1695 – A window tax is imposed in England, causing many shopkeepers to brick up their windows to avoid the tax.
1776 – Rhode Island establishes wage & price controls to curb inflation: Limit is 70 cents a day for carpenters, 42 cents for tailors.
1781 – Bank of North America, 1st US bank opens.
1862 – Union ironclad ship “Monitor” sand off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
1890 – Ellis Island (NYC) opens as a US immigration depot.
1904 – First New Year’s Eve celebration held in Times Square (then Longacre Square), in New York City.
1907 – For 1st time a ball drops at Times Square to signal the New Year.
1910 – US tobacco industry produced 9 billion cigarettes in 1910.
1921 – Last San Francisco firehorses retired.
1930 – US tobacco industry produced 123 billion cigarettes in 1930.
1943 – NYC’s Times Square greets Frank Sinatra at Paramount Theater.
1946 – US President Harry Truman officially proclaims end of WW II.
1955 – The General Motors Corporation becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over $1 billion USD in a year.
1966 – Monkee’s “I’m a Believer” hits #1 & stays there for 7 weeks.
1967 – “The Ice Bowl”, Packers beat Cowboys 21-17 in NFL championship game (-13 degrees)
1974 – NY Yankees sign Jim “Catfish” Hunter for 5 years for a record $3.75 million.
1981 – CNN Headline News debuts.
1991 – Dow Jones closes at record high 3168.83.
1997 – Microsoft buys Hotmail email service for $400 million and re-launches it as MSN Hotmail.
2007 – The massive Big Dig construction project in Boston, Mass. ends.
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