02/19/2025
Spread the love

This Day In History archive

1882 – First string of Christmas lights created by Thomas Edison.

1910 – United States postal savings stamps first issued.

1924 – Babe Dye of the National Hockey League’s Toronto St. Patricks scores 5 goals to beat the Boston Bruins 10-2.

1932 – “The Mummy,” directed by Karl Freund and starring Boris Karloff, is released. It’s the first “Mummy” horror film.

1936 – First common carrier license issued by Interstate Commerce Commission in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

1941: Bill Dudley from University of Virginia is the first pick in the National Football League draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers.

1941 – Winston Churchill arrives in Washington, D.C. for a wartime conference.

1944 – Germans demand surrender of American troops at Bastogne, Belgium.

1956 – Colo is born, the first gorilla to be bred in captivity at Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Columbus, Ohio.

1958 – Christmas novelty single “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t be Late)” by David Seville and the Chipmunks reaches #1 – the only holiday chart-topper until Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is You” in 2019.

1962 – Harris County voters approve all-weather stadium for Major League Baseball’s Houston Colt .45s. It resulted in the Astrodome being built.

1963 – Official 30-day mourning period for President John F. Kennedy ends. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22.

1964 – First flight of the aircraft Lockheed SR-71. On July 27, 1976, it reached a jet-record speed of 2,193 miles per hour.

1973 – OPEC Gulf Six decides to raise the posted price of marker crude from $5.12 to $11.65 per barrel effective January 1, 1974.

1977 – 36 die as grain elevator at Continental Grain Company plant in Westwego, Louisiana, explodes.

1985 – Space Shuttle Challenger STS 51-L vehicles moved to Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center. The launch on January 28, 1986 ended when the shuttle broke up and the crew died just a minute into the flight.

1990 – Israeli ferry capsizes killing 21 United States servicemen.

2000 – On This Day launched as HistoryOrb.com.

2016 – Ebola vaccine VSV-EBOV is found to be 70-100% effective in a study published in The Lancet, becoming the world’s first proven vaccine against Ebola.

2018 – Partial shutdown of federal government begins.

2020 – Catlin Clark registers her first triple-double at Iowa with 13 points, 13 rebounds, and 10 assists against Western Illinois.

Sonny Jones
Author: Sonny Jones

About Author