1644 – Perplexed Pilgrims in Boston reported America’s 1st UFO sighting.
1733 – 1st polar bear exhibited in America in Boston.
1869 – Elegant California Theater opens in San Francisco.
1903 – The first transatlantic radio transmission to originate in the United States is sent by a transmitter in Massachusetts.
1911 – 1st shipboard landing of a plane (Tanforan Park to USS Pennsylvania)
1919 – Bentley Motors Limited is founded.
1929 – “NY Daily Mirror” columnist Walter Winchell debuts on radio.
1934 – Eugene O’Neill’s “Days Without End” premieres in NYC.
1943 – US rations bread and metal – banning pre-sliced bread reduce bakery demand for metal parts.
1960 – US & Japan sign joint defense treaty.
1960 – Capital Airlines Flight 20 crashes in Virginia, killing all 50 people on board.
1962 – US begins spraying foliage in Vietnam to reveal Viet Cong guerrillas.
1964 – Plans for World Trade Center announced (NYC)
1980 – Gold reaches $1,000 an ounce.
1981 – Iran accepts US offer of $7.9 billion in frozen assets.
1986 – 24th Space Shuttle (61-C) Mission-Columbia 7-returns to Earth.
1990 – Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Berry arrested in drug enforcement sting.
1991 – Eastern Airlines goes out of business after 62 years, citing financial problems.
1993 – Martin Luther King Jr. holiday observed in all 50 states of the USA for 1st time.
2012 – Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) blackout becomes the largest protest in the history of the internet.
2017 – NASA and NOAA announce that 2016 was the hottest year on record, surpassing the previous record set in 2015 which itself topped a record set in 2014.