1881 – Barnum & Bailey Circus, traveling as “The Greatest Show on Earth”, debuts at Madison Square Garden in New York City following the merger of two existing circus groups
1911 – North Dakota enacts a hail insurance law.
1922 – The first celebration of Bat Mitzvah, for the daughter of Rabbi Mordeai Kaplan, is held in New York City.
1922 – WBT-AM in Charlotte, NC begins radio transmissions.
1931 – Schick electric shavers are the first to go on sale in the United States.
1942 – Two black players, Jackie Robinson and Nate Moreland, request a tryout with baseball’s Chicago White Sox. The pair are allowed to work out.
1945 – US Army Force completes largest bombing raid on Berlin Germany. Over 1,200 bombers drop 3,000 tons of explosives.
1950 – CCNY beats Bradley 69-61 for the NIT championship.
1959 – Boston Celtics’ Bill Sharman begins a record of 56 straight free throws made.
1965 – Poppin’ Fresh Pillsbury DoughBoy introduced.
1967 – Beatles’ “Penny Lane” single goes #1.
1970 – Two-week US postal service strike begins. It’s against the government and is the largest wildcat strike in American history.
1978 – 250,000 attend rock concert California Jam II in Ontario, California.
1985 – Capital Cities Communications Inc. acquires ABC for $3.5 billion. It’s the first transfer of ownership of a TV network.
1987 – Gerber’s first survey for most popular names for newborns are Jessica and Mathew.
1994 – Zsa Zsa Gabor files for bankruptcy.
2003 – FBI agents raid the corporate headquarters of HealthSouth Corporation in Birmingham, Alabama on suspicion of massive corporate fraud led by the company’s top executives.
2014 – Phil Jackson signs a five-year contract to be president of the New York Knicks.
2019 – “Historic to catastrophic flooding” faced by Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota, according to the US National Weather Service.
2021 – President Joe Biden agrees Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “killer” in ABC News interview. Putin responds “It takes one to know one” a day later.
About Author
