph system put into operation (SF)
1898 - Spain declares war on US rejecting ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba
1941 - British army begins evacuation of Greece
1962 - MIT sends TV signal by satellite for 1st time: CA to MA
1974 - NFL grants franchise to Tampa Bay Bucaneers
1981 - IBM-PC computer introduced
1990 - West & East Germany agree to merge currency & economies on July 1st

Friday 25
1859 - Ground broken for Suez Canal
1881 - 250,000 Germans petition to bar foreign Jews from entering Germany
1901 - New York becomes 1st state requiring auto license plates ($1 fee)
1945 - Red army completely surrounds Berlin
1950 - Chuck Cooper becomes 1st black to play in NBA
1971 - About 200,000 anti-Vietnam War protesters march on Washington
1990 - Hubble space telescope is placed into orbit by shuttle Discovery
1994 - 14″ of snow in Southern Calif

Saturday 26
1721 - Smallpox vaccination 1st administrated
1865 - Confederate Gen J E Johnston surrenders Army of Tenn, at Durham NC
1915 - Italy secretly signes Pact of London with Britain, France & Russia
1933 - Jewish students are barred from school in Germany
1957 - Jamestown, Va 350th Anniversary Festival opens
1980 - Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
1981 - Largest US bank robbery (Tucson Ariz), more than $33 million stolen
1986 - Worst nuclear disaster, 4th reactor at Chernobyl USSR explodes, 31 die
1986 - Actor/body builder Arnold Schwarzenegger weds newscaster Maria Shriver
1995 - Baseball season begins after lengthy strike

Sunday 27
1860 - Thomas J Jackson is assigned to command Harpers Ferry
1861 - President Abe Lincoln suspends writ of habeas corpus
1861 - West Virginia secedes from Virginia after Virginia secedes from US
1877 - President Hayes removes Federal troops from LA, Reconstruction ends
1937 - US Social Security system makes its 1st benefit payment
1956 - Heavyweight champ, Rocky Marciano, retires undefeated from boxing
1978 - Accident at nuclear reactor Willow Island, W Virginia, kills 51
1982 - Trial of John W Hinckley Jr attempted assassin of Reagan, begins
1994 - President Nixon buried in Nixon Library in Calif

Monday
1614 - Pocahontas, daughter of chief Powhatan, marries planter John Rolfe
1777 - NY adopts new constitution as an independent state
1828 - 1st edition of Noah Webster’s dictionary published
1860 - 1st Pony Express rider arrives in SF from St Joseph, Mo
1902 - Marie & Pierre Curie isolated the radioactive element radium
1944 - Gen Eisenhower becomes head commander of allied air fleet
1967 - In the Vietnam War, US planes bombed Haiphong for 1st time
1973 - Acting FBI director L Patrick Gray resigns after admitting he destroyed evidence in the Watergate scandal
1992 - Court throws out Apple’s lawsuit against Microsoft

Tuesday
1738 - Bottle opener invented
1850 - City of San Francisco incorporated
1877 - 1st telephone installed: Boston-Somerville, Mass
1912 - Titanic sinks at 2:27 AM off Newfoundland
1952 - Franklin National Bank issues 1st bank credit card
1964 - Chesapeake Bay Bridge opens (world’s longest)
1992 - Jay Leno’s final appearance as permanent guest host of Tonight

Wednesday
1789 - George Washington heads for 1st presidential inauguration
1861 - US president Lincoln outlaws business with confederate states
1900 - US Post Office issues 1st books of postage stamps
1908 - Natural Bridges National Monument forms (Lake Powell Utah)
1945 - Red Army begins Battle of Berlin
1956 - 1st solar powered radios go on sale
1987 - Michael Jordon, becomes 2nd NBA to score 3000 points in a season

