1776 – Continental Congress negotiates a war loan of $181,500 from France.
1776 – Thomas Paine writes “These are the times that try man’s souls”
1788 – Maryland votes to cede a 10 square mile area for District of Columbia.
1823 – “Visit from St. Nicholas” by C Moore published in Troy (NY) Sentinel.
1862 – Union General Ben “Beast” Butler is proclaimed a “felon, outlaw & common enemy of mankind” by Jefferson Davis.
1907 – 1st all-steel passenger railroad coach completed, Altoona, Pa.
1913 – US President Woodrow Wilson signs Federal Reserve Act into law.
1919 – Alice H Parker patents gas heating furnace.
1919 – 1st hospital ship built to move wounded naval personnel launched.
1921 – Gangster Carlo Gambino enters the United States as an illegal immigrant on the SS Vincenzo Florio.
1928 – NBC sets up a permanent, coast-to-coast radio network.
1930 – Bette Davis arrives in Hollywood under contract to Universal Studios.
1938 – Margaret Hamilton’s costume catches fire in filming of “Wizard of Oz”
1951 – 1st coast-to-coast televised football game (Dumont paid $75,000) LA Rams beat Cleveland Browns 24-17 in NFL championship game.
1961 – Fidel Castro announces Cuba will release 1,113 prisoners from failed 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion for $62M worth of food & medical supplies.
1968 – Borman, Lovell & Anders become 1st men to orbit Mars.
1975 – Congress passes Metric Conversion Act.
1987 – Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, serving a life sentence for attempted assassination of President Gerald Ford, escape from Alderson Prison.
1994 – Fearing arrest by the FBI, Whitey Bulger flees Boston, and successfully hides from law enforcement fro the next 15 years.
1997 – US Agriculture Department estimates it costs $149,820 to raise a child to 18.
2002 – A MQ-1 Predator is shot down by an Iraqi MG-25, making it the first time in history that an aircraft and an unmanned drone had engaged in combat.
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