1794 – New York City formally declares the coast of Ellis Island publicly owned so it can build forts to protect the city from the British.
1878 – First Lady Lucy Hayes begins an egg rolling contest on the White House lawn.
1904 – Ty Cobb makes his pro debut for Augusta, Georgia in the South Atlantic League.
1914 – US Marines occupy Vera Cruz, a major Mexican port and stay for six months.
1925 – No baseball games played in National League due to the funeral of Brooklyn Dodgers owner Charles Ebbets.
1930 – “All Quiet on the Western Front,” based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, directed by Lewis Milestone, starring Louis Wolheim and Lew Ayres, premieres in Los Angeles. It wins Academy Award for Outstanding Production.
1940 – First $64 Question, “Take it or Leave it”, on CBS Radio.
1945 – World War II: US 7th Army reaches Nuremberg, Germany.
1955 – Brooklyn Dodgers win then-record 10th straight game to begin the Major League Baseball season.
1956 – Elvis Presley’s first hit record, “Heartbreak Hotel,” becomes #1.
1964 – Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs combine for 9 home runs in Pittsburgh’s 8-5 win.
1972 – John Young and Charles Duke explore the moon as a part of NASA mission Apollo 16.
1981 – United States furnished $1 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia.
1984 – After 37 weeks Michael Jackson’s album “Thriller” is knocked off as top album by movie sidetrack for “Footloose.”
1987 – Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 664.7 points, the second biggest one-day gain in history.
1995 – FBI arrests Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing case. He is indicted on 160 state offenses and 11 federal offenses, including the use of a weapon of mass destruction.
2001 – NFL Draft: Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick is the first pick by the Atlanta Falcons.
2008 – The United States Air Force retires the F-117 Nighthawk stealth surface-attack aircraft.
2019 – Ukrainian comedian Volodymyr Zelensky wins the country’s presidential election in a landslide.
2021 – Russian President Vladimir Putin warns the West not to cross a “red line” in his state of the union address, amid massing 100,000 Russian troops on Ukraine border.
About Author