Thursday
1861 - Virginia is 8th state to secede
1864 - Grant suspends prisoner-of-war exchanges
1907 - Ellis Island, NY-11,745 immigrants arrive
1933 - Chicago Bears win their 1st NFL Game beating NY Giants 23-21
1953 - Mickey Mantle hits a 565′ (172 m) HR in Wash DC’s Griffith Stadium
1964 - Ford Mustang formally introduced ($2368 base)
1993 - Police officers found guilty of violating Rodney Kings civil rights

Friday
1775 - Paul Revere & William Dawes warn “British are coming!”
1838 - Wilkes’ expedition to South Pole sails
865 - Confederate Gen Johnson surrendered to Gen Sherman in North Carolina
1906 - SF earthquake & fire kills nearly 4,000 & destroys 75% of city
1942 - “Stars & Stripes” paper for US armed forces starts
1966 - Bill Russell became 1st black coach in NBA history (Boston Celtics)
1984 - Challenger flies back to Kennedy Space Center via Kelly AFB
1995 - Quarterback Joe Montana announces his retirement from football

Saturday
1775 - Revolution begins-Lexington Common, shot “heard round the world”
1861 - Lincoln orders blockade of Confederate ports (Civil War)
1897 - 1st Boston Marathon won by John McDermott of NY in 2:55:10
1910 - Halley’s comet seen by naked eye 1st time this trip (Curacao)
1932 - Pres Herbert Hoover suggests 5 day work week
1943 - Jews attack Nazi occupation forces at Warsaw Ghetto
1948 - ABC-TV network begins
1971 - Charles Manson sentenced to life (Sharon Tate murder)
1982 - Sally Ride announced as 1st woman astronaut
1995 - Truck bomb at Federal Building in Okla City, kills 168 & injures 500

Sunday
1836 - Territory of Wisconsin created
1861 - Colonel Robert E Lee resigns from Union army
1912 - Fenway Park officially opens, Red Sox beat NY Highlanders 7-6 in 11
1916 - Weeghman Park (Wrigley Field) in Chicago opens, Cubs beat Cin Reds 7-6
1939 - New York World’s Fair opens
1944 - NFL legalizes coaching from bench
1967 - US Surveyor 3 lands on Moon
1974 - Paul McCartney releases “Band on the Run”
1983 - Pres Reagan signs a $165B bail out for Social Security

Monday
0030 - Scholars’ reckon Jesus was crucified by Roman troops in Jerusalem
1798 - Mississippi Territory organized
1923 - 1st brain tumor operation under local anesthetic performed (Beth Israel Hospital in NYC) by Dr K Winfield Ney
1943 - Adolf Hitler & Benito Mussolini met for an Axis conference in Salzburg
1953 - 1st west-to-east jet transatlantic nonstop flight
1966 - US recovers lost H-bomb from Mediterranean floor (whoops!)
1983 - Oldest human skeleton, aged 80,000 years, discovered in Egypt

Tuesday
1766 - 1st fire escape patented, wicker basket on a pulley & chain
1865 - General Robert E Lee surrenders at Appomattox Court House in Virginia
1879 - Milk was sold in glass bottles for 1st time
1913 - 17th amendment, requiring direct election of senators, ratified
1952 - Pres Truman seizes steel mills to avert a strike
1968 - Baseball’s Opening Day is postponed because of M L King assassination
1986 - Clint Eastwood elected mayor of Carmel California, Make his day
1991 - Oakland A’s stadium becomes 1st outdoor arena to ban smoking

Wednesday
1770 - Capt James Cook discovers Botany Bay (Australia)
1833 - 1st tax-supported public library (Peterborough, NH)
1869 - Hudson Bay Company cedes it’s territory to Canada
1912 - Titanic leaves Queenstown Ireland for NY
1940 - Germany invades Norway & Denmark during WW II (Denmark surrenders)
1959 - NASA names 1st 7 astronauts for Project Mercury
1963 - Winston Churchill becomes 1st honorary US citizen (posthumously)
1968 - Martin Luther King Jr, buried in Atlanta
1989 - Wash DC march supporting 1973 Roe vs Wade decision (allow abortions)
1991 - Date of Microsoft MS DOS 5.0

