1696 – Connecticut Route 108, one of the oldest highways in the U.S. is completed to Trumbull.
1787 – Delaware becomes 1st state to ratify the US constitution.
1808 – James Madison elected 4th US President and George Clinton Vice-President.
1868 – Jesse James gang robs bank in Gallatin, Missouri, kills 1.
1891 – 52nd US Congress (1st to appropriate $1 billion) holds 1st session.
1909 – Inventor Leo Baekeland patents the first thermo-setting plastic, Bakelite, sparking the birth of the plastics industry.
1917 – US becomes 13th country to declare war on Austria during World War I.
1926 – Gas refrigerator patented.
1937 – Red Sox acquire the contract of 19-year-old Ted Williams.
1941 – 1st Japanese midget submarine (No. 20) attacked by a US ship (USS Ward)
1953 – WCCB TV channel 18 in Charlotte, NC (IND/ABC) begins broadcasting.
1963 – Instant replay is used for the first time in a Army-Navy game.
1967 – Otis Redding records “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay”
1972 – Apollo 17 (US), final manned lunar landing mission, launched, crew takes famous “blue marble” photo of the entire Earth.
1982 – In Texas, Charles Brooks, Jr. becomes the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the US.
1990 – Ted Turner & Jane Fonda announce their engagement.
1995 – US space probe Galileo begins orbiting Jupiter.
2005 – Rigoberto Alpizar, a passenger on American Airlines Flight 924 who allegedly claimed to have a bomb, is shot and killed by a team of US federal air marshals at Miami International Airport.
2013 – 9th ACC Champion Game: #1 Florida State beats #20 Duke, 45-7.
2015 – US Presidential candidate Donald Trump proposes banning all Muslims from entering the US.