Thursday
1790 - Robert Gray is 1st American to circumnavigate the Earth
1841 - NY “Tribune” begins publishing under editor Horace Greeley
1872 - 1st National black convention meets in New Orleans
1887 - President Abraham Lincoln’s re-buried with his wife in Springfield Il
1923 - Hitler demands “hatred & more hatred” in Berlin
1945 - US troops liberate Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, Germany
1955 - Ruth Ellis shoots jilting lover David Blakely
1971 - US table tennis team arrives in China PR
1989 - Intel corp announces shipment of 80-486 chip
1995 - NYC bans smoking in all restaurants that seat 35 or more

Friday
1890 - Ellis Island designated as an immigration station
1899 - Treaty of Paris ratifies ends war; Spain cedes Puerto Rico to US
1941 - Germany blitzes Conventry, England
1947 - Jackie Robinson becomes 1st black in modern major-league baseball
1956 - Singer Nat Cole attacked on stage of Birmingham theater by whites
1968 - Pres Johnson signs 1968 Civil Rights Act
1974 - WW II war criminal JP Philippa arrested
1981 - Ronald Reagan arrives home from hospital after Hinkley shot him
1984 - Challenger astronauts complete 1st in space satellite repair
1991 - UN Security Council issues formal cease fire with Iraq declaration

Saturday
1787 - Philadelphia’s Free African Society forms
1811 - 1st US colonists on Pacific coast arrive at Cape Disappointment, WA
1861 - Fort Sumter, SC is shelled by Confederacy, starting Civil War
1869 - North Carolina legislature passes anti-Klan Law
1908 - Fire makes 17,000 homeless in Chelsea Massachusetts
1933 - Moffatt Field commissioned
1938 - US began requiring medical tests for marriage licenses
1945 - Harry Truman sworn in as 33rd pres
1957 - USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test
1963 - Birmingham police use dogs & cattle prods on peaceful demonstrators
1983 - Harold Washington becomes Chicago’s 1st black mayor
1988 - Harvard U patents genetically engineered mouse (1st for animal life)
1990 - 1st meeting of East German democratically elected parliament, acknowledges responsibility for Nazi holocaust & asks for forgivenesss

Sunday
1742 - George Frederic Handel’s “Messiah” performed for 1st time (Dublin)
1860 - 1st Pony Express reaches Sacramento Calif
1865 - Sherman’s march through Georgia begin
1904 - Congress authorizes Lewis & Clark Expo $1 gold coin
1933 - 1st flight over Mount Everest (Lord Clydesdale)
1934 - 4.7 million US families report receiving welfare payments
1945 - US marines conquer Minna Shima off Okinawa
1954 - Robert Oppenheimer accused of being a communist
1961 - UN General Assembly condemns South-Africa’s apartheid
1970 - Apollo 13 announces “Houston, we’ve got a problem!” as Beech-built oxygen tank explodes en route to Moon
1992 - Great Chicago Flood - Chicago’s underground tunnels flood

Monday March 31
1850 - US population hits 23,191,876 (Black population: 3,638,808 (15.7%))
1878 - Jack Johnson is 1st black to hold a heavyweight boxing title
1918 - 1st daylight savings time in US goes into effect
1933 - German Republic gives power to Hitler
1965 - US ordered the 1st combat troops to Vietnam
1979 - My wife Carrie was born… Happy Birthday!

Tuesday April 1
1853 - Cincinnati became 1st US city to pay fire fighters a regular salary
1863 - 1st wartime conscription law in US goes into effect
1933 - Nazi Germany begins persecution of Jews boycotting Jewish businesses
1938 - Baseball Hall of Fame opens in Cooperstown, NY
1945 - US forces invade Okinawa during WW II
1952 - Big Bang theory proposed in Physical Review by Alpher, Bethe & Gamow
1963 - Soap operas “General Hospital” & “Doctors” premier on TV
1980 - Wayne Gretzky breaks Bobby Orr’s record with 103rd assist
1986 - World oil prices dip below $10 a barrel
1996 - Howard Stern Radio Show premieres in Boston MA on WBCN 104.1 FM (morn)

Wednesday April 2
1827 - Joseph Dixon begins manufacturing lead pencils
1866 - Pres Johnson ends war in Ala, Ark, Fla, Ga, Miss, La, NC, SC, Tn & Va
1872 - George B Brayton patents gasoline powered engine
1912 - Titanic undergoes sea trials under its own power
1932 - Charles Lindbergh turns over $50,000 as ransom for kidnapped son
1954 - Plans to build Disneyland 1st announced
1970 - 2 men begin ascent of south face of Annapurna I, highest final stage in a wall climb in world
1977 - Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumors,” album goes to #1 & stays #1 for 31 weeks
1987 - IBM introduces PS/2 & OS/2
1992 - John Gotti found guilty in death of Paul Castallanos

Thursday April 3
1922 - Stalin appointed General Secretary of Communist Party
1933 - 1st airplane flight over Mt Everest
1941 - Churchill warns Stalin of German invasion
1945 - Nazi’s begin evacuation of camp Buchenwald
1949 - North Atlantic Treaty, pact signed by US, Britain, France & Canada
1968 - N Vietnam agrees to meet US reps to set up preliminary peace talks
1995 - Howard Stern gets in trouble for disparaging remarks about Selena

Friday April 4
1862 - Battle of Yorktown begins
1932 - Vitamin C 1st isolated, CC King, Univ of Pittsburgh
1945 - US forces liberated the Nazi death camp Ohrdruf in Germany
1966 - Pirate Radio Scotland changes name to Radio Ireland
1983 - 6th space shuttle mission, Challenger 1 launched
1992 - Jury deliberations begin in Noriega case
1994 - Netscape Communications founded as Mosaic Communications

Saturday April 5
1893 - Cleveland passes Park Act (forerunner of Metroparks)
1896 - 1st modern Olympic Games officially opens in Athens
1941 - In SF, Castro & Fillmore streetcars replaced by buses
1954 - Elvis Presley records his debut single, “That’s All Right”
1962 - NASA civilian pilot Neil A Armstrong takes X-15 to 54,600 m
1974 - Then tallest building, World Trade Center opens in NYC (110 stories)
1988 - Democratic convention picks Michael Dukakis as their pres candidate

Sunday April 6
1830 - Joseph Smith & 5 others organizes Mormon church in Seneca Co, NY
1869 - 1st plastic, Celluloid, patented
1893 - Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City dedicated
1909 - North Pole reached by Americans Robert Peary & Matthew Henson
1925 - 1st film shown on an airplane (British Air)
1930 - Hostess Twinkies invented by bakery executive James Dewar
1943 - British & US army link up in Africa during WW II
1945 - Japanese giant battleship Yamato heads to Okinawa
1954 - TV Dinner was 1st put on sale by Swanson & Sons
1976 - 1st quadrophonic movie track: “Ladies & Gentlemen the Rolling Stones”
1980 - Post It Notes, introduced
1987 - Sugar Ray Leonard upsets Marvelous Marvin Hagler
1992 - Microsoft announced Windows 3.1, upgrading Windows 3.0

1851 - Yosemite Valley discovered in California
1865 - Battle of Bentonville ends, last Confederate effort to stop Sherman
1907 - US invades Honduras
1927 - Guomindang Army conquerors Shanghai as British marines flee
1939 - Nazi-Germany demands Gdansk (Danzig) from Poland
1944 - Gen Eisenhower postpones S France invasion until after Normandy
1945 - During WW II Allied bombers begin 4-day raid over Germany
1947 - Pres Truman signs Executive Order 9835 requiring all federal employees to have allegiance to the United States
1961 - Beatles’ 1st appearance at the Cavern Club
1963 - Alcatraz federal penitentiary in SF Bay closed
1965 - Martin Luther King Jr begins march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama
1971 - Vermont seasonal snowfall totals 132.2″
1980 - On TV show Dallas, J.R. is shot
1991 - 27 lost at sea when 2 US Navy anti-submarine planes collide
1994 - Watne Gretzky ties Gordie Howe’s NHL record of 801 goals

1760 - Great Fire of Boston destroys 349 buildings
1816 - US Supreme Court affirms its right to review state court decisions
1868 - Jesse James Gang robs bank in Russelville Kentucky of $14,000
1886 - 1st AC power plant in US begins commercial operation, Mass
1896 - Marines land in Nicaragua to protect US citizens
1931 - Bishop Schreiber warns against national-socialism in Berlin
1942 - Gen MacArthur vows, “I shall return”
1947 - 180-metric ton blue whale (record) caught in South Atlantic
1952 - US senate ratifies peace treaty with Japan
1968 - LBJ signs a bill removing gold backing from US paper money
1969 - US president Nixon proclaims he will end Vietnam war in 1970
1982 - Joan Jett & Blackhearts’ “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” goes #1 for 7 wks
1990 - LA Lakers retires Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s #33

1753 - 1st official St Patrick’s Day
1762 - 1st St Patrick’s Day parade in NYC
1845 - Rubber band patented by Stephen Perry of London
1921 - Lenin proclaims New Economic Politics
1932 - German police raid Hitler’s nazi-headquarter
1945 - Allied ships bomb North-Sumatra
1959 - Dalai Lama flees Tibet for India
1973 - St Patrick Day marchers carry 14 coffins commemorating Bloody Sunday

1802 - Law signed to establish US Milt Academy (West Point, NY)
1830 - New York Stock Exchange slowest day ever (31 shares traded)
1861 - Arizona Territory votes to leave the Union
1897 - Start of Sherlock Holmes “The Adventure of The Devil’s Foot” (BG)
1915 - Federal Trade Commission organizes
1935 - Hitler orders German rearmament, violating Versailles Treaty
1939 - Germany occupies Czechoslovakia
1955 - President Eisenhower upheld the use of atomic weapons in case of war
1972 - John & Yoko are served with deportation papers
1978 - US Senate accepts Panama Canal treaty
1988 - Federal grand jury indicts North & Poindexter in Iran-Contra affair
1994 - Tonya Harding pleads guilty to felony attack on Nancy Kerrigan
1995 - Mississippi formally abolishes slavery & ratifies 13th Amendment

1778 - Nootka Sound, Vancouver Is discovered by Capt Cook
1867 - Michigan becomes 1st state to tax property to support a university
1892 - NY State unveils automatic ballot booth (voting machine)
1913 - Cleveland establishes 1st small claims court
1930 - 1st streamlined submarine of US navy, USS Nautilus, launched
1939 - Hitler occupies Bohemia & Moravia (Czechoslovakia); Slovakia independ
1947 - John Lee appointed 1st black commissioned officer in US Navy
1962 - Wilt Chamberlain is 1st to score 4,000 pts in an NBA season
1971 - Chatrooms make their debut on the Internet
1977 - “Eight is Enough” premiers on ABC-TV
1985 - Larry Holmes TKOs David Bey in 10 for heavyweight boxing title
1988 - NASA reports accelerated breakdown of ozone layer by CFK

1794 - Eli Whitney patents cotton gin
1843 - Boston conducts its 1st town meeting (Faneuil Hall)
1888 - 2nd largest snowfall in NYC history (21″)
1913 - John D Rockefeller gives $100 million to Rockefeller Foundation
1923 - Pres Warren G Harding becomes 1st pres to pay taxes
1950 - FBI’s “10 Most Wanted Fugitives” program begins
1962 - Gordie Howe (Det Red Wings) is 2nd NHLer to score 500 goals
1967 - JFK’s body moved from temporary grave to a permanent memorial
1983 - OPEC cut oil prices for 1st time in 23 years
1997 - Pres Clinton trips & tears up his knee requiring surgery